In 2012, 52% of American adults voted. That means that almost half of the people over the age of 18 did not cast a ballot during the last presidential election. So why don't people vote? Good question. America prides itself as one of the world's great democracies. So how can we explain why more than 100 million Americans simply don't vote? More than 40% of the eligible population. And why does America rank almost dead last when it comes to turnout rates in developed countries? I voted in about eight years and because I have a lot of knowledge about politics, I just think that it's a waste of my time because whoever's going to get in the office is not going to be influenced based on what my goals are or what my needs are or what the public needs are. The new Gallup-Bentley University poll gives new insight into how Americans view institutions which have the power to influence and influence to act in society's best interests. The federal government gets the lowest mark. A third of those surveyed said they don't trust Washington at all. You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Nkepidiche. I'm Hannah McCarthy. And today we complete our episodes on why various groups in America are having a tough time. And you know what? This one's for you. All of you. Civics-wise, I mean, I don't know you and what you're going through in your life, but I'm talking about having faith in our democracy, faith in our government, and believing that we as Americans can actually do anything about it whatsoever. And I swear, Hannah, on my sock of harmonicas in my board game collection, this episode is going to be just full of good news. Pinky swear. Friends don't lie, McCarthy. Stick around. As America marks its 250th anniversary, we're looking back at two and a half centuries of rebellion and liberty through the eyes of the heroes who defended it. The whole thing about this country is freedom. If we're not careful, we could lose that. I'm JR Martinez, a U.S. Army veteran. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, we bring you the defining moments of valor that went above and beyond the call of duty. Listen to Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, wherever you get your podcasts. So I want to go back to how I started this series in the first place. The first day, the opening ceremonies of Civic Learning Week in Philadelphia. Hannah and I are walking around talking to teachers and students in the heads of various organizations, and Jill Lepore gets on the stage. It's a pleasure to welcome her here today for her keynote remarks, Professor Lepore. Now, for those of you who don't know Jill Lepore, you really, really should. She's an historian, a journalist, a professor of history at Harvard University. We interviewed her for an episode on how we vote a long time ago. And she recently won a Pulitzer for her book, We the People, a history of the U.S. Constitution. So naturally, when Jill Lepore got on the stage, I thought she was going to talk about something to do with James Madison or the Constitutional Convention. But instead, she starts by sharing a statute that is on the law books in Vermont. An act relating to designating the state pie and the state fruit is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont. The state pie shall be apple pie. When serving apple pie in Vermont, a good faith effort shall be made to meet one or more of the following conditions. A, with a glass of cold milk, B, with a slice of cheddar cheese weighing a minimum of a half an ounce, C, with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream, also the state fruit shall be apple. Now, there are two kinds of people in this room. There are people who are thinking, doesn't the Vermont legislature have anything better to do? And then there are people who are thinking, my God, this is what good government looks like. One thing that's special about this legislation is that it was written by elementary school children. A member of the Vermont House of Representatives, Ed Packwin, who was going to give kids a tour of the state house, he said, you know what, if these kids are going to get on a bus and come all the way down here, they shouldn't just walk around and listen to what I have to say. They should actually create a law. They learn about how laws get made, and then they prepare for that field trip. And I picture them arguing about what kind of a law they want to propose, meeting with their legislature, legislator Ed Packwin, asking him questions, touring the state house, seating in its funny, fancy seats, getting dressed up for the field trip. It's got everything that civic education requires. The study and doing and exercising of rights and duties, the study and exercising of community rules, of conversation, of determination and action. And it also has ice cream. Vermont's not alone. A lot of states do this. And it's great. And it is not. Always this fun, cute story of kiddos going and seeing some innocuous bill get passed. For example, in 2015, a group of students in New Hampshire proposed a bill to make the red-tailed hawk the state raptor. They wore this t-shirt as they spoke to a subcommittee, then in the gallery. They understood the bill could fail, and it did, but some of the debate still stings. And not only did this bill fail to pass, but it was mocked and derided on the floor by members of the house. One lawmaker was like, what's next, a state hot dog? And another one, I'm just going to let his words speak for themselves. But it grasps them with its talons and then uses its razor sharp beak to rip its victim to shreds, tear it apart limb by limb. And I guess the shame about making this a state bird is it would serve as a much better mascot for Planned Parenthood. Wow. Yeah. How old were these kids? They were in fourth grade. They were sitting up there in the gallery just excitedly waiting to see their legislation make the red-tailed hawk the state raptor. I am really sorry to hear that that is the reaction they had to hear. I don't think that kids should have to listen to things like that. But I do have