The “zeal gap”
5.12.2024
Hello friends,
First and foremost: a happy Mother’s Day to all, not just to those with children, but to all who do the work of mothers: those who nurture and care for others in so many invisible ways.
Coming up a week from Monday (May 20, 7:00 PM, Town Hall): our formal Dems of Davidson meeting, this month, on the theme of education and what is happening (and not happening) at the state level. We’ll hear about the Leandro case and about the Republican-sponsored voucher program, which has the unfortunate effect of taking scarce dollars away from public education. North Carolina is already 47th in the nation when it comes to expenditure per student, so this will not help. You can register for that meeting here.
As you know by now, these signups inform the County party of attendance at Area events, which allows us to stay in touch with future volunteers and to supply prospective donors with precise numbers when it comes to engagement. The party is asking that Area Groups all over the county do this, not just here in Davidson.
A few days ago, coming towards Davidson on Davidson-Concord Road, I passed by the intersection of Ramah Church Road, and there, on the shoulder of the busy highway, stood a man and his daughter, waving Trump signs and Honk if you Love America signs; this, in mid-May, months before the election. Clearly, these people are zealous about their candidate.
Driving on down the road, it occurred to me that I’ve not seen anyone standing by the side of the road waving Biden signs, and that led me to wonder about the “zeal gap” when it comes to candidates. Is that a problem?
Yes and no.
Yes, because it can happen that a focused and zealous minority overcomes the will of a tepid and divided majority. Nearly 70% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in the first trimester, and yet, an intensely focused and zealous anti-abortion movement has managed to force its position on the majority. Let’s not sit idly by and allow that to happen again!
On the other hand, the fact that we don’t have people by the side of the highway waving Biden signs need not be seen as a bad thing. In fact, zeal for any candidate might signal a structural problem. An obsession with the charismatic individual, who says, “I alone can fix it,” is essentially, deeply, anti-democratic. If we’re zealous for anything, it should be for the institutions that keep the democratic system alive and growing. These institutions, imperfect and frustrating though they may be, are the vehicles and vessels for democratic values like the rule of law, equal representation, and fair treatment for all.
It may be that Biden does not stir the soul of his followers to the depth that Obama or Bernie did, and certainly not to the extent that Trump does. That is not surprising and it is not necessarily a bad thing. Consensus builders by nature are not polarizing figures that centralize themselves. They work between factions, behind the scenes. Over his entire career, Biden has been a consensus builder, who has gotten things done through the art of compromise. It is one of his great strengths and something of which we can be proud. It may be that his reaction time is not what it once was when it comes to playing whack-a-mole, but his instincts are rock solid.
Joe Biden is a devoted servant of the institutions that embody and preserve our way of life, and we need not feel apologetic in the slightest degree for valuing those institutions over the siren call of any charismatic individual “who alone can solve our problems.”
And now, back out into this beautiful day. Have a splendid week, everyone.
Greg