O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be
LANGSTON HUGHES, “LET AMERICA
BE AMERICA AGAIN,” 1936
There comes a point, sometime after the last election campaign, when a politician becomes a statesman or a stateswoman. And it is at that point when he or she begins to speak the deeper truth, what Walt Whitman described as the “password primeval” of our American experiment.1
The truth these statesmen and stateswomen tell today is a harrowing one.
Bemoaning “a dangerous deficit of governance” that has left critical issues unaddressed, former vice president Al Gore argued in his 2013 book, The Future, that “not since the 1890s has U.S. government decision making been as feeble, dysfunctional, and servile to corporate and other special interests as it is now.”2 From across the aisle, 2012 Republican presidential contender Jon Huntsman decried deficits of leadership and confidence and declared that, corrupted by special-interest money and corroded by the crude cynicism of negative politics, “the system is broken.”3 But the most damning delineation of the Zeitgeist came from the most senior of our nation’s former presidents, Jimmy Carter, who looked out across the American political landscape in the midst of the 2012 election campaign and saw a political process “shot through with financial corruption” and witnessing “a total transformation of America into a negative campaigning process.”4
Describing the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Citizens United v. FEC as “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans,” Carter declared—as the planet’s most famous election observer—that “we have one of the worst election processes in the world right in the United States of America, and it’s almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money.”5
Imagine if the internationally renowned, Nobel Peace Prize–winning former president of any other country were to say that his homeland suffered under “the worst election processes in the world.” We would, as Americans, be justifiably skeptical of claims that the country in question met the basic standards of democratic governance. We might even threaten to cut off foreign aid until fundamental reforms were initiated. Yet like the frog in the pot that is slowly coming to a boil, we do not always respond with the same urgency to indications of a crisis at home.
This book argues for a conclusion that is obvious and unavoidable to anyone paying attention to the likes of Gore, Huntsman, and Carter: that with democracy itself so threatened, citizens must, as they have before, respond with the boldness appropriate to maintain the American experiment. In a country where, as Huntsman noted, millions of Americans decide not to vote because they think the political process is “rigged” to produce the results desired by contemporary robber barons, the time for debating whether a crisis exists is long past. It is no longer rational, let alone permissible, to neglect the crisis of our political process, which goes far beyond the challenges posed by corporate cash and the renewal of the Money Power that the last century’s Progressives took on in a battle for the soul of the nation.
This is a radical book in the best sense of that term. It reminds the American people, who, polling suggests, are well aware of the crisis and are searching for solutions, that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said in his wisdom, “When you are right you cannot be too radical.”6 It is not just right but also necessary to reach a radical recognition of the scope of the crisis, to understand that a discussion of a “broken system” must identify the points of rupture: special-interest influence on our politics, to be sure; but also the collapse of a journalism sufficient to name and shame the influence peddlers; the abandonment of basic premises of democracy by partisans who are willing to win at any cost; and the rise of a consulting class that makes “win at any cost” politics possible by shaping a money-and-media election complex every bit as dismissive of the popular will as the military-industrial complex is.
The high-stakes partisanship of the moment causes even the best of those who are in power to be cautious in their responses to the crisis. A perfect example came when President Barack Obama delivered his fourth State of the Union address in February 2013. He delivered a stirring defense of the right to vote—a right that this book argues must be explicitly protected by our Constitution. But then, against all the evidence of a need for a bold response to explicit disenfranchisement and to the broader dysfunction of the system, President Obama proposed merely to appoint a commission to reflect on the challenge. Worse yet, the commission the president named for the purpose of improving “the voting experience in America” was to be chaired by the most rigid of partisans: the top election lawyer for the Democrats and the top election lawyer for the Republicans.7
The president likes to say that with regard to the challenges posed for voters, “We have to fix that.” We agree, but it has to be the right fix, not just in the details but also in the character and the scope of its ambition.
We do not mean to be cynical, but we are certain that any improvement of “the voting experience in America” that is proposed and implemented by partisans of the current process, any insider “fix,” will be insufficient to address the pathologies inherent in “one of the worst election processes in the world.”
The change must come, as it always has, from the people. It must go beyond partisanship and ideology, beyond the narrow confines of a discourse that too frequently sustains, rather than challenges, that “broken system.” This book invites the reader to embrace what is best about America: a bold willingness to subvert the dominant paradigm and to begin the world over again. Our history tells us that Americans can reclaim their country and chart a democratic course toward a future that is not only better than this moment but also better than the best moments of our past. America is a progressive nation, and it is time, once more, for it to progress.
OUR CONFIDENCE in this prospect comes from the people who helped to make this book possible, in particular Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor and publisher of The Nation magazine, who, in the aftermath of the High Court’s Citizens United ruling and the 2010 election campaign’s beginning revelation of the fullness of the crisis at hand, invited us to write an article on the development of a money-and-media election complex. Almost as soon as the article appeared, we found ourselves entertaining conversations with publishers, which is a nice place to be, especially when you have our terrific agent, Sandra Dijkstra, and her team sorting things out. Ultimately, we ended up with Nation Books, working again with our friend and comrade editorial director Carl Bromley. Carl is the hero of this book. At a critical point in the writing process, he recognized with us that the timeline was wrong; instead of anticipating the 2012 election, we needed to cover it and incorporate into the book an understanding of where the process is now.
