So it’s the eve of Super-Tuesday. Tomorrow, or today if your reading this in the future, a third of the primary delegates will be allotted and potentially far greater than a third of the votes cast in the primary will be counted. Something I want to think about is the concept of turnout and the assumption that votes being cast in a democracy shows that democracy is functioning well.
At face value, I think the claim is indisputable. The more people engaged in politics, the more representative the governing body. I think, however, that it is worth considering and criticizing how these votes are “earned” or created. Take a worst-case scenario - imagine a system where every person who votes for candidate A is told they will be executed while every person who votes for candidate B is told they will be spared. Regardless of what actually happens after the voting, this system produces an engaged voting populace. Presumably a VERY engaged voting populace. But the circumstances of the individual vote in Imaginary Voteland is highly questionable.
The key tension in the US electoral system is the relationship between votes and value. In a capitalist system essentially everything is intertwined with a monetary value, with the libertarian ideal of money equaling voice being the key ideological justification for the campaign finance system after 2010s citizens united decision. The tradition dates even farther back to 1886’s Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, where a corporate body (essentially a collection of capital) was given human rights in a court of law. Because these collections of value are companies, they are allowed to have a voice in democracy, as an individual might. Due to this process, votes are very much worth money.
This intersection between value and voice has led to the various egregious examples of monetary interference in politics that have defined the last decade through the proliferation of super PACS, which express their voice by either suppressing or driving turnout.
Tom Steyer - Votes vs. Value
When we think about the intersection of votes and value, Tom Steyer’s recently interred campaign offers us a hilarious example. He spent a ballpark of 200,000,000$ on the 2020 election, with a focus on South Carolina, and received just shy of 60,000 votes in the SC primary. That puts the value of a Tom Steyer vote on election night at 3333$ (although they are absolutely worthless now). That is 1,300 dollars more than one can donate as an individual to a campaign. Obviously, that money has other value, in name recognition and other such unknowables, but focusing on the votes being the key element of democracy and election, the equation is curious. The circumstances of those votes represent a bizarre conflict - they are worth more than the amount an individual could, supposedly, contribute to a campaign and remain at the threshold of what is legal in our imagination of an even democratic process. Votes were cast for Tom Steyer sure, he even turned that 10% of people out to vote for him, but the circumstances of each of those votes seems particularly undemocratic, especially considering that the bulk of that number comes from Tom Steyer self-funding.Bloomberg & Prison Labor
Bloomberg offers us another example of questionable circumstances of a vote being cast. This example is less economic instead of focusing on the fact that slavery is antithetical to democracy. The NYT recently reported on Bloomberg’s campaign using prison labor to phone bank.
Now - the thing with prison labor in the US is that it is essentially slave labor. Prisoners are largely unpaid or essentially unpaid and are forced into work and contracts. Now, every Bloomberg vote which has been produced by one of these calls is questionably undemocratic. The person voting is expressing their constitutional right and is making their choice of what they believe to be the best path for the country. However, the mechanism for the turnout of those votes is undeniably toxic. Curious too, considering that by the draconian laws of our democracy prisoners and people no longer in prison aren’t allowed to vote in many states. However, they are allowed to be used as a vote-turnout machine. In this case - a high turnout of voters reached by slave labor is undeniably a poor sign for the health of our democracy.
Joe Biden and the Media Machine
Now, at this banquet of sinners Senator Joe Biden’s main turnout mechanism seems initially less democracy-eroding. Ignoring entirely the nature of his donors, or his relationship with the party conducting the election, the great machine that generates Joe Biden votes is free earned media. A frenzied feast on free media is the event that catapulted Trump from a mobster and American relic to a desk in the Oval Office. This isn’t to suggest that Biden is Trumpian - just that the relationship between media and democracy is fraught. This is especially true when media attention is unanimous in its focus and criticism, as particularly happens with the Sauron-eye of free media. It’s easy to pick your homework up from your next-door neighbor, and large media narratives tend to blend into unanimous zeitgeists.
The problem here is once again a relationship between voice and vote. Here, a handful of news influencers offer their insight, and in Joe Biden’s case, unanimous praise to millions. If you look back up to the Steyer paragraph - the value of those votes is pretty damn high, as is the value of the media attention. Remember, that MSNBC is owned by General Electric isn’t just a joke on 30 Rock. Through “free” media, special interests get a unique chance to project a singular opinion, and by extension truth, onto a huge population. Now our country’s reporters aren’t stooges, and the way consent to governance is generated by media is divorced from any large conspiracy. There’s no cabal, just the suggestions of investors and a lazy slump towards consensus.
Consider that Joe Biden is polling in the 20% in California, but has little sign of life on the ground in California, at least in the form of having a network of active interpersonal interaction there.
Instead, the Vice President is riding a wave of extremely expensive goodwill. The argument of Joe Biden being the most electable candidate is repeated as fact. This is despite questionable relevance to actual polling and a unanimous blind eye to the man’s ongoing ... strangeness. There is little mention of “The Other Biden” - my new favorite pick for November write-in candidate.
A large network of people reaching out and explaining their reasons for supporting a candidate is surely a healthier democratic system, than the blasting of information from a singular source.
Instead of a democratic network and relationship between campaign and humanity, Biden is relying on a select group of people and companies who are individually becoming representative of a huge number of votes. Think back to our imaginary dystopian example at the beginning - how would you imagine the grim rumor of campaign executions would be spread in that situation? Biden isn’t representing something nearly so extreme, however, the mechanism generating his turnout is indicative of an unhealthy democracy. The voices of many are becoming replications of the voices of few. That those few voices were represented by so many is the validation for the governance that follows. Unfortunately, the people who generated the loudest voices, or most value, or votes are once again a select few.
This is why grassroots organizing is critical, individual interaction is the heart of successful democracy because the other generators of votes and turnout are misaligned with the key goal of democracy - to represent the voice of the people.
Voter Suppression
A final interesting consideration of a way that voter turnout in our country is created by questionable means is to look at voter suppression. Take a look at Texas which votes tomorrow night - the state is famous for making it uniquely hard for Latino populations to vote.
For every uncast vote, there is an accompanying narrative, which has been sold to those able to vote. The narrative has demonized the Latino population and as a result, the people who can vote have voted for politicians who restrict the rights of Nonwhite people to vote. The right-wing media machine which drives the turnout of the demographic who cast votes to repress other voters is surely an undemocratic mechanism.
At the end of the day, turnout is good, people are voting! Fantastic news. However, the way voters are reached and convinced to vote is often couched in oligarchy.
The machine just isn’t built to produce democracy.
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