But the hashtag activists we met in this chapter have been instrumental in changing the narrative of contemporary American politics. As Occupy protester Matt Brandi says:
The objective of Occupy was to change the direction of the national dialogue and debate. . . . By appearing in strong numbers and generating media interest (both new/social and commercial/mass), Occupy was able to influence the national dialogue. We protested about inequality and exploitation, the corruption of our government by wealth and influence; and while we did not make “demands,” people began to talk about inequality, exploitation, and the corruption of democracy. The very way people talked and thought about these issues changed.
What Matt is suggesting was at stake for the Occupy protesters was, in the language of political scientists, agenda setting. A problem not defined as a problem, or not on the national agenda, cannot be solved by public action. It worked for the Occupy protestors who saw income inequality become a major issue between President Obama and his 2012 Republican challenger, Mitt Romney
It was that effort to change the narrative, and to put real political effort behind it, that encouraged the kids in the March for Our Lives project to spend the summer registering young people and getting them fired up to vote for changes in the gun laws. Although the gun laws remain stubbornly the same, the narrative has begun to change. Young people voted in huge numbers for a midterm election and the policy change is likely to follow the change in narrative.
In the same way, the It Gets Better Project helped change the narrative on both bullying and gay rights. In the years since the movement began in 2011, as more and more “mainstream” people have posted videos promising LGBT youth that it does indeed get better, the world in fact has gotten better. Certainly, the It Gets Better Project was not solely responsible for these changes, but in significant ways it helped change the narrative that made the changes possible.
And the debates over systemic racism and intersectionality in the 2016 election, at least on the Democratic side, make clear that Black Lives Matter had changed the narrative on race, too. President Obama had been cautious about making race a centerpiece of his administration, but his presidency and the BLM movement freed Hillary Clinton, as candidate, to address it in a more comprehensive way.
These movements highlight the value of grassroots action, and the power of stepping outside the system to put pressure on the status quo to respond to unmet and even previously unvoiced needs. It might not have been what Benjamin Franklin had in mind, but occupying the republic may very well be another means of keeping it.
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Review
What Is Politics?
Politics (6) is the struggle for power (6) and resources in society—who gets what, and how they get it—including control of information via the media (6). We can use the tools of politics to allocate scarce resources and to establish our favored vision of the social order (6).
Government (7) is an organization set up to exercise authority (7)—power that citizens view as legitimate (7), or “right”—over a body of people. It is shaped by politics and helps provide the rules (8), norms (8), and institutions (9) that in turn continue to shape the political process. Control of political information—that is, defining the political narrative (9) or acting as a gatekeeper (10)—is also a crucial form of power.
Politics is different from economics (11), which is a system for distributing society’s wealth. Economic systems vary in how much control government has over how that distribution takes place, ranging from a capitalist economy (12) (or regulated capitalism [12], like that of the United States), where the free market reigns but government may provide procedural guarantees (12) that the rules are fair, to a socialist economy (12), where government makes substantive guarantees (12) of what it holds to be fair distributions of material resources. Social democracy (13), a market economy that aims to fulfill substantive goals, is in the middle.
Political Systems and the Concept of Citizenship
Economic systems vary according to how much control government has over the economy; political systems vary in how much control government has over individuals’ lives and the social order. They range from totalitarian governments (14), where an authoritarian government (14) might make substantive decisions about how lives are to be lived and the social order arranged, to anarchy (15), where there is no control over those things at all. Short of anarchy is democracy (15), based on popular sovereignty (15), where individuals have considerable individual freedom and the social order provides fair processes rather than specified outcomes. Various economic-political systems include authoritarian capitalism (14) and advanced industrial democracy (16), as well as communist democracy (16), a theoretical possibility with no real-world examples.
An authoritarian government might be a monarchy, a theocracy, a fascist government, or an oligarchy. People who live in such systems are subjects (16), unable to claim rights against the government. Theories of democracy—elite democracy (15), pluralist democracy (15), and participatory democracy (15)—vary in how much power they believe individuals do or should have, but all individuals who live under democratic systems are citizens (16) because they have fundamental rights that government must protect. The idea that government exists to protect the rights of citizens originated with the idea of a social contract (18) between rulers and ruled. The idea that people have individual rights over the power of the state is a hallmark of classical liberalism (18).
Democracy in America
The American government is a representative democracy called a republic (19). Two visions of citizenship exist in the United States: self-interested citizenship (20) holds that individual participation in government should be limited, and that “too much” democracy may be dangerous; public-interested citizenship (20) puts its faith in the citizen’s ability to act virtuously for the common good. Modern communication and hashtag activism (23) have enabled citizens, especially digital natives (20), to engage more efficiently with their government and each other, creating new venues for civic engagement and challenging traditional control of the political narrative. However, today’s mediated citizens (20) rely on self-tailored media streams that can back us into information bubbles (23).
Who Is a Citizen and Who Is Not?
Immigrants (25) are citizens or subjects of another country who come to the United States to live and work. Legal immigrants may be eligible to apply for citizenship through the process of naturalization (25). Some people arrive here as refugees (25) seeking asylum, or protection from persecution, subject to permission from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.