wheels of political participation.”4 By the time they are eighteen, kids are distracted by the drama of their lives and they tend not to want to be bothered.
In fact, since the military draft ended in 1973, young people have been notoriously uninvolved in politics, often seeing it as irrelevant to their lives and the things they really care about. Knowing that they pay little attention and tend not to vote in large numbers, politicians feel free to ignore their concerns, reinforcing their cynicism and apathy. Young people have turned out in larger numbers since the 2008 election of Barack Obama, however, and the Never Again movement promises to energize even more.
The American founders weren’t crazy about the idea of mass movements, political demonstrations, or even political parties, but they did value political engagement, and they knew that democracies needed care and attention in order to survive. In 1787, when Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman what he and other founders of the Constitution had created, he replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” Today, many commentators worry that we are not “keeping the republic” and that, as new generations who find politics a turn-off become disaffected adults, the system will start to unravel. As one writer says, “a nation that hates politics will not long thrive as a democracy.”5
Yet protesters like Cameron Kasky, Emma González, David Hogg, and Yolanda King sound as committed to democracy as Benjamin Franklin could have wished, even though their efforts are not focused solely on voting or traditional methods of political engagement. Is a nation of these young activists a nation in trouble, or can movements begun via technology Franklin could not have imagined help to keep the republic? What, exactly, is at stake in hashtag activism—what one writer called a “netroots outcry” to follow an online call to political action? We return to this question after we learn more about the meaning of politics and the difference it makes in our lives.
HAVE you got grand ambitions for your life? Do you want to found an Internet start-up and sell it for millions, be the investment banker that funds the project, achieve a powerful position in business, gain influence in high places, and spend money to make things happen? Perhaps you’d like to make a difference in the world, heal the sick, fight for peace, feed the poor. Maybe you want to travel the world, learning languages and immersing yourself in new cultures and working abroad. Or maybe all you want from life is a good education; a well-paying job; a healthy family; a comfortable home; and a safe, prosperous, contented existence. Think politics has nothing to do with any of those things? Think again.
The things that make those goals attainable—a strong national defense, good relations with other countries, student loans, economic prosperity, favorable mortgage rates, secure streets and neighborhoods, cheap and efficient public transportation, affordable health care and family leave protections—are all influenced by or are the products of politics.
Yet if you listen to the news, politics may seem like one long campaign commercial: eternal bickering and finger-pointing by public servants who seem more interested in winning an argument against their ideological opponents than actually solving our collective problems. Far more often than not, political actors with the big bucks seem to have more influence over the process than those of us with normal bank accounts. Politics, which we would like to think of as a noble activity, can take on all the worst characteristics of the business world, where we expect people to take advantage of each other and pursue their own private interests. Can this really be the heritage of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln? Can this be the “world’s greatest democracy” at work?
In this book we explore that question, getting to the heart of what politics is and how it relates to other concepts such as power, government, rules, economics, and citizenship. We propose that politics can best be understood as the struggle over who gets power and resources in society, and the fight to control the narrative that defines each contestant. Politics produces winners and losers, and much of the reason it can look so ugly is that people fight desperately not to be losers, and to create and perpetuate narratives that celebrate their wins and put the best face possible on their losses. It can get pretty confusing for the average observer.
Contrary to the way they appear in the media, and maybe even in our own minds, the people who are doing that desperate fighting are not some special breed—more corrupt or self-interested or greedy than the rest of us. They are us. Whether they are officials in Washington or mayors of small towns, corporate CEOs or representatives of labor unions, local cops or soldiers in the Middle East, churchgoers or atheists, doctors or lawyers, shopkeepers or consumers, professors or students, they are the people that in a democracy we call citizens.
As we will see, it is the beauty of a democracy that all the people, including the everyday people like us, get to fight for what they want. Not everyone can win, of course, and many never come close. There is no denying that some people bring resources to the process that give them an edge, and that the rules give advantages to some groups of people over others. But as the What’s at Stake. . .? shows, what makes living today so different from previous eras is that we all have some access to the multiple channels of information through which battles over political narratives take place. The people who pay attention, who learn how the rules work and how to use those communication channels effectively, can begin to increase their chances of getting what they want, whether it is restrictions on ownership of assault weapons, a lower personal tax bill, greater pollution controls, a more aggressive foreign policy, safer streets, a better-educated population, or more public parks. If they become very skilled citizens, they can even begin to change the rules so that people like them have more control of the rules and narratives and a greater chance to end up winners in the high-stakes game we call politics.
In this chapter we introduce you to this fascinating world of politics, focusing on the meaning of politics itself, the varieties of political systems and the roles they endorse for the individuals who live under them, the American founders’ ideas about democracy and citizenship, the ideas that hold us together as a nation, the ideas that define our political conflicts, and the themes of power and citizenship that will serve as our framework for understanding American politics.
What Is Politics?: A peaceful means for determining who gets power and influence in society
Over two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle said that we are political animals, and political animals we seem destined to remain. The truth is that politics is a fundamental and complex human activity. In some ways it is our capacity to be political—to cooperate, bargain, and compromise—that helps distinguish us from all the other animals out there. While it certainly has its baser moments (impeachments, indictments, and intelligence abuses come to mind), politics also allows us to reach more exalted heights than we could ever achieve alone—from dedicating a new public library or building a national highway system, to stabilizing a crashing economy, to curing deadly diseases or exploring the stars.
To explore politics—in all its glory as well as its disgrace—we need to begin with a clear understanding of the word. One of the most famous definitions, put forth by the late, well-known political scientist Harold Lasswell, is still one of the best, and we use it to frame our discussion throughout this book. Lasswell defined politics as “who gets what, when, and how.”6 Politics is a way of determining, without recourse to violence, who gets the power and resources in society, and how they get them. Power is the ability to get other people to do what you want them to do. The resources in question here might be government jobs, tax revenues, laws that help you get your way, or public policies that work to your advantage.
politics who gets what, when, and how; a process for determining how power and resources are distributed in a society without recourse to violence
power
