Political candidates and consultants accept without question that the only way to motivate voters is to stoke people’s fears and prejudices.
As a campaign tactic, these practices have some merit. There is abundant evidence that negative communications influence how voters perceive candidates and issues.
But fear-driven political rhetoric also has engendered cynicism in the public. Voters deserve more from their leaders.
Over the last few years, my public opinion research has helped me identify five shifts in the lives of Americans that affect the way they approach public life.
Hyper-individualism. We live in a world in which people can design their own products, their own experiences, almost their own worlds. People expect options and want to make choices in every aspect of their lives.
People expect public institutions to understand and act on their concerns and are increasingly quick to abandon those institutions that don’t. For example, a decade ago school choice was still a novelty. Today, parents tell us they shop for schools, sometimes moving their child two or three times in the elementary grades looking for the best fit.
The end of geography. Geography is less relevant to the way Americans live. We have become so mobile that some of us live in one community, work in another, send our children to school in a third and spend our weekends in a fourth.
People no longer want to be constrained by geography. What’s more, people are beginning to question the validity of governing bodies based on geography. As a result, legislators will have to sort out some tough issues about how we tax, spend and govern.
The age of anxiety. Many people express a deep ambivalence about our modern lifestyles. For instance, people enjoy our nation’s prosperity but question an economy that requires two incomes to make ends meet. They marvel at health care miracles but question our dependence on pharmaceuticals. And people relish their freedom to pursue individual ambitions but struggle with shrinking social networks.
The anxieties people feel make them tentative about embracing new public policy ideas. But there is a hunger for new social compacts built on the idea of mutual responsibilities.
The permanent squeeze. People are overextended with housing and health care costs and behind the curve in saving for college and retirement. Even people far above the median income say they feel financially pinched.
This squeeze influences people’s views of taxes. People are unsure if it makes sense to spend their scarce dollars on government programs.
Public leaders must show voters they are aligning resources with critical priorities and making full use of every dollar.
Politics holds little currency. In the early 1990s, people were angry with politics and were energized to vote for change. Today, political indifference is setting in. People care deeply about the issues that affect their lives, but hold serious doubts that the political process is a good way to solve problems.
These five shifts create challenges for public leaders. People’s sense of connection to civic life is at historic lows. Evidence suggests we are insulating ourselves from people who hold opinions different than our own. Americans are becoming accidental extremists. We are losing our abilities to learn from one another and work together, the very hallmarks of a healthy democracy.
All this raises a challenge for those of us who care about public issues. How do we muster the political will to act on our common concerns?
Public leaders who seek to meet this challenge must begin by looking beyond Election Day. They must dedicate themselves to understanding the changes taking place in people’s lives. Public leaders must seek to learn people’s aspirations and their desires for new social compacts, not just their fears and prejudices.
When public leaders make the commitment to open themselves up to the changes in people’s lives, they will see the opportunities to provide leadership far more clearly. And, over the long haul, it is leadership above all else that will motivate voters.
John Creighton (john@creighton.com) is founder of Conocer, a public leadership consulting firm in Longmont, and a senior fellow with The Bell Policy Center. A longer version of this essay is available at www.thebell.org.
