A day after the 2024 elections, an astounding 86% of U.S. registered voters voted. That is a whopping 20% higher than the 2020 elections - which, at the time, was the highest turnout since 1900.
Election day exit polling showed that 80% of the voters want ‘substantial change’ in how the government is run.
What does this say about the 21st century ‘Office of Citizen’ in the United States of America?
Two or three hundred years before the Declaration of Independence, people living in Colonial America were subject to their environment and less to their king. The English subjects eventually tired of being the subject of a king and decided to take control of themselves and formed a new system of government. At its release, Benjamin Franklin told Elizabeth Powel, “It’s a republic if you can keep it.” That invitation to KEEP IT implies responsibility far beyond a vote - take note, Eliza couldn’t vote.
Countries like North Korea or Iran do not offer their citizens the same “KEEP IT” responsibility; they may only have the power to vote - a once-in-a-while activity. And as we've seen in America, just as in the recent vote, Americans really want to be part of the ‘KEEP IT’ process.
Due to monopolistic progressive civic education, people believe that voting is their only structure of government responsibility and, beyond that, they have no other power. That misconception needs to be changed. Be better understood by ALL Americans - regardless of their varying ideologies.
For months and years now, it has been argued that both sides of the election aisle were and are “Threats to Democracy.” But is the real threat to democracy the American people's neglect of the Office of Citizen - and not the savior or demon of one side or the other? The president's office is merely one chess square on a larger chessboard.
Former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter purportedly declared, “In a democracy, the highest office is the office of citizen.”
So then, what is the ‘Office of Citizen’ and what are its responsibilities?
For nearly a century, Progressives have argued that the office of citizen is a contest for meaning and that “the citizen is the ultimate authority for defining, implementing, and protecting… rights, and extending them to others.”
They say, “Citizens serve as custodians of a democracy… cultural officers…[who encourage] social friendship… willing to cooperate with one another.”
However, since the Progressive New Deal, the Progressive utopian view of the Office of Citizen has not materialized. Literally, civil participation in the United States has steadily declined since 1900! And the participation that has occurred was filled with violence and death - no wonder the American people presently neglect the Office of Citizen!
Consequently, modern civics education encourages the next generation to seek cultural change to change the present government system. It sensitizes the American student “to the deeper meaning of present practices…” and “provides the guideline for determining whether the change is progressive or retrogressive.”
The American student is also taught that “Democracy depends on understanding when a rule calls for a new interpretation, and democratic education involves developing the kind of disposition open to the formation of new interpretations when older ones become dysfunctional.”
There is a critical problem with the Progressive view of Democracy and the “Office of the Citizen” - that is, learning the system of government is de-prioritized within their civic education model.
Think of it: if the average American was taught how their body works or how other systems, like washing machines and cars, function, wouldn’t they be empowered to fix (KEEP) it? Why aren’t they then? Maybe it's because the Progressive model was never intended actually to empower the laymen citizens in the first place.
Imagine if they were. Wouldn’t understanding how government works come naturally? Especially if they were taught that government is a system and not a person - in the form of a savior.
What if they were empowered to see that the government is a system of words and that they have the right, beyond their vote, to KEEP or CHANGE IT? Wouldn’t the Office of Citizen take on a different meaning for them?
What if they were empowered to realize that the U.S. system of government was structurally designed to KEEP the governing from accumulating controls meant for them? Wouldn’t the KEEP IT responsibility within the Office of Citizen make more sense and encourage higher levels of civil participation beyond the periodic vote?
When the American people realize, beyond voting and the Progressive motivation to “CHANGE IT,” that they have an Office of Citizen, a responsibility to “KEEP IT,” then all of a sudden, the office of president is no longer viewed as a king or a savior for one side or the other. Instead, it is viewed as one tool of many in their toolbox, from which the citizens can exercise their office to KEEP IT.
Mark Herr is the Co-founder of Center for Self Governance, and a retired U.S. Air Force veteran,
Lex Howard is CEO of Balance of Nature, and Chairman of Liberty Village