Civic Engagement Today: A Commentary on the Demise of ACORN, the Growth of the Tea Parties, and the College Civic Engagement

Let's start with the good news. According to the recently published 2010 Civic Health Assessment by the National Conference on Citizenship , nearly 60% of Americans have reached out in 2008 and 2009 to help their neighbors and approximately 16% do so every day. Also 75% of us discuss political affairs with family and friends at least once a month. This news is good because it reflects greater attention by citizens into public affairs, even in a long recession. After all, we hope that greater attention means greater involvement, which means a polis holding their government and its leaders more accountable and responsible. However, the favorable news has a dark cloud. While the Assessment reflects increases in volunteering and other forms of citizen involvement, there are important disparities in who is engaged. The following are some disparities about which I am most concerned: a. High school graduates are twice as likely to engage in organizations and to vote than those who have not graduated high school and college graduates are even more likely to be engaged. These statistics are consistent with other statistics that this blogger has read, namely that those with more education are more likely to involve themselves in civic life than those with less education. This problem is not uniquely a function of educational levels, but is often a function of opportunity. Those with greater education levels are more likely to have jobs that value outside philanthropic and social commitments. Executives, for instance, are encouraged to serve on boards of non-profits and community associations. Their work may be seen as good will on behalf of the businesses they represent. Non-executives are rarely valued for any activities done outside of work, and hourly employees are only paid for time spent doing the specific activity for which they have been hired. Hourly employees are, by definition, not paid for any time off the clock, even if the activity greatly advances the objectives of the employer. The effect of these disparities is a society which values the opinions of executives more than non-executives -- and apparently rates of engagement indicate that this may in fact have a real effect on engagement patterns. b. Rural residents are 10% more likely than urban residents to be engaged in neighborly activity. This finding seems counter-intuitive and frankly surprising. One would think that urban folks would be more inclined to see their lives and well-being as interdependent with the well-being of others because of their physical proximity to other urban folks. For instance, a rural individual may not be physically or financially affected by the fact that his neighbor's house has burned down whereas an urban individual whose neighbor's house is burning is more likely to be physically connected with that neighbor either by a common wall, or some sort of shared infrastructure. c. Those who assume community leadership roles are five to seven times more likely to be involved in other civic engagement projects than those who are not members of any group. This is reflected in the fact that only 3% of Americans have attended a rally, protest, or march between 2008 and 2009. In other words, many tend to fit in the category of being hyper involved or minimally involved, thus creating a situation where community associations intended to represent entire communities only represent the loudest and most involved of those communities. I observed this trend when I was more heavily involved in grass roots community organizing. I observed that it was easy to engage those who were interested in leadership roles, but hard to engage those who were well-suited to be foot soldiers in the organizations for which I was recruiting. In other words, they seemed to agree with the purpose of the organization, wanted similar results, but were unable to get involved either because they were too busy with work and family commitments, or didn't see themselves as able to contribute to the organization. In this same time period as that of the study, America has seen the demise of ACORN and the growth of "tea party" organizations. ACORN was a 400,000 member organization that advocated for low-to-moderate income communities. This advocacy sometimes involves issues involving specific communities such as addressing particular bad landlords, and other times it involved larger systemic problems like health care and predatory lending. Although some ACORN chapters appear to remain through open re-branding, thousands of members will are now left without a powerful community association unless they are able to take the initiative to rebuild. Meanwhile, over this same period of time has been a grown of tea party protests where members advocate against what they see as wasteful government spending and excessive taxation. A quick online search as to number of American involved in the tea parties give an impression that a similar number of Americans are involved in the tea parties as were involved in ACORN. Some liberals are likely frustrated over the simultaneous growth of the Tea Party movement and death of ACORN because this confluence of events will likely favor conservative political objectives. However, civic engagement advocates should be concerned about this same matter regardless of personal ideological perspective. ACORN members and the Tea Part movement members are similar in that they come to rallies to endorse politicians and a political agenda that match the perceived self-interest of the members. However, unlike the tea party movement, which appears exclusively focused on electoral politics, and national issues, the local ACORN organizations were known for trying to hold local businesses responsible for their business practices in the neighborhoods in which they lived. Also, ACORN also created non-profits to facilitate home purchasing, obtaining fair loans, and other financial matters that can sometimes be out of reach of poor persons. Furthermore, the stated goals of ACORN included training low income individuals to get involved in community decision-making, and often in politics. Thus, ACORN served a role that went beyond narrow legislative priorities. Although the tea party movement might develop into such an ACORN-style movement, at this moment, its objectives appear targeted at the enactment of legislation rather than the expansion of the political and social process. The decline of ACORN-style organizations and the growth of tea-party style organizing may be reflected in our 2010 Assessment. As mentioned above, the Assessment seems to suggest that a small number of those involved are seeking leadership roles, which makes it hard for local matters to get tackled. Also, the Assessment found that individuals over age 65 are much more engaged than younger folks and those between the ages of 16 and 30 tend to be directed online. In my opinion, this also directs the dialogue nationally rather than locally. Those over 65 years of age are more likely than younger folks to be focused on social security, health care, and other welfare type benefits that they may need. These matters are handled on the national level, not the neighborhood level. As one's online community is not limited by geography, it is not surprising that those between 16 and 30 might not be directed at community-based activism,but might be more interested in national-based activism. Although I hope I am wrong, I am afraid that this contrast reflects some of scary trends discussed in Robert Putnam's masterpiece, Bowling Alone. In Bowling Alone, Putnam characterized a steady decline of in-person social intercourse, undermining the individual's sense of and loyalty to community, not to mention a decrease in the ability of citizens to collaborate with neighbors on social and communal problems. Alternatively put, people can't collaborate with their neighbors on community problems if they are not communicating with their neighbors to know that such problems exist. Thus, although the 2010 Civic Health Assessment gives us general hope that in person social intercourse may be increasing, we are also concerned that the in person social discourse is being directed in ways that do not necessarily advance the needs of the communities in which the social discourse is occurring.