Saving Democracy encourages Americans of ALL political stripes (Independents, Republicans, and Democrats) to step up to the moment, with an involvement that could make all the difference.
Saving Democracy is focusing its work in purple swing districts in Southern California, making appeals to Democrats, Republicans, and no party preference (NPP) independents. NPPs make up approximately one-third of voters in many areas of the country. Saving Democracy reaches out to and crafts appeals to infrequent and new voters with the message that voting is the best way to exercise our power as American citizens.
Saving Democracy taps into those feelings of patriotism and love of country that nearly all Americans possess. The goal of Saving Democracy is to bring about a small but significant percentage increase in the pro-democracy electorate. In close-fought swing district races, this marginal change could make all the difference in the electoral outcome.
Persuasion Where It Has Impact
Small Groups and One-on-One
Large organizations – whether it be a presidential administration, corporation, business group, labor union, nation-state, or religious organization – are largely immune to education and persuasion. At the societal level, as Reinhold Niebuhr taught and Martin Luther King Jr. understood, what is required is some form of coercion. The Civil Rights movement deployed the coercive power of nonviolent protest. Emphasizing personal interactions and small group dialogue, Saving Democracy operates in the sphere where education and persuasion can – and do – have a powerful effect.
Action Plan
Southern California Swing Congressional Districts
Summer 2023 to Fall 2024
FOUR SoCal Target Swing Districts
- 47th Orange County (Huntington, Newport, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Laguna)
- 45th Orange County (Fountain Valley, Westminster, Garden Grove, Cypress, Buena Park, Cerritos, and parts of Brea, Fullerton, and Yorba Linda.)
- 41st Riverside County (Corona, Temescal Valley, Palm Springs, Palm Desert)
- 27th Los Angeles County (Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster)
For each of the three-prongs described below, Saving Democracy is educating citizens and college students about the authoritarian threat, and equipping them to recognize what a belief in and commitment to democratic principles and behaviors look like.
1. Speaking to Local Civic and Business Leaders
Starting in the Summer of 2023, we began speaking to local business and civic leaders across Orange County. Here we are generating a dialogue about the erosion of democratic norms, stressing the business community’s strong interest in having a stable, rule-following democracy where extremism and threats of violence are sharply discouraged. Our speaking program is directed at civic groups such as Rotary and Kiwanis groups, Chambers of Commerce and business councils. We speak about our shared values as Americans, the pride we can take from America’s founding and our aspirational ideals, and the dangers of extremism. Our central message to these groups is that American democracy has survived and flourished for nearly 250 years in large part because of our shared values and because the far-left and the far-right have never had a strong voice in national politics. The conversations we start tap into the members’ interest in a strong and stable democracy.
2. Neighbors for Democracy: Door-to-Door Canvassing
We have developed an innovative Neighbors for Democracy program that allows people to walk door-to-door in their own neighborhoods to network with other pro-democracy households , while also reaching out to infrequent voters and disengaged citizens. As part of the recruitment effort, we encourage pro-democracy activists to open their homes for Coffee, Cake and Democracy get-togethers to explain the Saving Democracy program and recruit their neighbors to the effort. A key part of the Neighbors for Democracy program is educating volunteers so they can reach out to others in their networks and communities.
The Neighbors for Democracy program is easy to understand and advance. It aims to generate those deeper conversations in which people open up about what they value and aspire to for themselves, their community, their nation.
3. Young Voters
We are reaching out to universities and community colleges in our target congressional districts to educate their student bodies on the threats to democracy and mobilize them to join our efforts. Along with offering seminar speakers, we can assist with any voter registration and civic engagement efforts in order to provide an outlet for those students who are looking to join us in our grassroots movement.
Strategy
Focus on the Civic Middle, the Disaffected, and Younger Voters
Democracy will not be saved by appeals to party loyalists. For 20-plus years, the nation’s political consultants have won elections by messaging to the base while largely ignoring the middle. In strictly partisan terms, the nation is sharply polarized into Blue and Red camps.
- But this ignores the “Civic Middle,” the ballast of our political system. Many Americans are moderates who find themselves in the political center between the parties. These independent-minded individuals believe that committed partisans often take positions that go too far to the right or to the left. While smaller than in the past, the Civic Middle still exists. It includes those moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats who feel abandoned by their party, as well as NPP and infrequent voters.
- Additionally, disaffected voters across the spectrum, from conservatives in the Liz Cheney mode to those on the progressive left, must be urged to vote. Our goal is to help people, regardless of how alienated they might feel, believe that a working democracy promotes a culture where even those without power can participate and be heard. Everyone needs to feel that they matter and that their voices can be heard. Should we become an autocracy, America’s proud tradition of individual rights will be a thing of the past. Democracy is not just about the democratic process. When it works for all, democracy is a way of life.
- Saving Democracy will reach out to Gen Zers. A surge of the youth vote could right our democratic ship. We believe that by stressing the fragility of democracy and how their vote and participation matters, younger voters can better see the risk from autocracy and act.
We believe our best chance to break the nation’s political impasse is to speak to the civic middle, the disaffected, and younger voters and to drive home what is at stake when one of the country’s two major political parties is no longer loyal to the Constitution and the central democratic premise of free and fair elections. This is not the time to write off politics as much ado about nothing. Only when semi-loyal politicians suffer electoral defeat will they see the cost of following the authoritarian road.
Technology and a New Generation
The cornerstone of any democracy since Aristotle has been to persuade enough of the population to your way of implementing a common vision in the lives of its citizens. Today, the creation of digital platforms powered by data science has resulted in the proliferation of social media channels. Once, the traditional news media held sway over voters. Now, through fragmentation and micro targeting of the “like minded,” people can be organized into communities and open forums where racism is freely expressed.
The result of exponentially democratizing the processing and sharing of information, without vetting and fact checking, has been to increase misinformation, blatant propaganda, and systematic lying about politics. The digital media revolution spreads information at nanovelocity and along with it any lies and misinformation to which its adherents cling. Regrettably, corporate media news gathering and reporting is not equipped to help people understand and process what is at stake.
Our hope is that young people have a grasp of the new media landscape, its implications for our democracy’s health, and can teach us about these new lenses of democratic persuasion. Building trust through face-to-face interactions while sharing space and fostering community in reliable online and physical environments is crucial to rebuilding belief in our political system.
We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney