Obama on Citizenship in Charlotte, revisited

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In the peroration of his Charlotte speech, the President spoke forcefully about citizenship. Because that topic is my life’s concern–and because I have such high regard for Obama’s pre-presidential work on citizenship–I gave the speech a critical review. I implied that he had said too little, too late. But half my Facebook friends quoted that section with great enthusiasm. And the next night in a pizza restaurant, I heard strangers talking about citizenship excitedly. So it is quite possible that the speech resonated with Americans. On my own second reading, I would agree that phrases like this one were pretty good: “As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together — (cheers, applause) — through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.”

The “self-governance” theme was, however, lost on the punditocracy, who always view talk of citizenship as an empty politician’s cliché, like saying that you are excited to be back in Tar Heel Country with such a wonderful crowd. Obama talked about citizenship from the day he announced his candidacy until Election Night, 2008, and he never got much coverage for it. (See my collection of his citizenship quotes, very few of which were covered by the press.)

Last week, again, opinion writers simply ignored the citizenship part of the President’s speech. The few mentions were dismissive. Ron Fournier in the Atlantic cited a sentence about citizenship as an example of how prosaic Obama had been, calling it “a chestnut channeling both Abe Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.” Timothy Noah wrote in The New Republic:

The malaise echo was also audible in Obama’s repetition of his 2008 theme, “You’re the change.” I don’t mind being the change if the change is the legislative triumph that was passage of the Affordable Care Act—and, to his credit, Obama did say, “You’re the reason there’s a little girl with a heart disorder in Phoenix who’ll get the surgery she needs because an insurance company can’t limit her coverage.” I’m also the reason, Obama said, that a young man can get his medical degree (I guess because of Obama’s student-loan policy, though he didn’t really make that clear) and that a young immigrant won’t be deported (thanks to a recent policy shift by the department of homeland security), and that there’s no more Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and that there’s no more Iraq war. I’m happy to share the credit for all that. But I don’t like being the change if that means I’m responsible for the continuing drop in median income, or persistent unemployment, or Obama’s own subdued state of mind.

Noah assumes that the only way he can exercise citizenship is to vote for Democrats, who will then use their power over the national government to solve problems for us. In other words, Noah is not interested in being much of a citizen. He continues:

“I’m hopeful because of you,” Obama said at the end of his speech. He then recited a litany of inspiring examples of people showing grit under various kinds of adversity. But yikes, who wants that responsibility? What if I’m feeling grumpy (as I became, for instance, while listening to this speech)? I need a president who can cheer me up, not a president who needs me to cheer him up. The president can’t afford to outsource his optimism.

Noah’s reaction is characteristic of the national press corps, and it goes a long way to explaining our predicament. Obama believes that you can’t advance progressive goals if people distrust government, and they won’t trust it until they can participate in it and control it. (See my defense of that theory in The Democratic Strategist.) The President has not actually increased public engagement in government, and that is a failure. One reason for his failure is that liberal opinion-makers and policy-makers almost universally ignore or disagree with his basic theory. The only good news is that quite a few American citizens  share it.

[PS: I am sure there are exceptions: writers who do understand the citizenship theme. Harold Meyerson may be one. I welcome other links.]

Obama on Citizenship in Charlotte

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Barack Obama began his career as an advanced thinker about citizenship. He was not only a community organizer but a theorist of community organizing, a member of Robert Putnam’s “Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America,” and an eloquent defender of the idea that voluntary public work is an essential solution to our most serious problems. He made that case particularly strongly, and to strong applause, during the 2008 election, saying at one point that “service and … active citizenship … will be a central cause of my presidency.” (See a full list of his commitments to active citizenship here.)

But once Obama entered the White House, the citizenship theme was lost. It was lost in rhetoric as the President began to talk about “I” instead of “we.” More important, it was lost in substance. With the exception of expanding AmeriCorps, the administration did little to strengthen the role of citizens in governance and in rebuilding America. It offered nothing comparable to the WPA or CCC of the New Deal. On the contrary, deep and long-lasting trends of civic dis-empowerment continued. Juries are disappearing from criminal justice;  education is governed by tests, not by citizens discussing priorities. I don’t mainly blame the president for these trends because I think the organizations and individuals concerned with active citizenship–including myself–have been ineffective. But I do think the lack of a tangible connection between citizens and government has been at the core of Obama’s struggles.

