AMERICAN LIBERALISM AND THE DEMOCRATIC DREAM: TRANSCENDING THE AMERICAN DREAM

The "American Dream" is a compromise between an elitist dream and a democratic dream. While citizens enjoy equal political and legal rights, democracy is undermined in the economic sphere by vast inequalities of wealth, status and power. The American Dream can and should be transcended through a rediscovery of the "democratic dream" of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a defender of popular government and equality, who viewed vast inequalities of wealth as incompatible with a society of free and independent citizens living together in social harmony. Jefferson favored a variety of policies to expand economic equality. In Jefferson one finds an authentically American set of ideas for challenging the consensus that limits democracy to political and legal rights.     

REMOBILIZING THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE

Registration barriers have been under sustained assault since the Ken- nedy Administration, yet participation in elections continues to decline. By the 1980s turnout in presidential and congressional elections was below what it was in 1960. The demographic correlates of participation–age, education and roots within the community–have also grown stronger, predicting to an increased turnout. Registration procedures are important and substantial changes in such practices are recommended. Without the reforms of the last generation, it is probable that turnout would have decreased even more substantially. However, the principal barriers to full participation are the quality and content of contemporary American politics. Non-participation is a threat to democratic government, yet the disintegration of the center in politics, the failure to exercise leadership or to offer relevant candidacies and policy alternatives, the weakening of the political parties, the unresponsiveness of political institutions, the trivialization of politics through the media have all contributed to public cynicism and disinterest. The need is to find new and more responsive alternatives for public involvement in governance.