Who will save America? Will it be John McCain or Barack Obama?
Which presidential candidate has the smarts, charisma and intelligence to fix our economy, deal with Iraq, address rising oil prices, eradicate poverty, lead democracy and put the nation on a better moral track?
It’s a trick question and every four years we pound our heads against a wall trying to answer it, says Dana Nelson, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English and American Studies at Vanderbilt University.
Her answer is, "Neither." If we want to save America, we have to do it ourselves.
"The president-as-superhero myth promised all the democracy with none of the work," writes Nelson in her new book, Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People. "As such, it teaches citizens to admire rule by strong individuals and to abjure the messy workings — disagreements, slow debates, compromise, bargaining — of actual democracy."
In the book, published by the University of Minnesota Press, Nelson urges citizens to embrace the very thing candidates always promise to curtail with their leadership — arguing.
"We’ve been developing an appreciation for productive disagreement in business and knowledge culture and I think we need to bring that appreciation into our political culture to remake the way we conduct democratic business," Nelson said.
In the book, Nelson tracks the steady drive by presidents — since Abraham Lincoln used the Civil War to increase executive power — to move more and more clout from the hands of the people to the Oval Office.
Most of the time this power shift occurs because of fears about foreign relations or war powers, Nelson said. And when the people step up to contribute, they’re often told to stop.
Nelson offers the response by citizens in New York following the Sept. 11 attacks as an example.
"In this calamity, the people instantly emerged as the lifeblood and force of the country, risking their lives, rescuing strangers, coordinating shelter, relief and recovery," Nelson writes. "The nation faced a crisis, and the response was democratic power in action: The people took the lead."
But President Bush’s speech at Ground Zero on Sept. 14 "activated the powers of presidentialism, signaling that we should all stop worrying and go home," Nelson writes.
"Soon, he would make this message literal, telling American citizens that the best response to this extraordinary act of terror and crisis into which it threw the country was simply to conduct business as usual: go to work, go to school, go on trips, go shopping.
"As the nation’s symbolic hero, President Bush soothingly and effectively deactivated citizen heroism and civic agency."
"Democracy is not something that’s practiced just in government," she said. "Democracy is something you can work on in your business, social and religious communities. It’s all about trying to get involved with people genuinely different from you so don’t just encounter people with whom you already agree politically."
For review copies, contact Heather Skinner at the University of Minnesota press at (612) 627-1932 or presspr@umn.edu.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu