American politics at its best

Beyond the national divisions of the presidential race, civility and neighborly trust largely rein in local government.

The Monitor's View

The world will be watching next week’s presidential election in the United States for clues on the health of American democracy. A better measure might be community pancake breakfasts.

That’s because the way Americans view politics and each other changes in meaningful ways closer to home. “The good news is we’re much less ideologically polarized than we think,” notes Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior scholar on democracy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“When you look at how people feel about their politics in terms of can they have agency, can they get things done, local politics is really where it’s at, and that agency matters,” she told “You Might Be Right,” a podcast of the University of Tennessee, last month.

The discrepancy of faith in democracy between the national and community levels is striking. Almost 60% of Americans worry the Nov. 5 election will be tainted by fraud, an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found earlier this month. A separate survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, however, found that 74% of Americans are confident that their votes will be counted accurately in their own community.

While voters express exhaustion with national politics, they thrive on local political competition. Contested mayoral elections in small towns consistently draw some of the highest levels of voter participation in the country, according to a paper published last month in the journal Urban Affairs Review. In Michigan, a state that may help decide who wins the presidency, a study by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan this month found that civic trust in local institutions outpaces confidence in most state or national institutions.

These indicators reflect what Cindy Black, executive director of Fix Democracy First in Seattle, sees as a “democracy renaissance.” Across the country, a widening network of civil society groups is tapping into new civic enthusiasm, particularly among younger people. They hold community fundraisers to support college scholarships, rally neighbors to protect local environments, and work with local officials to protect voting access.

“Despite what is going on I am very optimistic, because I see more groups and community leaders talking to each other than they had before,” Ms. Black told Danielle Allen, a Harvard professor.

Such goodwill and civility at the grassroots may be having an upward influence. In Johnson County, Kansas, for example, Republican and Democratic candidates for state offices feel voters pulling them back toward the center. “People are tired of the vitriol,” Karen Thurlow, a Democrat seeking a seat in the state Senate, told The Beacon, a local newspaper.

Since May, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah has urged a similar theme through the National Governors Association, asking his colleagues from both parties to uphold election results and recognize the humanity and decency of their political opponents.

“The survival of constitutional democracy depends on people learning to practice democracy at the grassroots level,” Professor Allen wrote recently in The Washington Post. “This entails committing to the rule of law, to constitutionalism, to nonviolence, to inclusion, and to taking responsibility for the health of our communities.”

Pancake breakfasts may capture what polls cannot. Where Americans live and mingle, partisan divides still yield to neighborly care.