We Have Work To Do

Four weeks have passed since the election. I haven’t commented on it yet, and on one level, I’m not eager to do so. I’ve read a lot of what has been written about why the Republicans won and agree with a lot of it. As far as analyzing what happened is concerned, I have next to nothing to add.

The Challenge

If I have anything constructive to say, it’s in what comes next not just for peacebuilders for everyone who feels the need for sweeping changes on substantive issues that could also bring our country closer together.

That is not likely to happen through electoral politics. Elections obviously matter. I’m sure I’ll continue with my dysfunctional obsession with elections and keep watching and worrying about their outcomes as much as I always have.

I’m also sure I’ll remain convinced that lasting social change can’t come from the ballot box alone or even start with electoral politics.

It’s on that front that I might have something useful to say, because the results seem to reinforce the kind of expanded strategies that we peacebuilders have been inching toward in recent years.

On the one hand, Americans are deeply divided. The threats we face are real, including to the policy gains have made in my lifetime and perhaps to democracy itself.

On the other, we may not be as divided as the most alarmist analysts think. To the degree that they can be believed, polls show that few Americans are all that extreme or all that angry. They also show that the vast majority of us have lost trust in most of our institutions and, perhaps even more importantly, in each other.

But it is by no means clear how we should react to those data. But here are some ideas that come from a round about starting point.

Coalitions and Social Change

If I’m right, it makes sense to begin with a concept I first considered when I was studying comparative politics in graduate school and we were asked to consider the implications of game theory for government formation and policy making. We learned that politicians in divided societies typically sought minimum (or minimal) viable (or winning) coalitions. In everyday English, they sought to build enough support to take office and/or get what they wanted enacted into law by putting together narrow but disciplined majorities.

In parliamentary systems, that meant building a coalition that could win fifty percent plus one of the seats in the legislature, although everyone acknowledged that it always helped to have a bit of a cushion. Then, given the nature of party discipline in a system in which a single loss could force a government from office, small victories could be translated into sweeping policy changes.

All of that is much harder in our presidential system because the separation of powers and our system of checks and balances make it harder to define what such a coalition looks like. Nonetheless, you could make the case that President-elect Trump and the Republicans won just that last month. If they stick together, they can get a lot of what he wants—including most of his controversial nominees—approved.

But, we also know that it is hard to produce lasting change that is accepted by almost everyone if the winners of a minimum viable coalition take their powers to the hilt. Sure, there are exceptions, such as the growing support of the Affordable Care Act since it passed with only Democratic votes in 2010. All too often, however, that does not happen as we might see if the Republicans try to challenge the Inflation Reduction Act’s provisions when the new Congress meets next month.

Back in the day, we also learned about grand coalitions that bring together far more than half of the members of parliament (and the electorate). They don’t happen very often and typically arise under one of two circumstances. First, the major parties from the center left and center right agree to govern together because they fear that extremists might win. That led the German Social Democrats and Christian Democrats to share power in moments of crisis four times since 1969. Second, as will almost certainly happen in the weeks to come following Ireland’s inconclusive election last week, a number of the major parties will have to govern together because there is no alternative given the “parliamentary arithmetic” or the way the number of seats in the parliament are distributed.

What I’d like to suggest here is that it is worth thinking about a third kind grand coalition in the years and months to come. Given the nature of our presidential system, it won’t be one that builds extremely broad coalitions of people committed to new cultural norms of civility and cooperation that also reach agreement on specific issues that gradually make progress on any of the dozens of issues that our gridlocked system can’t do much with.

I am by no means convinced that any such strategy could work. Indeed, the odds are stacked against it. Nonetheless, I’m personally committed to doing what I can in four broad areas that just might lead to some nontrivial progress on the substantive problems that plague our country.

If we work hard.

And are very lucky.

Calling in and Turning Toward

I’ve written about what I’ve called an inside out strategy and, thus, thefirst theme before and can therefore dispense with it quickly.

I’ve long been a fan of Loretta Ross’s notion of calling the people we disagree with rather than pointing our metaphorical fingers at them and calling them out. That doesn’t mean glossing over our differences. Rather, like Ross, I prefer inviting the people I disagree with into a relationship in which we explore what we can do together.

I’m even more fond of Chad Ford’s idea that peacebuilders have an obligation to take the first step and turn toward the very people we are most at odds with.

All of this is especially important now because most of the people I know are not happy with what happened last month.

It is true that there are some people who are not open to working with us and there are some issues that it will be all but impossible to find common ground on in the short term.

Still, can’t we take the first step in reaching out on issues like the opioid crisis, improving access to health care, economic development in all underserved communities, and other questions that do not revolve around the hot button issues that trigger our discontents.

Can’t this be something that we at the Alliance for Peacebuilding does as we roll out of Peacebuilding Starts at Home initiative?

Introducing Radical Moderation

In September, I met Lauren Hall at the Mercatus Center’s Pluralism Summit and was taken by her idea of radical moderation which she champions on her Substack. Lauren’s research is anchored in traditional conservative thought, at least some of which overlaps with the ideas that the libertarian-leaning scholars at Mercatus promote. But she is also committed to what I would think of as progressive goals on some questions, including health care and the role of the family. More generally, her ideas overlap with mine in a number of ways even though I’ve never used the term moderate to describe myself. To see what I mean, check out this passage from her inaugural Substack post:

If we can summarize radical moderation in a few buzzwords (which is probably a somewhat immoderate thing to do), those words would be humility, a respect for complexity, an appreciation of real diversity, a commitment to community and civility, an awareness of tradeoffs, and ultimately a deep respect for individual human beings, because humans are what this is all about.

I like her work because she introduces the importance of time and complexity to the equation and understands that last, sweeping change can only unfold gradually, presumably with lots of fits and starts along the way. I’m not sure that the label radical moderation will take us very far; I am convinced, however, that we could and should build partnership with colleagues like Lauren who come to some the issues I care about—like the terms that she put in bold in the paragraph I just quoted—from different starting points.

Schools and Colleges

I’ve been worried about the situation on college campuses for some time.

As regular readers know, I cut my teeth in the new left which I was an undergrad at Oberlin in the late 1960s and then while I did my PhD at Michigan in the first half of the 1970s. Much of what I do today can be traced back to what I learned then, including coalition building.

Both schools were intellectually and politically vibrant because there was plenty of disagreement. Not all of my fellow students shared my new left views. Very few of the faculty members who taught me did. Our disagreements were often heated. But they were almost always civil. We almost always learned from each other.

I don’t sense that much of that happens on prestigious college campuses today. There is, frankly, too much agreement and too little open or heated debate. People who share view more or less like mine dominate the academy especially in the humanities and social sciences.

In other words, there are some elements of truth to the arguments made the critics of wokeness. While most of them are way over stated, campuses should be places where everyone is at ease sharing their views on every issue, whether that is the situation in the Middle East or the role of transgender student athletes.

Luckily, a number of campuses are trying to create that kind of open discussion. Although I don’t know much about the specifics, Vassar College has set up a program in what it calls engaged pluralism. There are also some new projects that are approaching improving campus climate in creative ways including Unify America and the Institute for Multipartisan Education which is run by Shira Hoffer, a current Harvard senior and one of the most impressing undergraduate students I’ve ever met.

Inside Out Meets Jon Stewart

That leads to the final point. We are in for a long slog. Here, I’m still drawn to the last two minutes the monologue Jon Stewart, the text of which follows.

In case you have trouble watching only the last two minutes of the video, here is a transcription.

You’re gonna get inundated with robocalls, and push polls, and real polls, and people are gonna tell you to rock the vote, and be the vote, and vote the vote, and finger-bang the vote, and it’s all going to make you feel like Tuesday, November 5 is the only day that matters.

And that day does matter, but man, November 6 ain’t nothing to sneeze at, or November 7. If your guy loses bad things might happen, but the country is not over, and if your guy wins, the country is in no way saved.

The work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunch pail f***ing job, day in and day out, where thousands of committed, anonymous, smart and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away on issues until they get a positive result, and even then have to stay on to make sure that result holds.

Whether you are interested in the crisis in the Middle East or any of those we face here at home, we have to be in it for the long haul.

We have to find ways to get people to make the kind of commitment that I’ve made that has allowed me to avoid burnout for the last sixty years despite all the “ups and downs” of political life during that time. And, we need to do that without expecting many people to be interested in making a career of it the way I have.

But, we do have to prepare ourselves for a lunch pail f***ing job, whatever Stewart actually meant by that.

Tangible Next Steps

Luckily, I’ve been able to meet and work with dozens of people from organizations like Rotary, Build IRL, the ProHuman Foundation and ProSocial World, the makers of the Join or Die documentary about Bob Putnam’s work, and more who share some or all of these ideas—well, maybe not the grand coalition side of things.

Luckily, too, I’m part of AfP’s Peacebuilding Starts at Home initiative that is bringing some or all of these ideas to life.

So, if you find any of this interesting or appealing, let me know and we’ll figure out who you can best do your lunch pail f***ing job,

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Alliance for Peacebuilding or its members.