How agendas are formed in a democracy (according to Michael J. Fox)

Believe it or not, you can learn a lot about democracy in general, and the American political system in particular, from Michael J. Fox. Although his interest in politics dates back to his youth, Fox has become directly and intimately involved in the American political system over the past few years as a Parkinson’s disease sufferer and an advocate for stem cell research. His foundation, meanwhile, works diligently to fund and support research that could lead to better treatments.

Rather than turn to a heavier tome for this week’s democracy post, I’ll quote from a section of Fox’s latest book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future. He gets into more detail about his political experiences in his previous bestsellers, Lucky Man and Always Looking Up, but I’ll leave it to you to check those out.

“According to polling,” Fox writes, “most Americans favour federally funded stem cell research, so from a political perspective, why did we have to fight so hard for it to go forward? The answer is both basic and complex… As citizens, we all have beliefs, ethical concerns, fears, wants, and needs, in an order of importance known only to us. So the candidate and his pollsters endeavor to calculate which issues, as part of the larger matrix, we are willing to abandon or put aside. If you’re liberal to moderate, you probably favor stem cell reearch, and on your list of the ten issues most important to you, put it at eight. If you’re conservative and anti-stem cell research, you may have it in your top three. In the spirit of divide and conquer, a canny, uncommitted pol, with no strong personal commitment to one side or the other, realizes that the issue is more of a hot button for the conservative side, and pushes it to win the right.”

In other words, a political candidate’s take on an issue is formed not on the basis of its merits, necessarily, or even on the views of one side weighed against the views of the other. Rather, it’s all about which of those sides cares more, and how many votes they’re willing to cast in the candidate’s favour. That may be an obvious point, at least to the cynics out there, but it’s a point that bears repeating.

“I wanted to remind people that we were not dealing in the abstract,” Fox goes on to argue in the book. “This issue affects them as well as one hundred million other Americans, for whom it rises to the level of life or death. One thing I absolutely was not saying is that those on the other side of the issue have any less compassion, empathy, or concern for the sick and suffering. Many who oppose embryonic stem cell research feel just as strongly that theirs is a truly compassionate position.

“Politicians, however, by exploiting medical research as a ‘wedge issue,’ held the future hostage. So it was heartening to engage so many Americans in a conversation and empower them to make an informed decision, one way or the other. As it turned out, fifteen out of seventeen of the pro-stem cell candidates that I campaigned for in 2006 won their races.”

So what can we take away from all this talk about abstracts and wedge issues? Writing during a week in which same-sex marriage has risen back to the top of the American political agenda, I can’t help but wonder if the reason why we have such trouble winning victories for equal rights – in our country, not just in the States – is simply because the people who oppose them have more voting power than the larger numbers of people who support them.

Again, depending on your point of view, that might be an obvious point. I don’t have any hard numbers at my disposal, but I like to think that the majority of people support equal rights for homosexuals, racial minorities, and any other disadvantaged group. I mean, the 52% majority by which Proposition 8 passed in the first place isn’t exactly a clear mandate. But there’s fine and then there’s passionate – and evidently, when it comes to democracy, there are majorities and then there are majorities.

Homosexuals, for example, make up five to ten percent of the population. And I’m willing to bet that the people who make up the anti-same-sex marriage lobby – which I’ll admit I’m not as eager to hand the “compassionate” label as Fox is with the anti-stem cell research lobby – make up a much larger percentage of the population. Those are probably the people who consider same-sex marriage one of their top issues, regardless of their position on it.

Now, does that necessarily mean that the majority of voters oppose same-sex marriage? I don’t believe it does – and as a matter of fact, I believe it doesn’t. Once again, this is just an opinion, and I don’t have any hard numbers on which to base it. But I like to think that most people – or at the very least, more than fifty percent of people – think that same-sex marriage, or any similar legislation of equal rights, is the fundamentally right and decent way to go.

The problem is one of priorities, not wants. To make myself look like an idiot by paraphrasing the Spice Girls, there’s what you want, and there’s what you really, really want. When it comes to equal rights for same-sex couples, I believe that the number of people who want them outweigh the people who don’t – but unfortunately, the number of people who really, really don’t want them outweigh the number of people who really, really do.

And you know what? Let’s give credit where credit is due. The Christian right in the States, and maybe even in our own country, may be a bunch of horrible, hateful bigots. But they sure do know how to organize. And it’s got to be said that a major part of the reason why the left isn’t quite as unified is because so many of us are campaigning on just these sorts of minority issues, while paying little regard to building the sort of bridges among those movements that could truly lead to some real victories.

Some people argue that the question of same-sex marriage is one that only affects a very smaller minority – namely, the lesbians and gays who want to get married. That’s admittedly a much more reasonable position than the one taken by all the people who argue that same-sex marriage will somehow affect their oh-so-fragile straight marriages. But to my mind, it’s not nearly as reasonable as the position that anyone who values equal rights and democracy is negatively affected and hurt by the denial of equality to even a five-to-ten percent minority.

Now, I’m a young straight white man from a middle-class background, so feel free to take my opinion for whatever you happen to think it’s worth. But I think that if those of us who cared about equal rights and fairness in our society were to acknowledge the struggles of minorities as our collective struggle – and more to the point, get ourselves organized to vote on behalf of that struggle – then we’d get to see a dramatic shift in the polls, the votes, and the balance of power in our governments.

By the way, according to Amazon, it looks like the people who have bought Fox’s latest book have also tended to buy The Book of Awesome. Didn’t I tell you that this guy was on to something?

Posted in Democracy