Take a stand

by Anne Millbrooke, Bozeman

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame studied responses from 45,000 voting-age Americans, and they found that about half of the U.S. population expresses an attitude of democratic neutrality.

About half the voting-age population is unwilling to either support or oppose public policies and political practices that undermine democracy. That includes voters across the political spectrum, in both political parties, as well as independents.

“These ‘democratic neutrals’ are what the study’s co-authors consider some of the most dangerous voters in the current political environment,” according to the press release from the university.

Democracy is under attack, there is little public support for undemocratic practices, yet about half of Americans are unwilling to express an opinion or take a stand.

Personally, I blame authoritarian backers who make politics look dirty, who own the corporate media that discourage public participation in decision making, who encourage agitators to disrupt public meetings down to the local level, and who oppose funding public education.

I wondered what the experts found so I turned to the research article.

Matthew E.K. Hall, B. Tyler Leigh, and Brittany C. Solomon published their research under the title “The Overlooked Threat of Democratic Neutrality in the USA” in the prestigious journal Nature Human Behaviour.

The problem, as they defined it, is half of us don’t support or oppose undemocratic measures. Half are neutral. By being neutral, a person can become complicit in undemocratic practices such as censoring media outlets, denying election results, and jailing people without due process of the law set by democratic process.

“Neutrality can threaten democracy,” wrote Hall, Leigh, and Solomon.

The neutrality could be an expression of uncertainty, indifference, ambivalence, or conditionality, or an avoidance of expressing opinions.

The authors continued, “Like the few Americans who explicitly endorse violations of democratic norms, democratic neutrals do not seem to care whether politicians undermine democracy.”

The danger is that neutrality is being used by authoritarian and extremist movements, and facilitated by social media, misinformation, and political uncertainty.

Neutrality can erode democracy!

Democracy is a lifestyle of participating in decision making—at the ballot box, at public meetings, in public speech and print.

Democracy depends upon the individual, as well as the minority and the majority, expressing their opinions, saying what they think, on public issues. It is a messy deliberative process that allows each and every one the opportunity to influence public policies and practices.

Many of us have learned this through our introduction to parliamentary procedure in the Scouts, 4-H, or similar youth groups. As a tool of democracy, parliamentary procedure balanced the rights and considered the opinions of all present. The term parliamentary derived through Middle English and Old French from parler, parlier—to speak, talk. Civics class in public school reinforced the lesson.

Democracy enables a group of people to make fair and equitable decisions.

“We must take sides,” said Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

He explained, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

We must take sides. It is our right and our responsibility as citizens.

Take a stand.