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TREE-ROOT POLITICS:
How Unenrolled Voters Can Become More Effective
Grass-roots politics may serve the purpose for immediate special causes or
narrow temporary measures. But they die with the inevitable decline of
enthusiasm, like grass at the end of its season. You have to start all
over again for each new protest or special issue, for each separate cause
or electoral candidate. But representative government is a seamless web of
values and individuals continuously related to each other by cause and
effect. How many citizens have the time or stamina for the perpetual
enthusiasm or outrage of repeated or simultaneous grass-root campaigns?
It is much more effective to support as nearly as possible your entire
set of values—if only by voting in regular elections—choosing candidates
who are likely to reinforce each other, thus multiplying the weight of
your single vote at the higher (and highest) levels of power. Such is the
purpose of political parties. A consistent party slate, by and large,
increases your political influence on the outcome of most or all the
issues you care about—steadily and all year round, while you go about the
business of daily living.
Not all Republicans think alike, but in effect all their local and
state votes converge at the presidency. By the same token not all
progressives are alike in opinions, but when all their votes converge
within the breadth of the Democratic Party they can replace any regime in
Washington that ignores the common good and defies its democratic allies.
 This
process of convergence outgrows and outlasts the life-cycle of level
grass. Instead it resembles the life of a tree, whose roots join to form a
trunk that supports and nourishes all the intertwined branches of
government and public service—the whole lofty diversity of economic or
cultural foliage.
If people of goodwill converge from their various but similar roots of
interest, their community of values can rise like a hardy oak for all
seasons, infinitely more representative of the common good than the
uniform Republican spruce tree that’s always green with dollars and
pointed at the top. The Democratic oak symbolizes the realistic
recognition of a colorful just society in all its complexity, from acorn
to winter twigs and summer leaves, generation after generation.
But a citizen’s goodwill tends to defeat its own purpose in casting
votes simply on the basis of single issues or attractive personality. Each
candidate for office is offered by a party. No political representative,
at any level of office, whether or not privately in tune with that party
on all issues, can help supporting the party’s characteristic program.
It’s the winning party that controls the agenda of Congress through the
all-important system of partisan committees, as well as the executive
power that largely determines the supreme judicial power, not to mention
military and international policies.
For instance, though it is true that a few Republican politicians are
“environmentalists”, your vote for one of them will ultimately contradict
your will if you are seriously concerned about the present and future
condition of Mother Earth, because that same person will support the
Republican organization of Congress, as well as a Republican president
whose appointments and executive orders repeal, prevent, or hinder
ecological improvement and protection of all kinds.
By the same token, as a Democratic voter, one or more of your own
particular interests, even if not of special interest to a majority within
the party, can often be carried to fruition on the strength of your
fellowship as a member of the generally unified political family. This
principle has been demonstrated over the years especially in civil-rights
and environmental legislation.
So every vote for the party rises all the way up from the deepest
far-flung rootlets to the uppermost and outermost buds of social progress.
That’s the reason to vote for Democrats in every election.
But that’s not all. The reason to register as a Democrat is that
you can participate in the planting and fertilization of the roots
themselves. Even if you already vote Democratic
without choosing to identify yourself as one of us, and even if you never
go to a Democratic meeting or contribute a nickel to the Party, the
addition of your name to the Democratic voting rolls will magnify your
effect by impressing other voters with the viability of progressive party
politics. The size of our partisan registry can warn Republicans to back
off with their reactionary attacks upon the many generations of
constructive accomplishments by our Party in both peace and war—and to
moderate their determination to pack the courts with their “conservative”
judges.
But above all, a larger official Democratic registration on the
voting lists will encourage present Democratic office holders to be more
outspoken in defending and proclaiming the values of a Party devoted to
the common good, and in emphasizing what distinguishes us from
Republicans.
It’s a moral imperative to vote. It’s a political imperative to
register as a partisan.
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Gloucester