Last night, in Charlotte, the president forcefully reintroduced the citizenship theme. I will end with that section of the speech so that you can judge it for yourself. In my view, it was helpful but far from sufficient. Given how most people envision “good citizenship” today, these paragraphs are consistent with a very thin theory. They could imply that good citizens care enough about other people to vote for fair economic policies (i.e., for Democrats over Republicans), and also care for the children, employees, and other vulnerable people around them. Missing is any sense that we can collectively govern the country and rebuild it.

But we also believe in something called citizenship — (cheers, applause) — citizenship, a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations.

We believe that when a CEO pays his autoworkers enough to buy the cars that they build, the whole company does better. (Cheers, applause.)

We believe that when a family can no longer be tricked into signing a mortgage they can’t afford, that family’s protected, but so is the value of other people’s homes — (cheers, applause) — and so is the entire economy. (Applause.)

We believe the little girl who’s offered an escape from poverty by a great teacher or a grant for college could become the next Steve Jobs or the scientist who cures cancer or the president of the United States — (cheers, applause) — and it is in our power to give her that chance. (Cheers, applause.)

We know that churches and charities can often make more of a difference than a poverty program alone. We don’t want handouts for people who refuse to help themselves, and we certainly don’t want bailouts for banks that break the rules. (Cheers, applause.)

We don’t think the government can solve all of our problems, but we don’t think the government is the source of all of our problems — (cheers, applause) — any more than our welfare recipients or corporations or unions or immigrants or gays or any other group we’re told to blame for our troubles — (cheers, applause) — because — because America, we understand that this democracy is ours.

We, the people — (cheers) — recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense. (Cheers, applause.)

As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together — (cheers, applause) — through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That’s what we believe.

So you see, the election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. (Cheers, applause.) My fellow citizens — you were the change. (Cheers, applause.)

acting like a professor on the radio

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Yesterday, I was on Armstrong Williams’ radio show. He is a conservative radio host and a somewhat controversial one. I thought we had a good time; there was laughter amidst the substance. At the end, he said he wanted to have me back on the show because I was so relaxed (he may have meant, “Compared to what I expected from a professor”) and because he couldn’t figure out my political perspective. I replied that I try to be neutral in the classroom and on the radio. I was gently challenging his earlier suggestion that young people are liberal because college professors brainwash them. But it’s also true that I had been circumscribed about my own political views.

If directly asked–on the air or by a student–I would not attempt to hide that I am a liberal, one of those who is prone to defend the actual record of Barack Obama (à la Jonathan Chait or Kevin Drum). But I am not going to volunteer such opinions in the classroom or in a public forum, because I do not imagine that they come from any special expertise. While wearing an official “educator” badge, I want to speak from some degree of authority. I can talk as an expert about youth voting, but not about the Obama Administration’s economic record.

I admit that I also wanted to be heard by Mr. Williams and his audience. If I had risen to the bait and said that Democrats have a better economic platform, they would have tuned out my comments on youth voting. And what I said about youth voting was independent, I believe, of my political views. This is not to say that our work on youth is value-free. We have an agenda and a mission. It is just somewhat orthogonal to the left/right political debate in America. On the radio, we actually had an interesting and quite candid discussion of the values underlying my professional work. For example, do we really want young people to vote if they do not know about issues? (I would say: No, but people who vote usually inform themselves to a reasonable degree. Low knowledge translates into low turnout, and part of the solution is better information.)

Professors do tend to stand somewhat to the left of the electorate. Whether that is a problem or not is a matter for interesting, and complex, discussion. In any case, the leftward tilt is not by any means evenly distributed: business schools are more conservative than sociology departments, and they educate a lot more kids. Not surprisingly, given the influence of parents, other adults, peers, the media, advertising, political rhetoric, and pop culture, the political impact of faculty appears to be very modest. One reason may be that a lot of us who actually hold liberal political views do not think it’s appropriate to teach accordingly.

