(I Don't care if it's not apathy. It's a BIG problem. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
With the incredible problems facing poor people in the United States, it is easy to look out on the lack of resistance, the silence in the streets, and assume the problem is apathy. "These people just don't care."
Here, I argue that "apathy" is not a useful way to understand why collective action is so lacking.
Notwithstanding recent broadsides by Bai, Brooks, and others -- the new precinct captains of cyberspace are in perpetual high five mode these days, celebrating the key role the internet is playing in the 2008 presidential campaigns. They feel the netroots have changed the game, sparking a revolution in how politics is played in this country. And that's true -- to a point.
In the Sunday Washington Post, David Broder - the Dean of political journalism and purveyor of Beltway conventional wisdom - put pen to paper and produced this utterly useless column about young voters: Breaking Through to Voters. I wish that my tongue-in-cheek title for this post were a joke, but sadly, this seems to be the conclusion reached by Broder, who is widely regarded as on of the most influential and knowledgeable pundits in the Beltway.
Within the space of 700 words, Broder manages to repeat the false meme that young voters are apathetic, mention that young voters face barriers to participation (without really describing what those are or how to remove them), and claim that young voters "distrust government" without exploring what that distrust entails or how far it actually goes. The only redeeming factor of the column is Broder's (correct) conclusion: "Young Voters respond when treated seriously." It's ironic, because his own column fails to give young voters the credit and respect they deserve.
In the last week, I've written two diaries about America's rampant civic apathy, and the dangerous civic ignorance that flows from it -- as I feel that this is the true root cause of our increasingly dysfunctional democracy. And because it is rarely discussed in the public spotlight, and thus continues unabated.
