When We All Vote: A Chance To Do Something Truly American
Richard S. Levick, Esq., Chairman and CEO, LEVICKWhat makes my family’s immigrant history so remarkable is how unremarkable it is – at least compared to other American families that have overcome even greater hardship and persecution.Both the Levicks and the Rosenblatts, my mother’s ancestors, came to America to escape the vicious anti-Jewish pogroms that terrorized Russia and Poland in the late 19th century. My grandfather Levick was still in swaddling clothes when his parents left behind their shtetl. I can only imagine how frightened they were as they took themselves and their toddler from horse-wagon, to train, to boat, to another boat, and after enduring many days of rough seas, stood on a crowded deck to admire the Statue of Liberty on their way to Ellis Island.My forebears weren’t alone. Jews fled the Tsar and his marauding Cossacks by the hundreds of thousands. The ethnicity, the geography, and the persecutors may be different, but that same story can be told about tens of millions of Americans, from the very beginning of the New World until today. It is probably why today I so embrace and relate to immigrants, from Mexico, Latin America, Africa, and beyond. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” is as sacred to me as the First Amendment.Regardless of where their journey originates, immigrants come here to seek a better life for themselves and their children. Many of them hail from autocratic societies where any possibility of achieving freedom of religion or the consent of the governed is a cruel joke.Repressed peoples continue to come here because America, for all our flaws, has been and – our citizenry willing – will remain an open and democratic society. How can we pay homage to our ancestors, who sacrificed so much so we can enjoy the fruits of freedom?
The answer is by practicing what was known in my formative years as “civilized democracy” – the values that those who came before imbued in us. Those values begin and end with one word: VOTING.Let me put it another way: our ancestors didn’t subject themselves to the hell of escaping Tsarist Russia, or famine-wracked Ireland, or corruption-plagued Central America, so that their descendants wouldn’t bother to vote or participate in America’s great experiment in democracy – the very thing that drew them to our shores in the first place.Many Americans say they feel hopeless these days – that the system is rigged against them. I understand that feeling and would be lying if I didn’t say I felt despair at times and needed to take the pulse of democracy to see if it was still breathing. Among our voter discouragements are unbridled candidate funding for the few, new obstacles at the polls, and gerrymandering that gives the U.S. Congress less turnover than the Politburo. It seems not all votes – or voters – are equal.Great laws and great progress – freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the civil rights and voting rights acts – are made not when one ideology governs, but when the learned disagree and discuss, rationally and heatedly, the intended and unintended consequences of actions in state legislatures, in Congress, and at the Supreme Court. Ideology is a filter designed to help us first understand how we will view an issue. After that, consideration, judgment, and discussion need to take place.Only through a well-balanced democracy can this second step be engaged. Voting is the first step in this thousand-mile journey.In the presidential campaign year of 2016, voting turnout declined to its lowest level in two decades. A CNN study points out that only about 55 percent of voting-age citizens went to the polls two years ago.Eight years earlier, with President Obama on the ballot, some 64 percent of voting-age citizens – nearly 19 million more voters than in ‘16 – went to the polls. Many tens of millions adult Americans aren’t even registered to vote. When you think about the difference the American Republic has meant to the world – 75 years ago this fall, virtually all of Europe remained under the bootheel of Nazi oppression, awaiting liberation from Allied troops – Americans’ indifference to participating in our democratic processes makes your heart ache.What can we do about it? As simple as it sounds, get more people to register, get more people to the polls, and get more people engaged in civilized democracy.My company, LEVICK, is part of a voter registration and education initiative sponsored by the Arthur Page Society called When We All Vote. The impetus behind When We All Vote is to reach out across the spectrum – Michelle Obama and Tom Hanks are co-sponsors along with Faith Hill and Tim McGraw – encouraging grassroots organizations to make voter registration a priority for their members, especially groups that appeal to younger people. The goal is to inculcate voting habits in young people now – and hope they stick for a lifetime.Voter participation always falls off for midterms, often quite dramatically. When We All Vote is also aimed at instilling better voter discipline across the board – getting voters to the polls every election, regardless of who or what is on the ballot.This great-grandson of Russian immigrants had the honor of teaching university students the politics of U.S. constitutional law some years back. I would begin the first lecture by emphasizing that the American experiment in democracy is fueled by the world’s longest-living constitution, a living, breathing, flawed document guiding an imperfect union that cannot endure unless people of conscience work to improve it. That exercise begins with voting.
About the Author: Richard Levick (@richardlevick) is chairman and CEO of LEVICK, a global communications and public affairs agency specializing in risk, crisis and reputation management. He is a frequent television, radio, online and print commentator and writes an occasional column for CommPRO.