What is Civic Studies? Introducing the Tufts Summer Institute and conference

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Every July, an international group of about 20 faculty, advanced graduate students, and seasoned practitioners gather for two weeks to participate in the Tufts Summer Institute of Civic Studies, which I co-teach with University of Maryland political scientist Karol So?tan. Their intensive, seminar-style discussions conclude with an open public conference, co-sponsored by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and the Democracy Imperative, that draws about 120 scholars, practitioners, and students.

This year, the public conference was called “Frontiers of Democracy II.” It revolved around a set of invited, 10-minute talks by New York City councilperson Brad Lander, UNESCO Human Rights Chair Amii Omara Otunnu, Everyday Democracy Executive Director Martha McCoy, and about a dozen other scholars and leaders.

“Civic Studies” is that nascent or potential discipline that rigorously studies how citizens can improve the world. Because it is about making a better world, it takes values seriously. Values are not just opinions; they are propositions that can be explained and defended. Thus Civic Studies draws on philosophy, political theory, and theology.

Because Civic Studies is about action, it poses strategic questions: What would work? Under what circumstances?  It takes advantage of research on strategy and the experience of various practical efforts—from the Civil Rights Movement to Participatory Budgeting—that have confronted strategic challenges in their efforts to improve society by empowering citizens.

Because it is about the real world, Civic Studies takes data and empirical research seriously. And because it is about citizens, it investigates societies and institutions from the perspective of thoughtful and active individuals. For instance, whereas political science asks how Congress works and what effects Congress has on society, Civic Studies asks whether we (people like you and me) ought to try to change Congress. What changes would be beneficial? By what means could we reasonably expect to affect Congress? What strategies are ethical as well as effective? Is this the best use of our energies?

Mainstream scholarship is not well organized and conceived to produce the knowledge, insights, and strategies that citizens need—if “citizens” are defined as co-producers of a good or just society. Social science is separated from philosophy and theology; strategic analysis is separated from empirical research. Scholars are much more likely to investigate why large-scale trends occur or how powerful institutions work than to identify promising opportunities for ordinary people to influence the world.

Nevertheless, Civic Studies is emerging from the research programs of certain distinguished scholars, including the authors of the Summer Institute’s “Framing Statement.” One of that statement’s authors, Elinor Ostrom, won the Nobel Prize for her lifelong work on how citizens manage common resources. Her research was theoretically sophisticated, empirically rigorous, philosophically demanding, helpful to communities, and often conducted in partnership with laypeople. Ostrom was a friend to CIRCLE; her death in June was a serious loss.

Another author of the Framing Statement, Jane Mansbridge, is currently the President Elect of the American Political Science Association. She, too, has investigated how voluntary groups self-govern under various circumstances. In books like Why We Lost the ERA¸Mansbridge confronts strategic questions and—as the title suggests—places herself in the story as an active participant, not just an observer.

A third author, Harry Boyte of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, has developed the theory of “public work” while helping to lead important practical experiments in civic empowerment, such as the civic education effort called Public Achievement.

These authors helped to frame the original idea of Civic Studies and exemplify the work discussed in the annual Summer Institute. Admission is competitive; and prospective participants should follow this page for information about the 2013 application process. Also, hold the dates of the concluding public conference, Thursday, July 18 to Saturday, July 20, 2013 in downtown Boston.

Citizen Alum

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Citizen Alum is a new project that seeks to define college alumni not as givers (of cash) but as doers–as people who help to educate college students, children, and everyone else. The activists behind Citizen Alum include Julie Ellison, the American Studies professor who played a leading role in launching Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, and other excellent colleagues.

At CIRCLE, most of our work aims to engage people who do not happen to hold college degrees: still a clear majority. (Forty-two percent of current youth do not even enter college, let alone finish it to become alumni.) But alumni have great potential, and I like the idea of redefining their roles with new language and new activities and events.