to say it is an accurate representation of politics and the legislative process. Any bill, no matter how innocuous, runs the risk of being used as a straw man to further a political agenda. Yeah, it does. And let me add, nowadays in the world of omnibus legislation, it would not be surprising to me to find an amendment sneaked into an apple pie bill that creates a funding package for a concrete production plan. Can I play the John Stewart clip on this, Hannah? Oh, is this the one where he was trying to get legislation passed that would help pay for the medical bills of 9-11 responders? Yeah, that one. All right, go ahead. And I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation for why. It'll get stuck in some transportation bill or some appropriations bill and get sent over to the Senate where a certain someone from the Senate will use it as a political football to get themselves maybe another new import tax on petroleum. Because that's what happened to us in 2015. I tell you, that clip never gets old. That right there is maybe one little part of the reason why people can feel quite cynical about our government these days. But the purpose of me telling everyone about the Vermont ice cream bill and the New Hampshire State Raptor bill, which eventually passed four years later, by the way, is that students were, for one day, actually part of our government. And school, even not during field trips to state houses, school is the primary place where Americans learn what it means to be a citizen. Sometimes have rules, some have their own constitutions that the students draw up at the start of each year with their teacher. Teachers teach students every day how to be civil with one another, how to talk, how to disagree, how to listen, how to advocate for what they want and what they need. It also used to be that there were many, many other civil society institutions that did this work exceptionally well. Raising Democratic citizens, inculcating the habits of representation, participation, and deliberation. Those institutions included labor unions, temperance societies, YMCA's, chambers of commerce, chapters of the Urban League, the Farmers Grange. All of those institutions are in decline. And frankly, I think it's important to note that K-12 public education is by some measures the only civil society institution that is really left standing. So students learn and practice this in school. All right. What about the rest of the time? The rest of their lives. What is their role in the legislative process? What say do they have in the federal and more importantly state laws that actually govern them? They can protest, they can argue on social media, they can write their congressperson. But when it comes to creating a law, to actually changing how things work in this country, the only thing they have really is once they turn 18, their vote. Every four years or two years, if they're politically active, they can say who they want to represent them. And they hope, if that person wins, that that person will generally do stuff that makes their lives better. And to get real civics 101 here, all laws that are written and passed must be applicable under your state constitution. And then those statutes must be in accordance with the constitution, the supreme law of the land. And whether or not they are is determined by nine unelected officials who serve for life. You see what I'm getting at here, McCarthy? I do. A lot of people have a pretty limited set of tools when it comes to actual change. So Hannah, if I asked you after we turn off our microphones to tell me 10 laws that you personally feel would make this country better, you could do that, right? I can think of a lot of things I would like to figure out how to pass laws about. What about amendments to the constitution? Possibly, but of course, amendments are far more difficult to pass than local laws. We have only amended the federal constitution 27 times. The last time was in 1992 and it wasn't even a new amendment. It was originally proposed in 1789. Amendments require two thirds of both chambers of Congress and three quarters of all states. Yeah, very hard. Now there is another way to amend the constitution, which we've talked about, but it's not talked about a ton because the odds of it actually happening are pretty slim. That method is for two thirds of all the state legislatures to call a convention to amend the constitution. I am admittedly thinking about it sort of through a Frank Capra lens. Thirty-four state legislatures all waving goodbye on a train platform, crowds cheering, we're going to DC and we're going to figure this out. Frank Capra aside, it shocked me to my core. When Jill LePore told the audience, yeah, this has never happened, but states did have conventions to amend their constitutions. U.S. states used to hold constitutional conventions all the time. Meetings in rooms like this have elected delegates who were elected to write or revise state constitutions, which were then sent back to voters for ratification. These conventions were widely reported in the newspaper, avidly followed by ordinary people. There was an effect, a near unceasing constitutional argument going on all over the United States all the time. Remember, laws govern people, but constitutions govern governments, so holding these conventions was a way of asking, really frequently, is this how we wish to live or ought we to amend our fundamental law? You could actually vote for someone because you thought they were going to come up with something cool, and if the people liked it, they would vote to ratify it. How many state constitutional conventions have been held in total? So far in the U.S., 233. The most recent state to actually have one was Rhode Island, and it did so in 1986. But I think Jill's point is that when we did this all the time, we actually were involved in how our government worked. We were part of it. Americans learned about constitutional democracy by writing and revising and ratifying or protesting state constitutions and by following that process in the