Irrespective of the malady, healthcare providers tell us that they ask two questions when they look into their patients’ eyes -- Is there a cure? Or is there an effective treatment to administer? A cure means that after medical treatment, the patient no longer has the particular condition anymore. And for those maladies for which there is no cure, treatment means that the condition can be managed or controlled even though it never really goes away.
The disease of voter suppression runs rampant in America.
The doctors of the American Constitution anticipated that to cure us of this disease we would have to be fully engaged patients. The cure requires a diverse treatment strategy.
First, we require therapy.
A little cognitive behavioral therapy is needed to help the electorate break itself from the habit of apathy. A little acceptance and commitment therapy is needed to suppress the anxieties that come with not always getting what you want when you want it because political engagement is a process not a one time event. A little psychoanalysis is needed to delve deeper into the voter psyche to better understand our true motivation and thus that which will make us perform more effectively as communities. A little psychodynamic therapy is needed to help examine how our past experiences and relationships have contributed to our present circumstances and how subconscious factors affect the way we interact with others.
Second, we require medicine.
Be it injected or digested, the American electorate needs to be put on the track toward a cure, cessation or prevention of the voter suppression disease. However, I am not confident that any chemical or compound can solve the problem. What we really need is the third treatment option.
Our public policy hierarchy is in dire need of surgery.
The purveyors of privilege must be identified and removed from the public policy creation process. Vote them out while you can because the longer you wait, the narrower the opportunity to do so will become under their watch.
Ironically, the cost of medical treatment is no less expensive when administered in the political arena as it is when administered by a physician. The success of Stacy Abrams in Georgia was not a fluke. It was the culmination of at least two years of on the ground, door to door, people to people engagement; and not just with volunteers but with meaningful resources. Resources in the hands of block captains, precinct captains, district directors, county directors, regional coordinators and state officers. Anything less than that for any time period less than that is smoke and mirrors. Anything less certainly would not be a cure and would be even less of an effective treatment.
The remedy to this malady is not found in consultants, pollsters, TV ads, text messages or emails.
The cure rests in empowering “we the people” NOW.