Carl was not the only patient supporter of the long reporting and writing process. John Nichols was cheered on along the way by Roane Carey, Peter Rothberg, Betsy Reed, Richard Kim, Emily Douglas, Liliana Segura, and everyone else at The Nation, as well as Dave Zweifel, Judie Kleinmaier, Lynn Danielson, and all the folks at the Capital Times in Madison. Many of the ideas contained in this book were explored in media appearances by John on MSNBC, with Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, and Chris Hayes, among others, and the MSNBC crew of Rich Stockwell, Querry Robinson, Arianna Jones, Gregg Cockrell, Sheara Braun, Jen Zweben, and so many others. James Holm and Diane Shamis deserve special mention as friends and colleagues, as do Brent, Wendy, and all the folks who work with Ed Schultz’s radio show. Conversations with Amy Goodman, Juan González, Nermeen Shaikh, and the Democracy Now! crew were invaluable. And the same goes for on-air and off-air discussions with Shihab Rattansi for Al Jazeera English, as well as the folks with BBC and RTE-Radio Ireland and, of course, Wisconsin Public Radio. And a special shout-out to Thom Hartmann, brilliant radio and television host and author of groundbreaking books on corporate power. Tim Carpenter, Steve Cobble, and all the people associated with Progressive Democrats of America have hosted many events at which John has appeared to debate and discuss all the issues addressed in this book, as have RoseAnn DeMoro, Michael Lighty, Chuck Idelson, Jean Ross, and everyone else with National Nurses United.
John also owes thanks to Mark Janson, Ed Garvey, Lisa Graves, Rob Richie, Jeff Clements, Doug Clopp, Michael Briggs, John Bonifaz, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Congressman Keith Ellison, Congressman Mark Pocan, David Panofsky, Pat Smith, Sharon Lezberg, Brian Yandell, Susan Stern, Kitty Nichols, Cary Featherstone, Meredith Clark, all the activists in Wisconsin (especially those in Spring Green and Burlington!), campaigners across the country for Move to Amend and Free Speech for People, and too many other friends and comrades to name who helped wrestle with these issues.
Bob owes particular thanks to David Tewksbury, his chair in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois, and everyone in the department and at the university who bent over backward to make this research possible. Bob is extremely fortunate to have such a supportive environment for research. Some material in this book overlaps work Bob did for his 2013 book Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy (New Press). Bob thanks both publishers for their collegiality.
Bob also owes thanks to Bruce Ackerman, Scott Althaus, Patrick Barrett, Lance Bennett, Paul Buhle, Sundiata Cha-Jua, Vivek Chibber, David Cobb, Jeff Cohen, Diana Cook, Michael Copps, Michael Delli Carpini, Frank Emspak, Thomas Ferguson, John Bellamy Foster, Lew Friedland, Peter Hart, Amy Holland, Steve Horn, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Shanto Iyengar, Van Jones, R. Jamil Jonna, Marty Kaplan, Jed McChesney, Michael McDonald, Mark Crispin Miller, Alan Nasser, Sarah Niebler, Molly Niesen, Tom Patterson, Victor Pickard, Travis Ridout, Joel Rogers, Allen Ruff, Ron Salmon, Josh Silver, Norman Stockwell, Inger Stole, Mandy Troger, Katherine Cramer Walsh, Mark Weisbrot, Rob Weissman, Darrell West, Bruce Williams, and Kristina Williams. Each of them helped Bob with researching and developing the arguments. In some cases, such as those of Jamil Jonna, Mandy Troger, Amy Holland, and Kristina Williams, the assistance was extraordinary. The book could not have been written without their assistance.
And from both John and Bob, a special thanks to Matt Rothschild and Ruth Conniff of The Progressive, who have embraced and published our work for almost two decades. Likewise, thanks to the terrific staff at Free Press, especially Craig Aaron, Derek Turner, and Josh Stearns, who had smart answers for every question we threw at them. When we helped launch Free Press in 2003, we had no idea what an extraordinary organization it would become, owing entirely to Craig, Derek, Josh, and the other exceptional staff members.
Special thanks, too, to our dear friend and our senator, Bernie Sanders, who has been fighting on these issues for decades and whose conversations with us have been invaluable. We are honored beyond words that he has written the Foreword to this book.
Then there are those closest to our hearts. For Bob, his “keeping it real” dawg posse: Chubby Boy, Juicer, Hambone, and the Bear; and his family: Lucy, Amy, and Inger. For John, Mary Bottari, the wisest of them all, who put it all in perspective, as did Whitman Genevieve Bottari Nichols, who continues to advocate for a kids’ version. And, of course, to Whitman’s grandmother, Mary Nichols, who demands only that the progressive flame remain well and truly lit.
JOHN NICHOLS
ROBERT W. McCHESNEY
MADISON, WISCONSIN
MARCH 2013