newspaper. A convention is the provided machinery of peaceful revolution, said one U.S. senator. The very act of assembling, of gathering, gatherings like these, the convention itself became the symbol, the visible enactment of the sovereignty of the people. As the Supreme Court of Indiana put it in 1855, a constitutional convention of eminent citizens is the substitute for the armed mob of other countries. The convention was the way that we interacted with the government, and other non-governmental systems too. Because these state constitutional conventions before the Civil War, they were for white men and for white men only. But all of the people excluded from these kinds of meetings held their own conventions in which they drafted, ratified, and amended their own constitutions and statements of purpose and principle and organized petition campaigns and proposed amendments to federal and state constitutions. Black men held what were called colored conventions where they elected delegates in what can properly be considered extra-constitutional conventions. Between 1830 and 1861, black delegates met in 49 conventions in the state's two regional conventions and 11 national conventions. There were conventions to determine women's rights. There were native nation conventions to amend their own constitutions. The Milton abolitionist John Brown held a convention that wrote a constitution. When the southern state seceded, they held conventions that wrote constitutions. Americans in these years invented the first nominating convention in 1831, and everyone knew what it meant to be the writer of your own constitution. Nick, it sounds magical and involved. And well, fun, but we don't do it anymore. We don't, which isn't to say we won't ever again, but we really don't do conventions these days. And maybe that's one of the reasons we feel politically powerless. So to that point, I spoke with someone who wrote about what Americans can actually do when they feel that way. And I'm going to tell you about that right after the break. All right, so just the other day, I took a bus from Portland, Maine, where it was cool and breezy, to Manhattan, New York. 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Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products out there, integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time from startups to scale-ups, online, in person and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. We're back. You're listening to Civics 101 and today we are talking about why Americans, full stop, are civics wise, a little disengaged. So Nick, you said you had some tips in terms of what Americans can do besides vote. And by the way, please vote if you are eligible to get the change they want. So let's hear it. Yeah. You know, like I thought about this in different ways. I mean, one way to say it quickly is that a lot of people want to pay attention to important things and not themselves be important. This is Aetan Hirsch. My name is Aetan Hirsch. I'm a professor of political science at Tufts University and I'm the new director of our Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education. All right. So what is the Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education? Their mission is to help students quote, more broadly embrace difficult topics and challenging conversations to break out of ideological bubbles to drive research and teaching forward. End quote. So Aetan told me his students at Tufts were, by an overwhelming majority, liberal. The culture on campus and I think in the public was very constrained. It was hard to ask questions about, you know, the other side of issues, even ones like gerrymandering or voter ID laws where the conversation felt like very, very hard to learn about what other people were seeing on these same issues as our students were. Inspired me to design a whole course on conservatism and public policy. Aetan is also the author of a book, Politics is for Power. How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action and Make Real Change. Oh, that's right. This is the book that you talked about in another episode where Aetan compared someone thinking they're politically engaged by following politics obsessively, reading the news, watching the news to a sports fan considering themselves a quarterback by watching the Super Bowl. It is. When you're paying attention to national politics, when you're paying attention to something like that's happening on the Supreme Court, that's happening in Congress, like that stuff is important, but you have no role. Like you have no role to play in that. So you are not an important person. And if we reframe what political activity ought to be mostly about, it's about ways where an individual could actually be important. And I'm going to reiterate the name of Aetan's book here, Politics is for Power. So think of, I don't know, five things that you did this month that could be tied to politics. Sharing an article, having an argument with a relative, reading a Supreme Court opinion, listening to the news, whatever. And then ask yourself, how did this action change the power structure? How did it move power from a place or a party or a person you don't feel has your best interest at heart to a different place that does? What are the actions that do actually shift power? Unsurprisingly, Hannah, and I know, yes, we say this all the time, but this time I'm saying it in thunder, it is through state and local politics. It's kind of remarkable actually how easy it is to get power at the local level. If you just think about the fact that, you know, we live in a country where, you know, we have something like 15% voter turnout at the local level. Not that many people are civically engaged. If you want to be, it's like really not that hard. So the way that you make a difference in your own community, in the laws that are happening in your town, it could be an electioneering activity, it could be in a political campaign, getting different people elected, it could be in lobbying or advocacy, but like you actually understand