The Brooklyn Rail

Half of the people in this country don’t vote. Paradoxically, these are the people who primarily decide things for everyone else in a democracy. The first thing they decide is that democracy is not something worth thinking about. The second thing they decide is that they are not part of this democracy and don’t care what happens to it.

Democracy means rule by the people, or power of the people. The Greek word demos means “people,” and kratos means “power.” Democracy is a way of governing which depends on the will and power of the people being exercised. As Lincoln put it, democracy is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” People can delegate this power to representatives who will represent their will and interests in a representative democracy or a democratic republic. They can also cede this power if they choose, to a dictator. And they can cede this power by refusing to choose.

There is a good deal of evidence right now that the majority of the American people are choosing to cede power to an autocrat and give up on democracy. Half of eligible voters are doing this through apathy and inaction and half of the eligible voters who do exercise their power at the ballot box are doing it through anger, grievance, and retribution.

At this point, less than twenty days from the most consequential election in American history, the latter appear to be immovable and so the only hope for the pro-democracy forces is to appeal to the Silent Half, to persuade some of them to care enough to vote.

On his own Substack, The.Ink, and then on Morning Joe on October 15, Anand Giridharadas makes an impassioned case for Kamala Harris to beat Trump by “making the jaded believe again.” He, I think rightly, sees the impasse among voters in terms of a crisis of belief in democracy itself, and argues that the Harris team needs to peel off some of those who are undecided about voting at all, because they just don’t believe in democracy anymore—because democracy has let them down too much.

To win decisively in November and crush American fascism, Harris must—more than she or her party have in some time—tap into and channel the most powerful force in American life today: rage at the establishment, mistrust of a rigged system, cynicism about the hope of anything ever changing, the defection from belief itself.

. . . 

In the last mile of this election, so many of the remaining pool of undecided voters—or, more importantly, people undecided about voting—have simply lost faith that anyone will change anything for the better in their lifetime.

It is beyond ironic, beyond ridiculous even, that some people who feel this way, millions of them, are attracted to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, two pillars of the establishment who are running for president on a platform that would only make the richest and most powerful Americans more rich and more powerful.

But it is happening, and it must be stopped.¹

The diagnosis is sound, but the remedy is difficult to come to. How do you recover belief that has been lost? How do you build a new coalition of those who are for democracy and are willing to come out and vote to save it, regardless of party affiliation? We need a new pro-democracy movement in America, and there is precious little time left. At the least, we’ve got to get more people to believe that their vote matters.

Anand Giridharadas ends his appeal in this way:

There is so much reason not to believe in America in 2024. If you want people to believe again, especially the people who are right now still on the fence, you need to tell them a story that not only persuades them but all but rewires their brain. You need to help them make new meaning of what they have seen and heard and felt.

This will require being everywhere all at once, in their heads and hearts, morning, noon, and night. It doesn’t matter if every interview isn’t perfect. Show them your power, your life force, the life force that proposes to smash obstacles and change their lives. Do whatever media most helps you reach them. It doesn’t need to be the old guard. But people are looking for whether you are unafraid, because if you are, it might give you what it takes to help them.

From what I’ve seen this week, Kamala Harris is doing that and doing it brilliantly. Her life force is strong. She is unafraid. I honestly don’t know what else you can ask of her. I think it’s going to be up to us now.