This piece is the sixth installment of a biweekly series written by David A. Foster (Center bias), based on his new book, Moderates of the World, Unite! Read the first post in the series. 

So far in this series, three ambitious proposals for changing public discourse in the US have been detailed. Each of them could be regarded as merely passive or reactive in nature. Counterspeech in echo chambers reacts to whatever is produced. The Schoolmarm reacts to whatever people post. The US Voter Education Source waits for queries from citizens.

But we can and should, as patriots, also look for cost-effective ways to aggressively lead the public conversation, to change the terms of discussion, to demand attention. Ideally, our solutions would interest a wide audience and elevate their perspectives. Let’s call our target the “middle 60%” of the electorate, in terms of societal knowledge and engagement.

Supply vs. Demand

Many policy advocates and academics fall into the trap of pushing good stuff out to the public and assuming that the public will care. They fail to consider the demand side. What do large masses of US citizens actually like and want? What will get their attention, and why would they do something if they don’t feel like it?

There is a large and vibrant tradition of scholars looking to increase civic engagement. All are influenced by the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas, who is credited with introducing the idea of the public sphere (yes, that wasn’t even a thing before the 1960s!) and with developing the “deliberative tradition” in democratic theory.

Underlying the deliberative tradition is an idealistic view that voting in elections to aggregate citizens’ preferences is not enough, and that they must be involved in authentic, rational communication to reach shared judgments. But in the past three decades, unfortunately, the evolution of the public sphere has made this nearly impossible. Social isolation, propaganda, social media algorithms… People frozen into their national echo chambers, consuming a torrential diet of partisan talking points.

Of course, partisan media and propaganda cannot be abolished. And large swaths of the citizenry today are uninterested in the niceties of serious policy discussion. What, then, can be done?

I would suggest that the national conversation must be influenced at scale in such a way that (a) the more egregious talking points lose their luster, and that (b) at least some factual and rational points are made impossible to completely avoid.

This could be accomplished by creating a stream of highly-publicized national spectacles

• that consult regular citizens,
• that make space for feelings and controversial beliefs,
• that are made frictionlessly-easy to discuss on social media, and
• that have a wide effect of pushing factual language into view.

The proposal is described more fully in my book, but here is a quick sketch.

Mechanics of National Plebiscites

National Plebiscites are federally funded and are conducted bi-monthly, each on a different national question or issue. A demographically-representative sample of five hundred citizens is recruited for each plebiscite, with a monetary incentive for participation. Results are not legally binding on Congress.

Plebiscites have no live component and no interaction between participants during the response period. Rather, each participant does a preparation-plus-“voting” activity, online at their own pace and on their own schedule. As preparation prior to their vote, they must review carefully-produced video materials, and must pass a relatively-easy test just to ensure they paid attention.

Mockup of the beginning of the prep materials
for a National Plebiscite about immigration policy.

When a participant is certified for their “vote,” they must not only choose from among the two or three main options, but must also specify their biggest reasons for selecting their option.

Sample participant “voting” form for a National Plebiscite about immigration policy.

When the polling closes and the results are compiled, large and extensive efforts are made to maximize publicity, including by:

• Congressional acknowledgement,
• a media package,
• helping participants publicize their own reasoning,
• assisting commenters with online debate, and
• massive social media promotion.

After a Plebiscite poll closes, the associated preparatory materials are published online with links for easy, targeted sharing. On social media, the aim is to provide as many prompts and devices as possible (including paid promotions) to stimulate discussion on the platforms. Interest will also be aroused simply by the centrality, legitimation, and quasi-official nature of the events.

Reality Media

As a way of reaching massive audiences of regular citizens with facts-grounded material, I like to lean into an abstract comparison of this proposal to reality television. (With caveats, certainly.) 

Why is there a demand for reality television shows? Isn’t it because of an interest in seeing other regular people who are put into interesting situations and are putting their identities on the line? And because of an interest in seeing conflict and disagreement? Perhaps, even, to get away from highbrow celebrities and pundits?

Everything hinges, of course, on the design of the events and the methods of promotion. Critical decisions must be made concerning the range of topics addressed in plebiscites and, for each plebiscite, the design of the list of Reasons potentially supporting each decision alternative.

A participant force-ranks their Reasons for selecting their chosen alternative.

Reasons listed on the voting form will not only consist of statistical or technical considerations of the type that a policy analyst would cite. There will also be values-based reasons getting at participants’ fears and antipathies, which must be part of the conversation—not only on pragmatic grounds (policies that do not account for them are bound to fail), but also to attract the interest of other regular citizens who have similar feelings.

As one example from the above Immigration plebiscite, consider this available Reason:

The continued influx is steadily destroying our unique US culture.

A snobbish, progressive view is that this is nothing more than a dog whistle for racism, and thus should be excluded from the form. However, the preparatory material would include a brief acknowledgement of a few wonderful things about traditional American culture, as well as the anxiety that is natural to humans when change is rapid. These facts don’t by any stretch resolve the matter, but would prompt some understanding about the anxiety.

Some readers might by now feel a pang of discomfort at the paternalistic tone of all of this. Except perhaps privately amongst pollster professionals, most of us are uncomfortable even acknowledging that the “average” voter is ill-informed or logically incoherent. It sounds mean and judgmental, and any politician who said anything resembling this would be condemned. But as Walter Lippmann told us one hundred years ago, the electorate is not what democratic theory says it should be. Here we are trying, for the sake of our democracy, to help the millions of fellow citizens who are trapped in ideological bubbles, who are hard to teach, and who can’t even see what key facts they are missing. 

We’re doing it by providing infotainment, cynically courting customers with melodrama. Now, there’s a value-laden word: “infotainment.” Reflexively scorned by experts and idealists who feel that citizens need to wrestle with policy information in the way that they themselves do. However, given the urgency of the growing dysfunctions in our public sphere, it is time to get realistic and meet citizens where they are at. Refusing to do so would be the worst act of condescension.

Deliberative Polling, for a New Age, and At Scale

Some readers may recognize that this proposal is similar to a program promoted throughout the career of James Fishkin, a great pioneer of what he referred to as “Deliberative Polling.” (I’ve contrasted my proposal with Fishkin’s work here.) Fishkin has run a large number of impressive projects recruiting “mini-publics” to discuss policy issues and to publicly issue recommendations. Fishkin’s program is firmly within the Habermas deliberative tradition for increasing civic engagement.

However, times have rapidly changed, and with it, the public sphere. A model that tries to get citizens to have bloodless, rational discussions about policy details is no longer tenable. A more modest, interim aspiration is needed: to help masses of average citizens to get past crude partisan talking points, to resist propaganda, and to gain a little curiosity about what those on the other side think and why they think it.

It is pointless to try to “push on a string”: the masses of US citizens will always pay attention to whatever they choose, to whatever they like. National Plebiscites can be seen as a new kind of social lubricant that might get many citizens past the isolation, the echo chambers, the sorting, and the talking points pushed by propagandists. 

Read the rest of the series: