Earlier today, one thing we talked about was
civic engagement, and a line was used in the
State of the Union address of “don’t give
into the cynicism of the day.”
A poll released by Reuters yesterday shows
that nearly half of Americans feel that the
elections are rigged in some way.
Is there any goal or plan of the administration
to help revitalize the faith in democracy
that seems to be lacking?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know what, this is
something that I’ve tried to do ever since
I got into public office.
As you know, I came into this work as a community
organizer and strongly believed that our democracy
only works when people participate.
There are a lot of forces that feed cynicism.
And there’s no dispute that our democracy
is not working as well as it should.
I can tell you some of the reasons for that.
One of it is that we have set up a system
for electing state legislatures and members
of Congress that involve the drawing of district
lines that are gerrymandered.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the
phrase, it basically means that those who
are already in power draw the maps in such
a way where they can be assured that these
are either going to be Democratic seats or
Republican seats.
And what that’s done is it’s made very
few seats competitive.
So, for example, in the last election, in
2012, Democrats actually cast substantially
more votes in congressional elections, but
ended up with substantially fewer seats.
And the reason for that is, in 2010, when
the census was done and re-districting of
congressional and House legislative seats
were drawn, Republican governors and Republican
majorities were responsible for drawing most
of the seats.
Now, I want to be clear, Democrats aren’t
blameless on this, either.
But California, for example, has gone to a
process of nonpartisan districting.
The advantage there is not only do you make
more seats competitive, but it also means
that politicians have to compete for everybody’s
votes because they’re not in safe seats,
they’re not in a safely Republican district
or a Democratic district.
And what that does is it means they’ve got
to not just appeal to the extremes of their
party.
Part of the reason we’ve seen polarization
and gridlock here in Washington is because
there’s been this great sorting, and Democrats
have moved much further -- have moved left.
Republicans have just gone way to the right.
And it’s harder, then, to compromise, because
members of Congress -- and the same thing
is true in state legislatures -- are always
looking over their shoulder seeing if somebody
in their own party might challenge them.
And then the system doesn’t work.
So that’s a big chunk of why people are
cynical -- because they feel like their votes
don’t count.
And if you draw districts that are ironclad
one party or another, then they’re not entirely
wrong.
Another reason that people are cynical is
money in politics.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling -- Citizens
United -- that allowed super PACs and very
wealthy individuals to just finance all these
ads that you guys see on TV all the time.
Half the time nobody knows who’s funding
them.
And that makes you cynical partly because
most of this money is spent on negative ads.
So you’re just hearing constantly how horrible
everybody is.
That will make you feel pretty bad about the
political process.
And I’m a strong believer in finding ways
in which we can make the financing of campaigns
more democratic.
Now, we’ve seen some interesting work being
done.
You’ve got to give Bernie Sanders, for example,
credit, building off some of the work that
I did.
I, in turn, built off the work that Howard
Dean did for smaller donations, grassroots
donors to be able, in small contributions,
to allow candidates to be competitive.
But I think that -- we don’t want to leave
that to chance.
And that’s much harder to do for members
of Congress who are lower profile so they
don’t get the sort of viral presence that
allows them to raise that kind of money to
compete.
So we’re going to have to solve money in
politics.
You as journalists are going to have a role
to play in reducing cynicism.
It is very hard to get good stories placed.
People will assign you stories about what’s
not working.
It’s very hard for you to write a story
about, wow, this thing really works good.
And just to take the federal government as
an example, every day I’ve got 2 million
people who work for the federal government
-- whether in our military, our law enforcement,
our environmental protection, et cetera -- and
they’re doing great work.
And you rely on it in all kinds of ways, including
when you check the weather, because you can
thank the National Weather Service for putting
satellites up so your smartphones tell you
whether to bring an umbrella or not.
But we just take that for granted.
And if, out of those 2 million employees,
one person screws up somewhere -- which every
day you can count on somebody out of 2 million
people probably doing something they shouldn’t
be doing -- that’s what’s going to get
reported on.
Now, that helps keeps government on its toes
and accountable.
But one of the things we have to think about
is how do we tell a story about the things
we do together that actually work so that
people don’t feel so cynical overall.
But look, here’s the bottom line, is that
-- let’s take the political process.
As cynical as everybody is, and everybody
is always trying to come up with these radical
new plans to try to fix our democracy, and
we need to do this and we need to do that
-- the truth is, is that part of the reason
why our government doesn’t work as well
is because in a good presidential year, slightly
more than half the people vote who are eligible,
and the other half don’t.
And during an off-year election, when the
President is not at the top of the ticket,
and people aren’t getting as much attention,
40 percent of the people vote.
Now, this system doesn’t work if people
opt out.
And the easiest cure, the simplest cure for
what ails our democracy is everybody voting.
Now, it’s true that there are some states
that purposely make it hard for people to
vote.
We’re the only major democracy in the world
that actively makes it hard for people to
vote.
And so you should be, particularly in your
student newspapers, as you go back to your
home states, you should be asking why is it
that we have laws that are purposely making
it harder for people to vote, purposely making
it harder for young people to vote.
And there’s a political agenda there.
The people in power don’t want things to
change.
They want cynicism, because obviously the
existing system, as frustrating as it is for
everybody else, works for them.
Well, if you want to upend that, we’ve got
to vote.
But even in those states that purposely make
it harder to vote, the truth of the matter
is, on your college campuses, half the folks,
maybe two-thirds of the folks who don’t
vote don’t vote because they’re just not
paying attention.
They don’t consider it important.
And they’re not willing to take the 15 minutes
or half hour that it takes to make sure that
you’re registered and make sure you actually
vote.
Well, if you care about climate change, you
care about college costs, you care about career
opportunities, you care about war and peace
and refugees, you can’t just complain.
You’ve got to vote.
And what’s interesting is, is young people
as a voting bloc are the least likely to vote,
but when you do vote, have the biggest impact
on elections.
During a presidential year, young people account
for like 19 percent of the total vote.
During an off-year election, when folks aren’t
paying as much attention, they account for
12 percent.
And that means that the kinds of candidates
that get elected and the priorities that they
reflect are entirely different, just based
on whether or not you guys are going to the
polls.
So don’t let people tell you that what you
do doesn’t matter.
It does.
Don’t give away your power.
That should be the main message that you deliver
all the time.
And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a
Republican, Democratic, independent; whether
you’re conservative on some issues, liberal
on others.
If you participate and you take the time to
be informed about the issues, and you actually
turn out and your peers turn out, you change
the country.
You do.
It may not always happen as fast as you’d
like, but you’ll change it.
So I’ll keep on talking about this even
after I leave the presidency.
You got me started.
I went on a rant, didn’t I?
(Laughter.)
All right.
So I’m counting on you guys.
Don’t let me down, all right?
Don’t let the country down.
You guys are going to be delivering the message
to your peer group that this is the greatest
country on Earth, but only because we have
great citizens who are willing to invest their
time and energy and effort to become informed
on the issues, to argue about it in a respectful
way, and to try to collectively solve the
many challenges that we face.
The good news is, is that there are no challenges,
as JFK said, that “man creates that man
can’t solve.”
I would add women to that.
(Laughter.)
All right?
Good luck, guys.
Bye-bye.
(Applause.)
