The urgency of civics

American civics is the great neglected subject of the 21st century. Unfortunately, its decline and semi-demise occurred almost exactly at the same time as the internet and social media rose to prominence. The result is that the vast appetites and emotions of the broader society have been less and less tempered by actual knowledge of the logic, values, and aims of the American system. Consequently, we see assertions that are flagrantly wrong and easily seen as such. When it comes to the subject of civics, ascendant democratic socialists may have skipped class entirely.

I grew up during the Cold War, so the public schools of my youth went to some trouble to demonstrate to me the value of the American system over against the Soviet Union. Why was the Declaration of Independence important? What was special about the American constitution? What was the point of the separation of powers and checks and balances? What is good about federalism and the existence of the states as laboratories of democracy rather than just parts of a giant vox populi? My public elementary school emphasized patriotism with singing and colorful commemorations. I had civics instruction in middle school and then a full year of American government in high school. In both cases my teachers were credentialed in those subjects as opposed to being athletic coaches rounding out a schedule and giving students handouts to complete during class.

Without study and then the kind of thought that can come from writing papers and doing projects, so many people are left looking at the American constitution uncomprehendingly. Why do small population states get two senators? Why is there an Electoral College? The current crop of badly educated critics of the document have a single answer: racism. They spend little time considering that the states pre-existed the federal government and wanted to matter as states and not just as portions of an undifferentiated mass. Thinking about the states, is there value in having different models running at the same time as “laboratories of democracy?” Isn’t it better to figure out the successes and failures on a smaller scale before adopting them nationally? For that matter, isn’t there something good about maintaining some options in public policy for those who want to live in a state like California while others prefer Texas or Florida?

Americans have a form of government that frustrates the rapid exercise of power. In addition to the separation of powers and checks and balances between the three branches, think about how our elections are scheduled. The House of Representatives, the most immediately responsive democratic body, is up for reelection every two years. Our president stands for election every four years. U.S. senators serve terms that are six years in length with only one-third of the body up for election in any given cycle.

Do you see the picture? The entirety of the American national government is never fully exposed to the electorate in a single election year. Why is that? The founders were concerned about the destructive power of factions powered by the variable passions that may be generated by either reasonable politicians or demagogues. There are many obstacles, but they serve the purpose of making ideas win consensus over time rather than in a single wave.

Activists such as today’s democratic socialists clearly have no regard for the design I have described, but it seems to me that they have never even fairly considered it. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez writes off the U.S. Senate as a product of “Jim Crow,” rather than understanding that such a structure takes into account ideas from classical antiquity about how to construct a stable government. There is far more going on with the institutions of the Constitution than just slavery. Even a quick read through the Federalist Papers demonstrates the degree to which the founding generation was concerned with the problem of power and its abuse.

While the U.S. Constitution isn’t perfect, its restraint stands up very nicely against the parallel mania that consumed the French Revolution. By the way, it is only a small exaggeration to say the democratic socialists exhibit some of that same mania in their rhetoric and ambitions to utterly transform America.

It’s time for a rediscovery of civics and for a renewed appreciation for the things that are clearly good about the United States, its form of government, and our history. While the narrative has often been too rosy, the pendulum has swung in the direction of a ceaseless and debilitating deconstruction of the American experiment. The American founders really did build even “better than they knew” and set the stage for the rise of the nation that would oppose and defeat totalitarianism in its fascist and communist forms in the 20th century.

The 1619 Project should give way to a new Project 1989 focused on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the liberation of millions. We need a recovery of civics—and fast.