The Diminishing Power of the People, an essay by Ralph Perrine

The Diminishing Power of the People

Ralph Perrine
November 7, 2004

In the United States, there is reason to believe that “the people” currently have a diminished ability to influence and hold their government accountable. The following points outline this issue and possible steps that might restore this diminished power to the people.

1. A key principle of our democracy in the United States is that the people will hold ultimate power and that this power will be wielded by voting.

2. This principle can be compromised if one can disrupt the people’s ability to decide who to vote for. Whether the disruption is intentional or not, is peripheral. The point is that it is possible to create a scenario where the people’s ability to decide is disrupted and consequently their power to hold the government accountable is diminished.

3. This scenario is occurring now. Armed with modern polling, PR and marketing techniques, politicians have gained an advantage that allows them to elude the accountability our nation’s founders envisioned that the people should hold over government. This eluding of accountability is not necessarily a deliberate act on the part of politicians; rather it is the result of a current imbalance in our political system.

4. This imbalance arises from the new tools and capabilities now at the disposal of politicians, including modern polling and research practices, public relations and marketing techniques, particularly as they relate to advertising or the orchestration of messages in the modern mass media.

5. It is true that the people have likewise gained new tools and capabilities: namely the information services of the Internet and the modern mass media. However the people and the politicians have not benefited equally from these new tools. The people’s tools are – in their current state - not nearly as effective at ensuring accountability as the political tools are at eluding it. There are several reasons for this:

a. The media derives its revenue from advertising including politically related advertising, thus while specific news stories or individual journalists may provide great service to the people (and their ability to decide who to vote for), the industry as a whole is decidedly focused on providing benefits to advertisers, corporate and political.

b. Political action groups and politicians – all motivated to advance only their (partial and incomplete) point of view - underwrite polling, public relations as well as portions of the news and entertainment media.

c. While politicians can hire professionals to help them develop their focus and agenda, the people have no real similar help at their disposal.

6. As a result of this imbalance, the people have become the targets of an information overload (using the term “information” rather loosely) which makes it difficult to discern what is factual and what is not, and what is significant and what is not. This makes it difficult for the people collectively and individually to rationally consider and influence the course of their nation.

7. In addition, as a result of these same circumstances, it is likewise difficult for the people to determine an agenda and measure the government’s performance against that agenda. The term agenda here simply refers a set of desired results, and the requirements or tasks that must be done in a specific timeframe in order to achieve those desired results.

8. Citizens need the ability to set an agenda for their government, and measure the performance of incumbents against that agenda. It would be nice if this agenda were non-partisan – and what we really mean by non-partisan is non-polarized or undistorted by polarized thinking.

9. The goal of this agenda, and the collaborative framework that would allow its development, is to alleviate the current disadvantage citizens have when assessing their elected officials. To create a condition where incumbents and candidates alike have to demonstrate that they will adhere to, support and forward an agenda that is set, not by them, and not by corporations or special interest groups, but by the people. Currently citizens do not have this capability.

10. This agenda should comprise and document a “critical path” or national project plan for our nation. It should identify the concerns and desires held in common by Americans, and document the required critical path (tasks that must be done in a certain order and timeframe) for resolving those concerns, and achieving those desires. It should not cater, pander or be related to the fundraising motivations and alarmist tactics of polarized political groups.

11. This agenda needs to have reach and relevance both into the short term and long term. In the short term (1-10 years) it needs to determine in a practical manner the critical paths for achieving short term objectives. It needs to document long term (10-100 years) visibility into expected or likely events and scenarios so that the people can ensure that their short term plans are in some measure of alignment with long term expectations.

12. The short term component of this agenda should provide a collaborative framework (as alluded to earlier) that facilitates a national discourse focused on planning, not debate. Debate would be relegated to its proper role as only one of many required planning activities. Protests, and public relations events would likewise be relegated to a role that is subordinate to the primary effort of planning.

13. The long term component of the agenda should take the form of a 100 Year Plan, a time span reaching well into one or more future generations. The length of this span does not necessarily have to be exactly 100 years, but should be long enough to force consideration of the conditions and scenarios that will likely occur as consequences of our current stewardship.

Conclusion

Citizens need an additional assistance (in the form of an instrument of accountability) in order to cope with the evolving balance of power between citizen and government. Elected officials have gained new powers (chiefly polling, advanced PR and marketing techniques) which have put the citizenry at a temporary disadvantage by interfering with their abilities to measure with clarity the performance and effectiveness of an elected representative or official; and to determine whether a candidate is likely to be able to make progress toward resolving the issues that are important to the people.

These talking points are offered simply as a collection of initial thoughts on how this temporary disadvantage of citizens might be resolved.