Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 9, 1992 TAG: 9202090283
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM PRICE COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
THE NEW AMERICAN WAY ANGRY THAT THEY HAVE LITTLE IMPACT ON THE POLITICAL
THE way Michael Lambek figures it, "a lot of politics has to do with money and power and prestige, and the common lay person doesn't have that.""I don't think we can influence politics and government by voting," the 26-year-old West Carrollton, Ohio, resident said. "We're not a driving force."
At the same time, Lambek believes his job in drug-abuse programs "helps to combat one of the biggest social problems that we have."
He was a volunteer in anti-drug efforts while a college student. He belongs to Greenpeace, an international organization of environmental activists. And he wants to make a career in drug-abuse treatment or some other field that is "involved with helping people."
"I know I can make a difference on a day-to-day, person-to-person level," Lambek said.
Meet the typical American voter - or non-voter - of 1992: Withdrawn from traditional politics and government, but not indifferent to the world around him.
Americans are angry at their government, cynical about the value of elections, but active in their communities in countless ways.
They are coming together outside traditional political organizations to force change in government policies. They are taking it upon themselves to address problems they used to think government would solve.
Spurred by the decline of old institutions and the rise of new technologies, Americans are finding new ways to make a difference.
Individual Americans believe they "simply do not count in politics," the Kettering Foundation said it found in a series of interviews with citizens from spring 1990 through spring 1991.
At the same time, the Dayton, Ohio-based foundation said, "Americans do participate in public life in many ways and with great intensity of purpose."
By collecting poll and election results and interviewing scholars and citizens across the country since then, Dayton Daily News reporters have found much evidence to support that description of America as the 1992 presidential campaign begins.
Barely half of eligible Americans voted in the last presidential election - the lowest percentage since 1920 and 1924, immediately after women joined the electorate, and lower than every other year since at least 1824. Turnouts in most state and local elections are much lower.
That means George Bush became president with the support of just over a quarter of the electorate, and most state and local officials have won the votes of just a sliver of their constituents.
An October Gallup Poll found just 18 percent of Americans expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress - the lowest confidence rating any institution has ever received in a Gallup survey.
Vast majorities of Americans believe that federal officials quickly lose touch with the people, that they aren't really interested in solving problems, that they act unethically and that most government action wastes money.
Many Americans have made a conscious decision not to vote, and some leading politicians have come to the reluctant conclusion that the choice is defensible.
"The messages of modern campaigns are becoming less relevant to the concerns of average American families, and the costs of conveying those irrelevant messages are increasing so greatly, that voters believe that the political process belongs to others, not to them," former Democratic National Chairman Paul Kirk told a congressional panel on campaign reform last year.
"A lot of them think [voting] doesn't make a goldurn bit of difference," former Republican National Chairman William Brock told the same hearing. "And it doesn't."
Like Michael Lambek, however, tens of millions of Americans want to make a difference - and they're finding ways other than voting or working for candidates and political parties.
Independent Sector, a national organization that promotes charitable contributions and volunteering, reported a "renaissance of philanthropy" in 1990. A Gallup study commissioned by the organization revealed "sharp increases in giving and volunteering" and "a growing positive attitude toward community service."
Three-quarters of U.S. households contributed to charity in 1989, the organization reported, and a majority of adults volunteered - both increases over 1987.
Self-help is becoming a key activity in disadvantaged neighborhoods, as the poor organize to fight drug abuse and crime in public housing projects, even taking over management or ownership of projects in some cases.
Americans on both sides of the abortion debate repeatedly force government officials to confront an issue most politicians would rather ignore. Environmentalists have profoundly changed America's attitude toward pollution and waste. The dogged efforts of like-minded individuals have stiffened drunken-driving laws, forced the use of children's car seats and restricted smoking.
Many national activist organizations - environmental groups in particular - have recorded major leaps in membership. The number of activist groups at the grass-roots level - often organized around specific local issues - has grown by the thousands.
What political scientists call traditional "mediating institutions" - local political machines, for instance - have crumbled.
Lobbyists, high-rolling campaign contributors, television-dominated elections and simple population growth have helped to isolate elected officials from individual constituents. At the same time, new technologies allow officials and constituents to talk to each other instantly. And citizens have acquired new tools for affecting government actions outside the traditional channels.
Americans came out of the turmoil of the '60s with a demand for more direct participation in public affairs, said Gregory Schmid, senior research fellow at the California-based Institute for the Future. In the 1970s, state and federal legislatures passed laws that required government decisions to be preceded by public hearings, environmental impact statements and other forms of citizen participation.
From the late 1960s to the late 1970s, such requirements were laid on more than 150 federal programs, said Ken Thomson, director of citizen participation programs at Tufts University's Lincoln Filene Center in Massachusetts. Many state and local governments then established similar requirements of their own, Thomson said.
Citizens also started making greater use of initiative and referendum elections to pass or repeal legislation over legislators' heads.
With C-SPAN, CNN and local cable channels, citizens can watch legislatures make decisions. With telephones, fax machines and call-in TV and radio programs, they can express their opinions instantly. Adding computers to the communication tools, like-minded citizens can organize and act quickly if they don't like what the government is doing. Grass-roots groups can share information with like-minded organizations and develop more-effective tactics for winning their battles.
"I think a growing portion of Americans are comfortable seeing as their representatives not just an elected official who sits in Congress, but two or three special-interest groups he or she might contribute to," Schmid said. "I think participation is transferring, from casting a vote for Franklin Roosevelt because he's going to help me out, to getting out and ringing a doorbell or calling five people on a telephone tree and getting that local park saved."
The activism can be global or local in focus, said Dana Alston, who works with grassroots minority groups through the Panos Institute in Washington.
"It can be people activating themselves against apartheid in South Africa or fighting crime and drugs in the neighborhood," she said. "Even the poorest and most disenfranchised communities are activating themselves to stop drug trafficking or crime in their neighborhoods, being dissatisfied with the lack of government response or police response or whatever."
Robert Woodson, who heads the self-help-oriented National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, said there are "islands of excellence all over this nation" where the poor are improving their own communities.
Kimi Gray, leader of the tenant-managed Kenilworth-Parkside housing project in Washington, said her neighbors' success can be traced to "six people sitting around our kitchen table [saying], `We aren't going to clean up our community until we own it.' "
Such activism should not be viewed as an adequate substitute for broad citizen participation in traditional politics and government, according to Harry Boyte of the University of Minnesota.
"The formal political arena is where a lot of decisions are made and overall policy is set," said Boyte, who has studied citizen activism for two decades. "When people don't try to impact on it, they're checking out of a lot of key issues."
There is a "tremendous amount of fragmentation" in society, Boyte said.
"Everybody feels aggrieved and misunderstood," he said. "Everybody's an outsider."
When too many citizens abandon the government, Boyte said, "we don't have the concept of citizen anymore - we have advocates and complainers."
"The point of citizenship is you feel you are an insider," he said. "I think the real challenge is how people can learn to be citizens again."