Happy New Year and a hearty adieu to another year of Washington deadlock, featuring even more innovations in partisanship and even fewer accomplishments. Is it any wonder that Congress’s public approval rating is south of 15%? Like a pointless game of chess, members of Congress, as well as the Missouri and Kansas legislatures, spend more time blocking the other party’s plan than they do earning support for their own; and when it comes to the people’s work, the result is a stalemate.
Let’s be honest: we’ve all seen Washington politics impact our own behaviors and interactions. Unless we know that our dinner partners’ opinions are similar to ours, many times we avoid even the hint of politics in discussions, for fear of conflict.
Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that for democracy to work at the top levels of governance, it must also work at the grassroots. Nobody ever liked this idea, as even in ancient Athens, politics was a nasty business. But, Plato made the salient point in 400 BC: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” By way of illustration, voter turnout in the 2014 elections was a mere 36.4%, and today only 30% of Americans believe their federal representative is the best person for the job. Average Americans are not happy, but they’re doing little about it!
What’s more, beyond voting apathy, we who believe government has an important role to play in supporting the arts are facing an “involvement” challenge. We are not making our voices heard enough. Take a look at the Congressional score cards published by Americans for the Arts and you’ll see that 9 out of 12 members of the Missouri and Kansas delegations received grades of “F” on their support of pro-arts policy.
Why aren’t our leaders paying attention to our issues? For one thing, they owe too much attention to others since the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in “Citizens United.” That ruling said that it is okay for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want through political action committees (PACs), to convince people to vote for or against a candidate. In the 2014 election, 72.8 % of all PAC contributions, or $383,631,898, came from businesses. Needless to say, corporate PAC donations are sought relentlessly by candidates and come with policy strings attached. Businesses invest in what’s good for business, as shareholders demand. Sadly, they do not look for their quid pro quo from politicians in the form of arts funding.
So, what shall we do about politics? I suggest we start by talking, not in a partisan manner, about arts policy—i.e., the issues that will allow us to keep and maintain the economic, educational, tax and social benefits resulting from the arts. Pardon the sports metaphor, but we don’t have to be on the same team to agree that the league has problems. We can work on those problems together by keeping in mind that yes, it all starts “over the dinner table.”
My favorite graduate school professor invited discussion in such an easy way—e.g. “What do you think about the erosion of public support for the arts?” Once he had carefully listened to our opinions and clarified what we said, he might offer, “I have a slightly different take on that.” Sometimes the “take” was slightly different and others times the polar opposite—but by listening carefully first he made his opinion more compelling, while never requiring or expecting total agreement. This elegant professor would encourage discussion—based on the assumption that a commonality of viewpoints existed, in spite of differences in perspective. He was an educator who expected to learn from his students, which is what we must become as frontline advocates for the arts. The voice that we find together can be brought to bear on office holders of all stripes.
Yes, there’s more to grassroots advocacy, and each of us can help in some small, if not greater, way.
Congress is back in session as are both state legislatures, so it’s a great time to link up with Americans for the Arts (AFTA) and Missouri Citizens for the Arts (MCA). Both have PACs and paid lobbyists hard at work to manage the little flips of fate that come along when governance is happening. They will keep you informed and alert to what mischief may lurk, while allowing you to help by signing petitions or contacting your leaders when you can do the most good. You can easily log on and sign up with MAC at www.moforarts.org/advocacy, as well as AFTA at www.americansforthearts.org/advocate.
Meanwhile, let’s talk. Shall we? And let’s look forward to improvements in public arts policies as a result.
