Tree-Root Politics
Jonathan Bayliss
2003
Grass-roots politics may serve the purpose for immediate special causes or narrow temporary measures. But they die with the inevitable decline of enthusiasm, like grass at the end of its season. You have to start all over again for each new protest or special issue, for each separate cause or electoral candidate. But representative government is a seamless web of values and individuals continuously related to each other by cause and effect. How many citizens have the time or stamina for the perpetual enthusiasm or outrage of repeated or simultaneous grass-root campaigns?
It is much more effective to support as nearly as possible your entire set of values—if only by voting in regular elections—choosing candidates who are likely to reinforce each other, thus multiplying the weight of your single vote at the higher (and highest) levels of power. Such is the purpose of political parties. A consistent party slate, by and large, increases your political influence on the outcome of most or all the issues you care about—steadily and all year round, while you go about the business of daily living.
Not all Republicans think alike, but in effect all their local and state votes converge at the presidency. By the same token not all progressives are alike in opinions, but when all their votes converge within the breadth of the Democratic Party they can replace any regime in Washington that ignores the common good and defies its democratic allies.
This process of convergence outgrows and outlasts the life-cycle of level grass. Instead it resembles the life of a tree, whose roots join to form a trunk that supports and nourishes all the intertwined branches of government and public service—the whole lofty diversity of economic or cultural foliage.
If people of goodwill converge from their various but similar roots of interest, their community of values can rise like a hardy oak for all seasons, infinitely more representative of the common good than the uniform Republican spruce tree that’s always green with dollars and pointed at the top. The Democratic oak symbolizes the realistic recognition of a colorful just society in all its complexity, from acorn to winter twigs and summer leaves, generation after generation.
But a citizen’s goodwill tends to defeat its own purpose in casting votes simply on the basis of single issues or attractive personality. Each candidate for office is offered by a party. No political representative, at any level of office, whether or not privately in tune with that party on all issues, can help supporting the party’s characteristic program. It’s the winning party that controls the agenda of Congress through the all-important system of partisan committees, as well as the executive power that largely determines the supreme judicial power, not to mention military and international policies.
For instance, though it is true that a few Republican politicians are “environmentalists”, your vote for one of them will ultimately contradict your will if you are seriously concerned about the present and future condition of Mother Earth, because that same person will support the Republican organization of Congress, as well as a Republican president whose appointments and executive orders repeal, prevent, or hinder ecological improvement and protection of all kinds.
By the same token, as a Democratic voter, one or more of your own particular interests, even if not of special interest to a majority within the party, can often be carried to fruition on the strength of your fellowship as a member of the generally unified political family. This principle has been demonstrated over the years especially in civil-rights and environmental legislation.
So every vote for the party rises all the way up from the deepest far-flung rootlets to the uppermost and outermost buds of social progress. That’s the reason to vote for Democrats in every election.
But that’s not all. The reason to register as a Democrat is that you can participate in the planting and fertilization of the roots themselves. Even if you already vote Democratic without choosing to identify yourself as one of us, and even if you never go to a Democratic meeting or contribute a nickel to the Party, the addition of your name to the Democratic voting rolls will magnify your effect by impressing other voters with the viability of progressive party politics. The size of our partisan registry can warn Republicans to back off with their reactionary attacks upon the many generations of constructive accomplishments by our Party in both peace and war—and to moderate their determination to pack the courts with their “conservative” judges.
But above all, a larger official Democratic registration on the voting lists will encourage present Democratic office holders to be more outspoken in defending and proclaiming the values of a Party devoted to the common good, and in emphasizing what distinguishes us from Republicans.
It’s a moral imperative to vote. It’s a political imperative to register as a partisan.
