The soul of America

We sat way up in the rafters — in memory, even higher than the haze of cigarette smoke that blanketed the proceedings — and listened to Barry Goldwater’s acceptance speech. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” he called out. “And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

For a teenager, the planks of the party platform were of little interest, though unbeknownst to me at the time, they were constellating themselves into a powerful new conservative movement within the Republican Party. For me, however, though I’d read about the founding of the country and the birth of political parties in boring history book assignments, being present at that convention was the real thing, a civics lesson alive before my eyes — the passionate speeches, the swelling cheers, the flag-waving hubbub of folks jamming the aisles and living their firmly held political beliefs — all with the White House at stake.

I couldn’t wait to participate myself — not so much as a conventioneer, but as a voter, something that my brother and I had always been taught by our civic-minded parents was a responsibility, and, more importantly, a benefit, of adulthood in America.

In 1972, I voted for the first time, in a neighbor’s garage. I remember waiting in line, but unlike most lines, I didn’t mind the wait. An elderly poll-watcher bent over his thick volume of registered voters and their addresses. After he found my name, I signed the book and he pointed to a nearby voting machine. I stepped in, pulled on a red handle and the machine’s shabby curtains snapped shut behind me. Though I had recently graduated from college and was flush with the hot certainties of youth vibrating through me, there I was, suddenly alone, with a cast of candidates who expected my most serious consideration. As I flipped small levers, black Xs popped up next to my choices. After I was done, I stood there for a moment, hoping I had done everything correctly.

When I opened the curtains, I was once again in the garage, faced with other voters waiting their turn. And I was now one of them.

By voting, I was being loyal to my country — I was choosing democracy and what it stood for — whether my candidate won or lost.

And I very quickly learned about losing with that very first vote when the opposing candidate — Richard Nixon — won in a landslide, becoming president.     

Sometimes I think our legacy is not about whether each of us will play a part in the grand sweep of history, but merely in the quiet choices we make that touch the lives of others. As has been said, democracy is based on the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. And casting a vote for who and what we believe is one of the powerful ways we can do this.

Democracy, though — if I’ve learned nothing else about it over the last several years — is a fragile thing that must be nurtured and sustained and that we must choose. It does not automatically choose us. And our own democracy is now calling out to me, to us, in this lurching, uncertain time.  

It’s providing us with a real-world civics lesson, much like that convention did for me decades ago. Until recently, I knew little about state electors, the role of state secretaries of state, the vote certification process, or even the role the House of Representatives played in the electoral process. And now, as another election approaches, millions of people have been instilled with a profound mistrust in the process of our voting — an effort, I believe, that highjacks the very soul of America.

2024 will set a record for the greatest number of people living in countries holding nationwide elections — more than 4 billion voters, over half of humanity — but in many of these countries the vote is a sham and the results are a forgone conclusion before any vote is cast.  

But that is not where we live.

We live in the United States of America, where our vote is the great civic exercise that gives democratic legitimacy to our government and undergirds our most sacred ideals.   

It is the most precious of American gifts.

Mike Nagler taught for many years at Cañada College.