The Only Way Out is Through

If you’re a fan of good government and follow our local elected officials closely, you might be pretty distraught following the results of Tuesday’s election. The big money from big development once again won the day with little more than an intellectually-vacant onslaught of ideological rhetoric from dark money PACs.

No, things aren't likely to get better anytime soon, but that’s no reason to tuck tail or tune out. Quite the contrary, it should be seen as a call to arms, an invitation to organize early and expand the strong (if undersized) foundation of informed voters and activists who have long known that behind the listless bluster of the phony baloney politicians who run our county exists a cadre of self-serving puppetmasters with deep pockets and shallow values.

The obvious problem in Manatee County is that one party holds a significant advantage in terms of numbers and its turnout and voting habits are easily guided by a steady stream of polemicizing, culture war rhetoric delivered via glossy direct mail pieces, mass texts, robocalls, and internet ads that often have absolutely nothing to do with matters that come before the office being contested.

This is, by no means, an exclusively Republican phenomenon. There are blue states, such as California, in which Democratic forces enjoy a stranglehold on policymaking, ensured by the same sort of big-money, us vs. them, culture war fearmongering that pollutes our own system. The most obvious solution is to reform our campaign finance laws, which, post-Citizens United v. the FEC, all but ensure that big money will continue to dictate the direction of our country, exploiting whatever partisan advantage exists in either direction to their own benefit.

As soon as our Supreme Court decided that money was speech and corporations were people, the system that was in place was bound to submit to the almighty dollar even more than it already had. And considering the pro-corporate record of our current Supreme Court justices, that is unlikely to change in our lifetime. And if you’re waiting for a legislative fix, again, don’t hold your breath. Neither party has made serious efforts to cure Citizens United because, in truth, they both get to line up at a very big trough specifically because there is now so much more money in politics.

Other viable solutions, including ranked choice voting, have also been held at bay by a two-party system in which so many of the players profit wildly off of the status quo. The only thing both Republicans and Democrats truly seem to fear is the idea that the current duopoly and the license to print money it provides might transition into something that’s actually competitive. The fortunate mediocrists who are elevated in such a system loathe true meritocracy for obvious reasons.

That would seem to suggest that there are no silver bullet solutions and that the only way out really is through. I’m not sure exactly what that looks like. Perhaps it will come by way of accepting that the leadership of Manatee County is and will be decided by Republican voters for the foreseeable future and deciding that voters will have to give up being an NPA or voting in Democratic primaries if they are to have a seat at the table in their own community.

Registering without party affiliation might seem like a good way to signal your disdain for the Coke and Pepsi corporatists that rule both the RNC and DNC, but, increasingly in Manatee County, that also means you don’t get a say in some of its most important races. Currently, Manatee County has a whopping 75,000 voters in the "other" category. That's 27 percent of voters. And, because non-partisan races are the only ones they are able to participate in on primary ballots, their turnout tends to be abysmal, despite the fact that so many local races aren't on the ballot come November. "Others" turned out at a paltry 13 percent this year, compared to 38 percent for both Democrats and Republicans.

Furthermore, while Democrats who hold their nose and put an R next to their name might lose the ability to cast votes in their party’s primaries, I’d ask how many times in the past decade they were afforded the chance to vote in a competitive, meaningful primary election for any office–local, state, or national. I would bet dollars to donuts that it is not nearly as many times as they have been frozen out of having a voice by the write-in loophole and complete lack of Democratic opposition.

Case in point, on Tuesday, two of our county commission races took place with a majority of voters who will be represented by the winners unable to weigh in. As such, the idea that the people have spokenis laughable. But again, if you're waiting for the very people who benefit from the loophole to fix it just because it is undemocratic and violates the spirit of the statute enacted after voters overwhelmingly chose open primaries for races that have no opposition in the general election, don't hold your breath.

Finally, I’ll take this opportunity to remind readers of another reality. Big money only works when voters are not paying attention. An informed populace is not easily swayed, but an electorate that is increasingly dominated by low-information, tribal voters who consume culture war junk food and little to no real sustenance in their information diet can be counted on to take the bait of divisive, us vs. them mudslinging and turn out for their tribe rather than their own interests or that of their community at large.

Until we get enough voters connecting the dots between issues like traffic, overdevelopment, the destruction of natural resources and the threat posed not only to our quality of life but to our tourism-driven economy with the deep-pocketed developers funding the winning parties, we will continue to see results like the ones we witnessed on Tuesday. In recent cycles, Big Development and its henchmen political operatives have really dialed into what buttons they need to push to keep voters’ collective eyes off the ball.

Simply put, too many of the voters who turn out care far more about local candidates’ perceived ideological stances on issues that will never come before their board than they do about who is filling their campaign coffers and where they will stand on issues of those local concerns for which they will be asked to decide for our community on a regular basis.

Perhaps we must limit our conversations on social media to those issues that are in our backyard and avoid the useless, vitriolic debates on national issues (which solve nothing) until we collectively see how much more we have in common than we have to divide us when it comes to local issues that these officials will actually decide.

Again, I don’t claim to have the cure, just a good sense of the ailment. I also realize that if you’re reading this column, I’m likely preaching to the choir in terms of your civic participation. Nearly 700 readers weighed in on last week’s poll asking whether you thought the county administrator and BOCC were doing a satisfactory job handling county business. A staggering 97 percent responded, no. That shows an equally staggering detachment from Tuesday's results in which the current majority and administration it rubber stamps will only become more powerful. Again, the disconnect is palpable even when you consider that many of those respondents likely had no say in county commission races.

I’ll leave you with one silver lining. In the District 6, at-large Manatee County Commission race, a citizen activist named Carol Felts managed to get 6,000 votes in a closed Republican primary, despite having no money and facing two opponents who collectively enjoyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations and dark money PACs. That wasn’t nearly enough for a victory, but on a votes-earned per dollars spent basis, Felts was the winner in a landslide. Hopefully, that will encourage more activists to join the fray, especially in smaller district races that are not as impossible to win without big money.

The 2024 election is right around the corner and the time to start thinking about recruiting candidates and building a network of volunteers is right now. If we do not wish to see this community’s leadership further devolve into a hapless cabal of second-rate, corporate washouts who cry socialism as they enrich themselves at the public’s expense, all while their paymasters fleece us of our resources and their elevated flunkies continue to erode our bureaucracy, then we’ve got work to do, Manatee County. Are we up to the task?