There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #26: Podcast

 Yes, there are many podcasts Out There, but folks who listen to them are periodically searching for those which match their interests. There are many podcasts that are general news, and decreasing numbers for increasingly specialized programs. 

Building listenership is crucial, of course, but even one decider or one influencer listening to you on the regular may make a big difference at some point. As someone who listens to many podcasts, the sound quality is important. Some of the podcasts that might interest me are poorly recorded, or recorded with substandard equipment. Crisp sound with engaging speakers and brevity is attractive to large numbers of potential listeners. 

As with so many other ways to participate in democracy, you do not have to be a registered voter, or even a citizen of the country, to influence how people who do vote think about issues. 

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #25: Donate

This is the most important way to participate in democracy if you listen to the campaign fundraiser. This is the least important way to participate in democracy if you listen to the impecunious activist. 

In either case, however it matters on the effectiveness scale, it is participating in democracy. 

My $10 every month for years to John Lewis? Yeah, not necessarily effective. Same with my bit each month to Barbara Lee. And now, my little recurring donation to AOC is not necessarily going to change history. 

Nonetheless, just like direct action, just like a political demonstration, it's more about a "unity in the community" action, a "lots of us give a little so the billionaires who give huge amounts are less relevant." 

It's true that Elon Musk gave more than a quarter of a $billion to elect Trump in 2024. His influence was huge. 

It's also true that, if the Harris campaign had been better, my $25 each week would have meant more. I participated in democracy, but Harris frequently didn't represent me--never distinguishing herself from the toxic Biden military aid to Israel as it slaughtered children, boasting and threatening that if someone comes in her home she will shoot them, failing to explicitly criticize the abysmal chaos of withdrawing the US from Afghanistan--so it's hard to say that my monetary support, however small, for the Harris campaign was effective participating in democracy. 

When campaigns like Ocasio-Cortez abjure large donors, however, it feels like participating in democracy with that ongoing donation. It's one way amongst many to participate.

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #24: Sit-in

We in the peace movement in October of 2002 wanted our elected federal officials to oppose the Bush/Cheney plan to invade Iraq. We knew that Saddam had no nuclear weapons, which was the excuse Bush, Cheney, Rice, and the others were offering. Indeed, as Hans Blix of UNMOVIC and Mohammed al-Baradi of the International Atomic Energy Association would later testify to the world, UN inspections of any potential nuclear weapons sites--enriched uranium, missile construction, etc.--were ongoing since Desert Storm (Gulf War I) and were the most intrusive of any inspections ever done anywhere. So it looked very much like George W. Bush was lying and about to get us into a war for nefarious purposes. 

With the vote coming to authorize military action, we in Oregon knew that all our elected Democrats might be convinced to vote against such authorization. We knew the two Republicans--one senator, one House member--almost certainly would back Bush, so we visited the Portland office of Senator Wyden, asking them to tell us how the senator planned to vote. There were about eight of us. We were shown into the conference room and the Chief of Staff came in to let us know that the Senator hadn't decided. He held the door, expecting us to politely leave. Instead, we politely refused.

After we sat there for about three hours, the Chief of Staff returned. "The Senator will vote the way you want him to," he announced. We thanked him and left. Were we the reason? That seemed dubious, but we took the victory. 

After the war was waged for about three years and was worse than ever, the Bush regime took a beating in the mid-term elections and even our Republican senator stood on the floor of the Senate and said he was very sad but he could no longer support the war. Nevertheless, he kept voting for huge supplemental packages to continue funding the war. We knew he was up for reëlection that year, so his motives looked less than honorable.

We decided to offer more nonviolent resistance.

We met in my living room and about a dozen of us committed to offering civil resistance and we went first to the Democratic senator once again. We said we planned to stay in his office until he agreed to take a public stand against the war or until we were arrested. At closing time we were cited by Homeland Security officers. 

Within days the Democratic senator had made a speech against the war on the Senate floor and refused to vote for any funding for it. 

Then we went to the Portland office of the Republican senator. We were arrested six times there and each time sent letters to editors of newspapers in the parts of the state where he got most of his votes. We were courteous and simply said versions of "your man isn't doing what he promised you." 

Sure enough, he lost. Did our multiple sit-ins make a difference? When taken together with our messaging to his people via newspapers, we believe it did. We may have not changed many votes, but he lost by very few. Sit-in can be a great way to participate in democracy.

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #23: Stick to nonviolent peacekeeping

The UN peacekeepers have tried unarmed peacekeeping and when someone got hurt, they switched to "lightly armed." Their purpose was to keep people safe in conflict zones, especially at the borders of such zones, but some studies are showing that armed UN troops may actually facilitate an ascension of a military faction to power in the affected country (Cunliffe, 2018).

This is also resonant with an earlier study that showed a greater chance for the rise of an autocracy or dictatorship when violent insurgents succeeded in effecting a regime change than if the revolution had been nonviolent (Karatnycky & Ackerman, 2005).

Obviously, this is participating in democracy from the origin story of any given democracy, and it is not to say that establishing a democracy by violent means dooms that democracy to a violent end, but the idea of any great struggle is to choose methods that afford the best chances for success. Nonviolent methods are not foolproof--another study shows that nonviolent insurrection only succeeds about half the time, but also that violent revolution is far less effective, succeeding only about a quarter of the times it's tried (Stephan & Chenoweth, 2008).

Arguably, the closer our actions and approaches are to nonviolent, informed by the practices of conflict transformation and attempted with commitment and resilience, the closer we get to a practice that is strong and sustainable democracy. Creating and defending democracy is the bedrock of participating in democracy.

