A campaign season that once promised only dreary repetition has recently become hard to turn away from—with an assassination attempt, a national convention that gave a prominent speaking slot to a wrestling star, and the sitting president’s near-last-minute withdrawal from the race. The arresting, enticing, corroding stomach acids of American partisanship are as strong as ever.
The French philosopher Simone Weil warned about this condition near the end of her life. “Political parties,” she wrote in 1943, as World War II raged around her, “are organizations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice.”
“The partisan spirit,” she went on, “pushes even decent men cruelly to persecute innocent targets.” Certain scenes from party convention halls, past and present, might come to mind.
What infuriated Weil about political parties was how they teach people to confuse means for ends. Someone may join a political party to achieve a policy objective, or perhaps to find a sense of belonging. But since any party’s purpose is to win and wield power, Weil argued, it encourages a fundamentally totalitarian impulse.
“Unavoidably, the party becomes in fact its own end,” she writes. “This then amounts to idolatry, for God alone is legitimately his own end.”
Our creator calls us to a more magnificent kind of politics than any party—or any leader—can promise. God gave the Israelites their kings only reluctantly, and his messiah was not a victorious general but a crucified convict. Even the greatest biblical rulers were fatally flawed. The throughline, it seems to me, is God’s hope that we might see the divine image imprinted in each of us—as creator, judge, parent, child and so much more. We might even finally come to understand that, as Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is within you.”
The past few weeks have presented us with chances to experience a bigger sort of politics. We have witnessed Donald Trump’s courage under fire, followed by President Biden showing statesmanship by withdrawing from the race and enabling a new generation to lead. J.D. Vance’s faith-centered economic populism could herald a new consensus for helping families thrive. The Kamala Harris memes reveal just how much political life has been missing out on laughter, dancing and reveling in this country’s mosaic of cultures.
Even if just in passing moments, these figures have represented the possibility of a democracy based on finding the best parts of ourselves, not on simply winning the contest at all costs. For Weil, even democracy is only a means to an end. If it does not help us be freer to find God and truth, it is not worth keeping.
A democracy in service only to the victory of a party or a leader is one that obscures us from ourselves. The image of God in us, and our dignity as God’s creatures, become evident when we experience true self-governance. This happens when we can feel our own power and our interconnectedness, and when we find paths together that we could never find alone.
The most important political experiences of my own life have been ones where political parties had little role. There was a campaign to change the admissions policy of my high school through the county school board. There was a jury in Brooklyn, where I had to find consensus with people from many walks of life. There were social movements in the streets that refused to accept only the options that politicians were willing to offer.
We will not see God’s image in ourselves simply by electing a leader who claims that he alone can save us, or one who promises to defend institutions that are crumbling under our feet. There are other kinds of politics, and a few of them are listed below. Grabbing hold of them can help keep us from falling fully into the quicksand of election-year partisanship. They can help us see ourselves and each other without only seeing red or blue.
First, countries around the world are experimenting with forms of participation that do not rely on partisan institutions. Participatory budgeting, for example, enables community members to identify and decide on priorities for allocating public funds.Citizen assemblies select members from a population at random to gain deep knowledge and identify solutions on problems that have confounded elected legislators. These processes give ordinary people the space, time and authority to be architects of their communities. They also do not assume that the people who should have power are the same people who seem to want it most.
Second, the movement for economic democracy enables people to co-govern the businesses they rely on for their livelihoods or essential needs. The craving for this kind of participation has been demonstrated recently through surges of interest in unions, cooperatives and even cryptocurrencies. These offer the possibility—but not the guarantee—that we might exercise our wisdom by shaping systems that would otherwise be under the control of banks and bosses.
“We aspire to economic development not as an end, but a means,” said Father José María Arizmendiarrieta, the founder of the Mondragon Corp., a federation of worker cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain. Another of his frequent sayings: “The cooperative ideal is to make people more human.”
Third, the growing need to reshape online life—especially social media platforms—presents an opportunity to experience everyday democracy, rather than just deferring to legislators and C.E.O.s. My recent book Governable Spaces shows how the design of the internet so far has kept people from the small-scale democratic practices that are so essential for a healthy democracy at the highest levels. But it also introduces technologists and communities working to build networks where users can solve problems democratically—and cultivate their democratic skills. Even big tech companies are starting to get involved in this effort.
As we head into this election season, consider how you can ground yourself in a politics bigger than the idolatry of parties or politicians. This does not mean we can float above the moment, nor should we abandon the bonds of solidarity that parties offer. Parties and their leaders may be useful and even necessary. But we must never let them become ends rather than means.
Regardless of whom you support, find ways to have conversations and create spaces that enable you to build bridges and cross lines. Remember that partisan elections are only one kind of politics. Practice other kinds as well.
I know who I want to win, and I will work to help them. But I will also keep that affinity in check with other commitments. There is a sweeter victory in finding the image of our creator in ourselves and others.
[From 2018: “How to survive Trump: End the cult of the presidency.”]
