The End of Apathy

Judging from all recent polls, the presidential election contest in the United States remains tight. For sure, Kamala Harris has made substantial gains over her swooning predecessor President Biden. She is now ahead in most national averages and has turned the six to eight swing states into statistical ties. But even with that positive momentum, the election as of mid-August is essentially a dead heat, and predicting an outcome at this point is a fool’s errand – not that that will stop any number of pundits or dinner party guests from speaking with great authority and even greater certainty.

One thing has, however, unequivocally changed for the better in the weeks since Biden dropped out and Harris assumed the mantle of Democratic Party nominee: Americans appear far more passionate and engaged in the election and more likely to vote come November. That passion guarantees no outcome in particular, but it means that instead of a disengaged apathetic electorate, we will have citizens actively and seriously committed to the democratic process.

I’m sure many people will read the above and say, “Great, but if the other one wins then what good is an engaged electorate?” A fair number of people on both sides of the political spectrum view the prospect of the other side ascendant as an existential threat to democracy. A fair number of people on both sides will also read that last sentence as a wishy-washy “both sides-ism.” I’ll come back to this issue of existential threats in later columns, but for now, let’s just say that I think the assumption that one side represents the end of democracy is overwrought on both sides.

Yes, Donald Trump as an individual would appear to have the desire to wield power in a manner more consistent with semi-autocrats such as Victor Orbán in Hungary or Recep Erdogan in Turkey. And yes, opinion polls suggest record low numbers of Republican voters have faith in American democracy. The combination of a wanna-be pseudo-autocrat and widespread disillusion with democracy could, under the right circumstances, combine to undermine American democracy, though it’s unclear exactly how and in what way. The United States remains a republic in many of its basic structures, which means the actual federal control riding roughshod over individual freedoms would be extremely difficult. Even a health emergency such as Covid played out mostly at the state level, and absent a major war, it’s unclear how fears of autocracy could become reality. Today, the greatest threats to individual freedoms often come from state-level actions rather than federal ones, whether it's through book bans or restrictions on a woman's right to choose.

On the right, many voice a strong fear about the ideological, autocratic tendencies of the left, especially what they call the “woke” left and the regulatory, administrative state. The role of the Federal Trade Commission in micro-managing mergers and acquisitions is one example; the enforcement of environmental standards is another. Regardless of whether you respect those views, they are just as real to many on the right as the equivalent fears are to those on the left.

And that is the nature of a fractious democracy encompassing nearly 350 million people: reaching consensus about core issues can be impossible. Too many of us have some sort of Platonic ideal of democracy, where we all agree on a basic American Creed, loosely enshrined in the Constitution and manage our differences like members of a common family—arguing at times but ultimately finding common ground. If only it were so.

Yes, there have been periods in the United States when elite consensus prevailed—times when a small group of officials and influential figures made decisions on behalf of the people, often in those proverbial “smoke-filled rooms,” like the ones Aaron Burr coveted in the now-famous musical Hamilton, the rooms where it happened. However, true national consensus has never existed; instead, America has frequently experienced intense, passionate, and often violent conflicts between various groups—labor and capital, North and South, urban and rural, urban and suburban, black and white, white and Native, rich and poor, recent immigrants and those who came before them.

Most Americans feel we live in a time of intense partisanship and division. But do we actually live in an unusual time of division? The 1880s and 1890s saw repeated armed and lethal clashes between striking workers, scab workers, state troops, Pinkertons. The 1960s and 1970s saw a wave not just of protests and riots but bombings. And of course, the institutionalized Jim Crow violence against the tens of millions of descendants of slaves that lasted from the 1870s until the 1960s. The list is long. We clearly do live in a time when visuals and audios of our divisions bombard us through social media and phones. We are never far from our dramas, which can make them seem greater than ever.

And so back to how this column began, the best antidote to our roiling politics is…more roiling. The greatest threat to our roiling politics is more apathy. Over the past month, the complexion of this election has shifted from apathy to passion, which is an unalloyed good thing, even if it will inevitably produce an outcome that many will perceive as an unalloyed bad thing.

How to square that circle? Since 2016, voter engagement in the United States has gone up substantially. After years of declining turnout, people surged to the polls not just in the presidential elections of 2016 and 2020 but midterm elections of 2018 and 2022 as well. That coincides precisely with the rise of Donald Trump, in some ways, by stripping off the veneer of elite consensus that had kept a lid on conflict. Trump returned American democracy to some of its rough-and-tumble true nature. The fact that most Americans hadn’t experienced such rough-and-tumble in many decades meant that it freaked them (us) out. But the real challenge to democracy isn’t intense division; its apathetic disengagement.

That assertion isn’t yet provable, but it’s worth considering that the easiest way to strip people of freedoms is either by violence and coercion or by stealth. An engaged electorate is a safeguard against stealth, and while engagement can risk the enraged, it is the surest way that nothing happens covertly. The fact that millions of people are suddenly energized by this election is a sign of democratic vitality, not decline. The fact that every issue and question is being debated, debunked, attacked, questioned, probed is a good thing. The fact that there are a multiplicity of voices, shouting, demanding, is a good thing. Whether or not what many say is garbage doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s out there, and that the messiness spills over into engagement.

A political process encompassing hundreds of millions of people shouldn’t be neat and tidy. It should be roiling and contentious and vibrant and alive. Until last month, that was missing in the United States. Suddenly, in a matter of weeks, we’ve gone from grey blah to vibrant technicolor. I’ve no idea how this election will go. I’m pretty sure a fair number of people will view the outcome as a disaster. I’m certain that millions and millions now care more than ever. And for the moment, that alone is glorious.