In the United States of America, mid 2020s, a clear practice that has been developed over the past decades is running into the reality of modern technology. This is the practice of manufacturing democracy.
Mainly developed in Washington, DC, the manufacturing of democracy is an old technique that was important when developments in current events, news, was passed from journalists to the public through narrow media channels. The history of media channels began first with newspaper, progressed to radio, and then to television. We are now past all three of these mediums of communication, and have progressed to internet-based news. There is a massive difference between the previous three historical media and the current favored medium for communicating news.
The internet itself has been championed as a decentralized and diversified method of communication since its inception. That has always been its strength– that anyone can upload anything and share it with everyone who has access to the network. So long as the overall network is maintained in an open sourced way with low barriers to entry and cheap access, this continues to be its strength. No other historical news medium has been impacted quite as drastically by decentralization. The result is that many if not most of the population can participate easily in the process of making, sharing, and responding to current events.
The historical practice of manufacturing democracy began in the halls of Congress, the White House Press Briefing Room, the syndicated corporate newsrooms (before they were syndicated) and among other public relations professionals. Basically, the practice involved interpreting events in a dualistic way. This was framed specifically by the dual party structure of the US Congress. One party would take one side, and the other party would intentionally take the other side. This creates a bipolar civic sphere with highly divergent ideological approaches. One side often has a totally different worldview than the other.
This approach to manufacturing democracy is intended to create two specific sides to issues. It is intentionally bipolarizing and conflictive. Not all countries operate this way. Many other democracies, especially the European ones, cultivate a political sphere with multiple parties. In European countries, there are typically five or more parties. One or two are dominant, but not dominant enough to govern on their own. Some amount of coalition forming is necessary to maintain consensus sufficient enough to pass laws.
First and foremost, actually passing laws is not a necessary component of a government. If a country’s legal system is appropriate and working functionally, then passing additional laws is redundant. Discussing bills (the precursors to laws) is successful enough for a legislative body. In the USA, over two hundred years after the founding of the country, the government is drowning under the weight of a plethora of laws, that have perhaps unnecessarily been passed simply out of a need to do something rather than nothing.
Lawmakers and politicians would do well to consider that sometimes doing nothing is better than doing anything at all. Many of these folks take intentional time in their day to manufacture democracy. They intentionally press for specific sides on issues. If a politician artificially creates a side on an issue, then that issue cannot appropriately be understood by the public at large. It become communicated through the lens of a specific partisan slant. In an age when information is easily communicated to the masses through the internet, it would be better to simply allow the public to develop stances on an issue on their own.
In DC, with two parties specifically dominant in an artificial way, creating two specific sides to an issue makes an artificial conversation surrounding that issue. Aspects and perspectives of the issue that are important to understand might be overlooked– sometimes this is done intentionally, but more often it is done simply because the politicians in DC are too hurriedly attempting to do what they perceive to be their job. That is to artificially create two sides to an issue.
If instead, the public is allowed to develop stances on an issue on their own, there would be a greater diversity in opinions and a better overall understanding of them. Politicians should, instead of broadcasting manufactured stances, go back to their constituents and ask them what they think. Many politicians are incredibly disconnected from their constituents. DC politicos think that they are saviors of their constituents and that they can tell their constituents how to interpret the course of the events. The assumption is that citizens are unable to understand the course of events on their own, and require the expert interpretation of a congressman to be properly aware of what is happening. That cannot be farther from the truth.
Citizens can understand issues just fine. Most are active and engaged, and can read news and deliver a somewhat articulate opinion on any given issue. In the current US system, citizens are not provided the opportunity to do this. They are instead all too often forced to accept a stance on an issue that has already been developed by politicos and pundits in the DC swamp.
The US needs politicians that will help citizens understand how to find true, factual, current, and real information. Then ask their constituents what their stances are on issues, and take these ideas back to legislatures. That is how to really represent public opinion and operate successfully in a democratic republic.
