Millennial of the Year Pete Davis writes:

If I could make everyone at Democratic National Committee headquarters read one book, it would be Theda Skocpol’s Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, published in 2003. In the early 20th century, according to Skocpol, civic life was mostly based in mass-membership organizations—religious congregations, unions, fraternal organizations (like the Elks or Rotary clubs), and political groups (think the NAACP or the League of Women Voters). They were made up of local chapters that hosted in-person meetings, managed annual calendars of neighborhood events, fostered friendships between members, and contributed to the places where they were based. These chapters are organized (or “federated”) into state and national conventions and committees. By pairing local participation with centralized coordination, the national leadership and the local membership could communicate ideas, concerns, mandates, and marching orders back and forth….

During the decades when this transition progressed, America’s civic ecosystem collapsed. As Robert Putnam extensively catalogs in Bowling Alone, many community organizations simply died off. Groups with political agendas had their local chapters turned into mass mailing lists. Unions were pacified and demobilized. Religious groups focused more on private piety and less on their role in broader civic life. Wealthy donors became more powerful. And most significantly, millions of Americans stopped feeling like public life was something of which they were a cocreator and co-owner.

The Democratic Party was swept up in this civic transition. Today, the party focuses almost exclusively on election campaign sprints optimized (to use terms popularized by civic theorists like Jane McAlevey and Hahrie Han) for short-term mobilizing (squeezing donations and volunteer hours out of current members) rather than for long-term organizing (fostering the stewardship, growth, and leadership development of the party’s membership). Instead of funding itself primarily through membership dues, the party offers fancy events for the wealthy and ceaseless, disrespectful texts for the rest of us. Parasocial relationships with celebrities and famous politicians are emphasized over real relationships with fellow neighbors and local chapter leaders. When you go to Democrats.org, clicking “Take Action” does not direct you to a page with your local Democratic committee’s meeting times and locations. The bolded call-to-action button on the party homepage is “DONATE,” not “JOIN.”…

Fostering a culture of membership is a long-haul project—more like the planting of acorns than the planting of sunflower seeds. It will require a years-long commitment to the fits and starts of civic experimentation. But even a partial transformation to a structure based more in membership would help address many of the party’s challenges. Conflicts within the party could have more accessible venues through which they could be deliberated on and resolved. The party’s ideological vision could be more grounded in the interests of the broad populace (rather than of wealthy donors). Organic party leaders could rise more through their skills at organizing local communities than their ability to navigate and fundraise from elite networks. Media silos and cultural divides could have a shot at being broken through via sustained, real-world interactions at a local level. And, most significantly, apathy and cynicism could be combated as more of the civic creativity and energy of members is unleashed as local Democrats are invited to not only donate and vote but actually create the party together.