Civic Life Kinda Sucks

A Memoir of Trying to Get Involved

“Democracy, in practice, kinda blows…”

A big part of the postmortem discourse about the Democratic debacle is the need to renew our civic institutions, which have become hollowed out in our age of atomization. The idea, taking its inspiration originally from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, goes roughly that in the absence of thick civic bonds people become lonelier, political parties and public institutions become less representative, and the polity becomes vulnerable to demagogues who offer to solve these problems in a fell swoop through some undemocratic expedient. A few good recent pieces deal with this issue, including Pete Davis’s in The Nation and Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld’s in Democracy.

I’m generally sympathetic and was once totally convinced of this line of thinking, in fact, so convinced was I that I once tried to act on it. Right after Trump was elected in 2016 I thought that we had let our democratic society deteriorate and the only solution was to reinvigorate it. I was inspired by the school of political theory and sociology that says a vibrant civil society is a bulwark against dictatorship. (I’ve since read more and been persuaded that a thick civil society that doesn’t just spit out a good democracy, it can also produce its antithesis.) I reasoned that since Trump was from New York, and a product in many ways of corrupt machine politics, I should devote myself to helping to fix local politics. Now, before I go on I’m not going to name names of either organization or people I encountered. I think by and large they are decent and well-meaning people and my experience is extremely subjective, so there is no point in criticizing them or their efforts. I’m just saying what I experienced. So, I sought out a progressive Democratic club in Brooklyn whose mission was to reform the Brooklyn Democratic Party machine.

A lot of other people apparently had the same idea as me because, in the wake of the election, this club’s meetings had become packed. They had trouble getting halls to fit everyone—something I lent a hand to them with and didn’t feel appropriately appreciated for, but we’ll get to the resentments later. The crowds were quite heartening: Okay, so American democracy was alive and well, I felt less alienated already, and I was surrounded by people who wanted to spend their time improving it! I think the core leadership of the club was overwhelmed with this sudden interest and didn’t exactly know how to channel it. But I also did feel that the leadership, for all their lip service about democratizing the Democratic party in New York, was not so keen to democratize their club as it was filled with new members. In all the meetings I attended, I raised my hand to speak and was not called on once. Politicians are usually big gladhanders. The old leadership of the club, veterans of progressive campaigns, didn’t make much of an effort to befriend me, even after I had helped them. Well, that’s okay, right? Sometimes, you can just support things, John, do always have to have a say? Do you need to be the center of attention constantly? Perhaps not, but I felt I was a pretty good public speaker, had a lot of ideas, and could contribute.

Now, I am going to say something that they make take a bit personally: these people, who again I think were well-intentioned and idealistic, were progressive, good government nerds. And while some of them did reach out—awkwardly—some of them felt kind of unpleasant and hostile. I, for one, didn’t find that they made politics particularly fun. The glad-handing, backslapping Brooklyn pols were the corrupt bad guys: Frank Seddio and his machine. But the bad guys were supposedly the ones killing civic life but seemed, from a distance at least, a lot better at practicing it. (At one meeting, a little piece of Seddio cynicism got repeated, “Today’s reformer is tomorrow’s hack.” I’ve learned since that was coined originally by Meade Esposito, a legendary Brooklyn Democratic boss. It seemed to me less shocking than wise.)

I gradually grew disillusioned and frankly just bored. I looked for other ways to engage with politics, like writing, which may just be a better fit for my talents and temperament. But I do remember the moment I gave up on the club entirely. There was a forum where candidates came to be vetted by the club for endorsement for the Democratic primary. I forget the office, but it was a state office I think, maybe state senate. Now, if I get any of this wrong, it’s a fault of my memory and an effort to present things in a tendentious light. I recall there was one candidate, a black man from a very poor area of Brooklyn, who was a union shop steward and gave what I thought was an impressive presentation about getting capital project money for his district. He was a regular, close to the machine if I recall. Then there was another candidate, who was a black woman who had come from the district in question, but left for college, joined Obama’s state department, and now returned to her old neighborhood to run for office. She was, as her resume might suggest, very impressive and polished in her own right, but to me did not seem quite as rooted in their community’s pressing needs as the fellow from the union. Then the candidates were sent out and discussion began. People seemed to like the shop steward, but the leadership of the club had some unpleasant news for us: when they were interviewing him, they asked him why he thought there was enthusiasm for the Obama State Department alum. He said something to the effect that it was a generally good time for woman candidates. This was presented to us by the leadership as something unforgivably sexist. Was it sexist? Maybe a little! But did it necessitate his disqualification as a serious candidate? I didn’t feel it to be so and was prepared to rise to make this argument. Of course, I was not called on. I was starting to take it personally, as I tend to.

The leadership of the club was racially quite diverse, but they were all college graduates and had moved into professional life. I walked out of the meeting feeling like the democracy of the place was a bit of a sham: they wanted a certain candidate, and they found a reason to discredit the other one and then didn’t welcome an honest debate about it. Were they weaponizing identity politics? That’s one to look at it, another way to look at it was that it was just very important to them. And it just so happened to be a candidate that perhaps shared their college-educated, professional class outlook more closely. For that matter, I was also a white member of the professional classes, arguably a mini-Yuppie, and I was passing judgment on the fitness of candidates for a district of Brooklyn, which I knew very little of the problems of, except in an abstract, principled sense. Was that really more democratic than the machine that seemed to have some local roots? But with that in mind, I’d preferred the guy who spoke more concretely. He seemed to know what he was talking about, so I trusted him. Was I being sexist, and just being taken in by his gruff, masculine performance of competence? Maybe, but I was prepared to argue about it! I wanted to debate.

In the end, my only say was another ballot: that’s to say nothing substantively different from just voting in primaries or elections. It didn’t seem like a particularly participatory form of democracy to me. That was my last meeting at the club. I decided to focus on writing about politics and here I am. I’m very lucky I have a platform and get to participate in the civic life of the country in my relatively small way: it makes my life feel meaningful and it provides me with a living too. Now, I suppose I could’ve struggled harder and done the work of politics within the club, made allies, kept trying to speak, persuaded the leaders that I was not an enemy to push out but a friend to be won over, etc. But it just wasn’t interesting enough: for better or worse, the internet provided instant gratification. I could express my opinion and find a receptive public. To all of you who are doing the work of organizing and practical politics out there, I salute you: you’re a better man or woman or whatever it is you want to be than I, but I do wonder how many other people who don’t have my platform just found progressive politics disappointing and dull? Wasn’t this is a waste of the mobilization, the great popular enthusiasm that poured in off the streets, angry and upset about Trump’s election? Maybe those others found different ways to contribute, but maybe, like others now, they feel demoralized and defeated. They might have found that democracy ain’t what’s cracked up to be.