the connection between what you are doing and the outcome that you see, like the strategic outcome that you want, then you are like an important person all of a sudden. And then you don't have to feel that sense of dismay. I think, you know, it's really damaging for people to have such a national orientation towards politics where they will always feel like they have no will to play. So if you want to lose that sense of dismay, if you're tired of feeling unimportant, you have to do some research to find out who, where you live, is doing work that you support and is doing work that has an effect. So the first thing is to think about like what organizations around you have a strategic mindset, like they actually have a set of goals they're trying to do. In my book, I highlight all these examples of a Latino coalition in Massachusetts that had a big effect on city politics, an electioneering group in Pennsylvania that is, you know, moving people towards its political goals. Also like a 90 year old guy in an old age home that gets people supporting the candidates that are important to his constituency. Some of this stuff could be solitary. It's usually not as fun when solitary. So Hannah, you were a reporter at NHPR before you came to the podcast unit, right? I did. I covered the New Hampshire State House, local politics, that sort of thing. Did you ever go to a town meeting? Yeah. I can remember at least one that I attended. It was people actively being a part of their political process, even if they were simply making decisions about, you know, getting a new fire truck or something. And then in terms of the state house, committee hearings were my favorite to cover. Right. Tell me about those. What were they? So in New Hampshire, it is a tried and true tradition that bills proposed in the House or Senate get a committee hearing and a vote on the floor. And anyone can look up when the hearing might be for a particular piece of legislation and just attend. You can then testify in front of the committee, explain to them that you support a bill or oppose it and why. So this sort of thing, the committee hearing or the town meeting, these are the rooms where the power lives and moves. So Etan told me about one time he was at a zoning board meeting with some of his students in a town in New York state. And it turned out that there was a woman who basically attends the weekly zoning board meeting of this town and has been doing it for years. And she's done it. You know, I don't know what night it is. Like Wednesday nights for two hours, she, instead of watching Netflix, she goes to the zoning board meeting and she's developed real expertise. She has a perspective. She has goals around, you know, what should be built and what shouldn't be built. She's kind of a thorn in the side of this zoning board. You know, I only saw this interaction for a couple hours, but you know, I don't think she has a constituency, but she has actually a substantial amount of power in her town because she knows the procedures of how this is supposed to work. She knows what she can raise a stink about. And it was sort of remarkable to see someone who actually doesn't have a church group, advocacy group, a campaign, just one person. But you know, if you just sort of are persistent and you're like, I'm going to do this every week. And by the way, it's kind of interesting. Like I will both be smarter for it. When I see my friends later in the week, I'll be able to tell them some like fun war stories. I think we've all met some version of this person. And I appreciate the fact that this person who, you know, might be the thorn in the side of the committee hearing, the person who everyone in town knows, the person who maybe gets an IRL is recognized for being in a way one of the most powerful people around. Yeah. So if you're a listener to Civics 101, I'm going to make the leap of faith here and assume you're someone who cares about politics. So I want to end this episode with a personal request. Find something that you care about and then figure out how that thing is affecting you in the town or the city where you live. Search for a local group that is actively working to change that thing and go to their next meeting. And when you're there, look for the power and try to figure out how this group tries to shift it. The thing that politics is, is to get power so you can do what you want. That's what politics is. If you're not trying to get power so you can do what you want, by do it all on, I mean do selfishly what you want, but do what you think is right for the government or it could be selfishly. If you're not doing politics for power, you're just not doing politics at all. You're doing some other thing, which I call political hobbyism, which is like, you know, the same thing as, you know, equivalent to some kind of sports fandom. This is what people in power do. So why not you? That is it for this episode on why we're having a tough time. And that is it for this whole series on myriad groups having a tough time. Huge shout out to iCivics who collaborated with us on these. Again, if you're not familiar with their work, check it out. This episode is made by me, Niccapodice, with you, Hannah McCarthy. Thank you always. Our staff includes Dana Cattaldo, Marina Henke, and executive producer Rebecca LaVoy. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions, Azira, Epidemic Sound, and the power shifter of powered chords, Chris Zabriski. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio. Have you ever wondered why Reese Witherspoon founded Hello Sunshine or where Kevin O'Leary got his start? Or even how Alex Earl became the most accessible founder to someone who may not even consider this space? Enter the founder mindset. The new podcast from Harvard Business School Foundry hosted by me, Reza Satchu. As a leading educator in entrepreneurship, I've built multiple high profile companies and mentored thousands of students and founders through the realities of starting and scaling ventures. 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