References

Cunliffe, P. (2018). From peacekeepers to praetorians – how participating in peacekeeping operations may subvert democracy. International Relations, 32(2), 218–239. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1177/0047117817740728

Karatnycky, Adrian & Ackerman, Peter (2005). How freedom is won: From civic resistance to durable democracy. New York, NY: Freedom House.

Stephan, Maria J., & Chenoweth, Erica (2008). Why civil resistance works. International Security, 33(1), 7-44.

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #22: Inside game and outside game

Historian Mary Frances Berry is an activist scholar, a pracademic who vacillates between her role as an educator of students in the classroom and educator of the public and powers that be via her activism. She describes the dynamic between the inside game--legal, normal political involvement at any level--and the outside game--direct action with a willingness to confront and even be attacked or arrested or both. 

In a way, her strategy is one developed over millennia by militaries--flank the enemy so he can be brought down from a variety of directions. Doing this using nonviolent methods is a smart and adaptive way to participate in democracy. 

Identifying which practices are strategically advantageous and which are harmful to any effort to participate in democracy is a key component of not simply participating but of doing so in a way that promotes democracy is key. 

For example, violence tends to work against democracy. Nonviolence tends to work to strengthen, preserve, or even create democracy. This leads to one obvious conclusion, that of all the ways to participate in democracy, they will fall on the nonviolent side of action. 

However, there are few hard and fast rules after that basic understanding. In a way, if we tweak what Malcolm X advised we can more helpfully categorize the path to democracy: "By any nonviolent means at our disposal." 

There are those ideologues who reject any aspect of the inside game as being part of the structural violence of any governmental system. That's purist and understandable, just hopelessly impractical. The realpolitik of the inside game/outside game strategy is important and effective. Splitting philosophical hairs around what is violent at multiple orders of remove is not always helpful. 

This is especially the case when the advantages of the synergy between the inside game and outside game is considered. 

If your arrest for a nonviolent direct action brings you into court and you have assembled a legal team that affords you a reasonable chance for victory, that brings the outside game directly into the literal court of the inside game. A victory in the legal defense of your nonviolent direct action can impact other arenas in both the inside game and outside game, eventually (or sometimes quite quickly) leading to the actual policy change you seek. 

Think Rosa Parks. She played the outside game, sat down, got arrested, and the outside game ramped up into a bus boycott, also suddenly shoving a new young minister into the national spotlight, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That outside game precipitated some upheavals in the inside game as the public began to increasingly sympathize with the African Americans who were playing the outside game, causing public opinion to change the political positions of elected officials. The dialectical relationship between inside game and outside game can be momentous. It is participating in democracy at a profound level.

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #21: Host a candidate canvass

Volunteering in general for any political campaign is a way to participate in democracy, and hosting a canvass is a next-level step. Tell the field director in the campaign that you are volunteering to do that, if the campaign can use it. If another volunteer in your neighborhood has already scheduled such hosting events, you can let that person know you are happy to help with several aspects of hosting, such as bringing coffee, cans of sparkling water, donuts, ordering some pizza for the end of the day for the crew, or just being there to help her or him with the hosting. 

The field coördinator for the campaign will need table space for clipboards, handouts, and other canvassing materials. You will need table space for snacks and beverages. Be sure to get an estimate ahead of time from the field coördinator of numbers so you have enough chairs arranged in a room big enough to accommodate it all.

The canvasses I've hosted have met mid-morning and everyone gets oriented by the field coördinator while enjoying coffee, tea, water, a donut, muffin, or healthy granola bar. Then they all hit their assigned blocks for a couple hours while you clean up and get some more robust refreshments going for noon time. Finally, they finish their third canvass, all recorded and organized by the field coördinator, and, if it is okay with her or him, you have beer and pizza and sodas waiting for everyone in the mid or late afternoon. 

The field coördinator decides the purposes of the canvass. It may be generalized promotion, in which case canvassers learn talking points and protocols for delivery (e.g., never argue, listen more than talk, be respectful, smile a lot). Or it might be a show of candidate care and issue market research, in which case the field coördinator may have explicit detailed sheets with specific addresses to attempt contact and which to avoid, based on party registration.

I've hosted a few of these and the hospitality shown by the host is generally part of the spirit and resilience of the canvassing crew experience. If they feel like they are returning to a spartan barracks workspace that may affect their willingness to continue. If they feel like they are appreciated and part of a little purposeful community they may be more likely to continue and to volunteer to canvass again. Veteran campaign directors have strong feelings and war stories about canvassing and its role in the difference between winning and losing a campaign. There is a reason it is a common and repeated practice--and a deep way to engage in a democracy.

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #20: Display symbols and signs

There is a reason people die carrying a flag. Showing colors and symbols is an emotional declaration of loyalty and commitment. There is a reason gang colors are against the dress codes of high schools in areas infested by gangs--those colors may precipitate violence, even shootings in and around school buildings.

There are also excellent reasons peace and environmental activists fly the earth flag, a flag that doesn't oppose other flags, and a flag that shows disrespect toward none--and isn't offended if it touches the ground. 

Bumperstickers, t-shirts, ball caps, pins, yard signs, and all manner of symbols and signs are a way to participate in democracy. If a neighborhood shows many signs for one candidate, others in the community can be influenced to go along, or at least not display an opposing sign. 

Like all the other ways to participate in democracy, it is not enough to wear a pin, fly a flag (or even lower it to half mast or fly upside down to indicate distress), slap on a bumper sticker, or wear a messaging t-shirt--but it is one of so many ways to exert some influence in a democracy. Going from no participation to displaying a yard sign is movement, a good start!