One Grain of Sand

This was written by Gabe, one of our student interns. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.

Why do we vote?

At first glance, the answer is obvious, I suppose. We live in a democracy; voting is a thing people do in democracies; ergo, we vote because we live in democracy. There’s just one small problem: we do not live in a democracy.

Now, that’s typically the type of phrase thrown about only by deep-state conspiracy theorists or hardline anarchists. Let me be clear: there is no “deep-state,” and I am not an anarchist.

The United States, by definition, is not a democracy; it’s a republic. That’s a critical distinction, because government is perhaps the second-most important invention in human history, and how people interact with government defines nations. By design, republics are meant to be made up of people—the public—hence the name: res publica, literally “public thing”. This, functionally, is impossible. There is no room large enough to host every single citizen of any country, to say nothing of the agonizingly slow speed at which the government would move. Too many cooks in the kitchen, for lack of a better term.

So, what do we do? Because we want the people to have influence in their own governance, but we can’t reasonably bring them all along: representatives. It’s genius! We hire other people to do the work for us. We can worry about things far more important, like what we’ll eat that day, or how we’ll fix that leaky faucet, or how we’ll defend our house from the 30-50 feral hogs which enter the backyard in 3-5 seconds and cause devastation. Meanwhile, they can worry about big picture stuff that doesn’t really matter in our daily lives, like how much of our money they’ll burn in a random country in the Middle East or new planes that are obsolete by the time their adopted.

What a friend we have in Congress.

Why do we vote?

To have people who represent us. Fine. That’s a perfectly acceptable answer. It ignores the reality that most eligible Americans don’t vote (it’s a good year if turnout breaks 60%, something that’s only happened five times in the past hundred years) but whatever. To the victors go the spoils, right? It’s the American Commandment, isn’t it? If thou dost not vote, thou canst complain.

Reality is of course more complicated than that, but nuance doesn’t drive clicks. No one cares about policy when there’s a culture war to be waged. We have Starbucks cups without Christmas on them, athletes are kneeling, Hollywood is making movies with women! Who cares about tax breaks for billionaires? That’s what’s really important nowadays.

I hear they phased out waterboarding at GitMo. They just show people 24-hour news.

Why do we vote?

Is this all we have? The hope that the lesser of two evils will end up being a shining star in the halls of office? I don’t really have a “favorite” congressperson. I try to avoid parasocial relationships: they only end in disappointment. This is particularly potent in government. The idea of being a “fan” of a politician, or really anything beyond a supporter, is bizarre. The prime example being the fan base for former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The creation of the tagline “The Notorious RBG” still shocks me and, by all accounts, is a slap to the face of Biggie’s actual legacy. If we’re to understand the foundation of republicanism correctly, our government is meant to serve us. We should not laud them, we should critically examine their work.

That all being said, recently I’ve found myself thinking of two men: Huey Long and Lyndon Johnson. To say both men had controversial careers would be an understatement. Johnson infamously pushed America deeper and deeper into the Vietnam War, a choice which destroyed his political career. Long, as governor of Louisiana, fired hundreds of people to consolidate power. Ruthless to his opponents, Long would fire their relatives from state jobs as retribution. But before Johnson was president, and after Long was governor, both men were in the Senate.

And they were two of the most fascinating Senators America has ever had.

When Huey Long was governor, he exercised his power to such a degree that he garnered the nickname “The Kingfish”, was impeached, and his opponents attempted a minor insurrection. He once declared “I’m the Constitution around here now” in response to challenges to the legality of his aggressive tactics. He dramatically increased literacy in Louisiana and increased the number of paved roads tenfold. However, Long did not have that power in the Senate; in fact, he was unable to get any of his bills, motions, or resolutions passed. But that wouldn’t stop him from using his power. It was the middle of the Great Depression, and Long didn’t think Roosevelt was doing enough. He would give long speeches to huge crowds in Washington. A young Lyndon Johnson was amazed by Long. Huey Long also holds the record for the seventh-longest filibuster in US history, where he held the floor for fifteen and a half hours to amend NIRA in 1935. He was assassinated later that year. His last words are disputed, although many quote them as “God, don’t let me die. I have so much to do.”

When Lyndon Johnson was in the Senate, he was possibly the most effective politician in American history. Johnson found little trouble in gathering necessary information. He would gather this information through a number of maneuvers, the most famous of which was “The Treatment.” As Rowland Evans and Robert Novak describe it: “The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson’s offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself – wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach. Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint, and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.”

Huey Long and Lyndon Johnson are both dead.

Why do we vote?

Every election, even before I could vote, I’ve heard that “we need to vote for the lesser of two evils.” The natural problem, of course, is that the lesser of two evils is distinctly evil. We cannot frame our governance in a lens of evil and expect anything else to come from it.

There must be a better way. We can’t be doomed to this downward spiral.

Why do we vote?

I think about the future a lot. How couldn’t I? And in my thinking about the future, I read what other people think about the future, because today is not the first day Doom has existed. Pete Seeger, my favorite musician, talked of the future in a 2004 interview, “I honestly believe that the future is going to be millions of little things saving us. I imagine a big seesaw, and one end of this seesaw is on the ground with a basket half-full of big rocks in it. The other end of the seesaw is up in the air. It’s got a basket one-quarter full of sand. And some of us got teaspoons, and we’re trying to fill up sand. A lot of people are laughing at us, and they say, ‘Ah, people like you have been trying to do that for thousands of years, and it’s leaking out as fast as you’re putting it in.’ But we’re saying, ‘We’re getting more people with teaspoons all the time.’ And we think, ‘One of these years, you’ll see that whole seesaw go zooop in the other direction.’ And people will say, ‘Gee, how did it happen so suddenly?’ Us and all our little teaspoons. Now granted, we’ve got to keep putting it in, because if we don’t keep putting teaspoons in, it will leak out, and the rocks will go back down again. Who knows?”

Why do we vote?

Do politicians have teaspoons or are they rocks? I ask myself the question daily. Do they help or hinder?

Why do we vote?

If we send them with teaspoons, how can we know they won’t become rocks?

Why do we vote?

Is this worth it?

Hope is a weird thing to have. To stare in the face of despair and tragedy and say “it will get better” is, arguably, completely absurd. And yet, here I am, somehow full of hope at the future.

And for one of the first times in recent memory, that hope is because of an elected official.

As I’m currently writing this, Cori Bush is camping out in front of the capitol building to protest the fast approaching end to the eviction moratorium. Hopefully, by the time you’re currently reading this, she is no longer camping, and the moratorium is extended. While I am full of hope, I can’t ignore the fast-approaching alternative.

Still, it’s a bit surreal to see an elected official, never mind one who represents me, doing something as clear and deliberate as sleeping outside in front of the capitol building while her colleagues go on vacation. It shouldn’t be surreal, and I hate that it is.

Why do we vote?

I dream of the spirit of Huey Long or LBJ coming down upon members of Congress, like some biblical angel bringing good news and inspiration to the people we must beg to do their jobs. I dream of politicians who aren’t afraid to use their power to help the people of this nation. I dream of a party that actually, genuinely cares about all people of this country. That’s not the reality.

Not yet.

But we’ll get there, eventually. We have to.

The alternative will kill us all.