Restore the social contract through political engagement

Our representatives think they can ignore us because they can predict our behavior. Let's shock the system.

Pro-science activists protest against funding cuts to research. Via Unsplash.

Our basic social contract is under severe attack, and our representatives do not care.

Anthropology, sociology, economics—fields like these apply scientific methods to understanding human behavior and experience. These fields investigate the deep, unofficial rules by which individuals and societies change over time. Sometimes, they teach us about America's successes. Often, though, they surface our shortcomings—and when that happens, helping our fellow citizens (especially young people) navigate the tensions between our greatness and our errors gives us all opportunity to learn deep, critical thinking and reflect on our core values.

Today's Republicans have made obliterating "wokeness" such a central part of their social engineering agenda that they are actively dismantling the delicate social contract we've spent years building together. To gain cheap political advantage, Republicans have become so extreme in stamping out our progress that even the Coast Guard can see fit to back away from calling swastikas and nooses symbols of hate against specific racial/ethnic groups.

No wonder the fields that elucidate systemic inequality are in the crosshairs.

Racial discrimination in education was made illegal with the help of "woke" research

My own field, psychology, has made discoveries that have helped to move our nation forward in amazing ways. For example, consider psychologists Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark. In the 1940s, they carefully studied the effects of discrimination on the self-esteem of young children through their famous "Black doll-White doll" study. Their devastating findings—that young Black children had absorbed anti-Black prejudice from the larger culture and sustained significant emotional harm from those beliefs—were cited in the Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education study that ended legal segregation by race in public schools.

It seems obvious given the social climate of 1954 that the Court would never have outlawed the widespread practice of school segregation without clear evidence of its danger to children. Segregation at the time was so normative, especially in the South, that many white citizens struck back violently when informed that their children would soon encounter mixed-race classrooms. Add that the "doll test" that grounded the research was designed by Dr. Phipps Clark—herself a Black woman from Arkansas—and we see how the undeniable story her data told managed to overcame massive prejudice against her person.

Now, work like that of the Clarks' is being attacked and undermined on all fronts—in the media, in curriculum, and in sources of research funding. Tens of thousands of researchers across the country in a whole host of fields, including the social sciences, have seen their research programs severely harmed or even destroyed by the Republican Party's wrath against so-called "woke" projects. In our own state, scores of research staff are now under threat or actually unemployed because they were working on challenging problems that the GOP wants to pretend don't exist.

Were Dr. Phipps Clark working today, she may well have been booted from her lab and seen her life's work pilloried on right-wing media before getting doxxed on Truth Social. Those labeled water fountains from the black-and-white photos? Those may well would still exist too, as separate might still be viewed as equal.

Prediction models from political scientists say most Hoosiers don't vote and never will

Political science is another field that is catching GOP shrapnel. Gathering and combining data on demographics, regional differences, policy positions, and communication tactics allows poli sci researchers to make highly precise predictions about voting behavior. Understanding these trends can give us insight on the contentious issues that need to be handled in a given region to improve everyone's quality of life, meaning that (perhaps against type) the field of political science can produce a great deal of good. Starving these researchers of the resources it takes to do their work deprives us all of knowledge about our ever-changing political landscape and how to prevent conflict from getting out of hand.

In the case of political science, though, a massive private industry is filling the gap. Teams of polling experts and analysts charge handsome sums to model votes down to the precinct in advance of every election. Their models then inform those in power of the best path to their next victory.

Data are just facts - but how one uses data is a matter of ethics. For example, is the city in your district getting more diverse and starting to threaten your seat? Drive up turnout in regions X and Y with Z message, and you're safe. Want to get people motivated to vote? Get them scared and angry, and blame your opponent in the most dehumanizing terms possible. Race looking too close for comfort? Just convince your buddies in state government to redraw the lines and stack your district with voters who look like the ones who will help you win. Winning is the goal, so don't think about the social division that stains your district after your assault on democracy.

The models of Hamilton County are starting to make our reps in the state legislature and in Congress quite nervous. Our population, trending more educated and more racially diverse than in the past, is looking more and more like a place that traditionally votes for Democrats. Rather than try to win us over fairly and earn our votes, they try to disempower us: Our state reps drastically limit engagement with constituents, our Congressional representative dismisses her constituents' very serious concerns by criticizing the volume of our voices at town halls, and our U.S. senators tell themselves that Indiana will always be a red state so they need pay us no mind. And even with the deck stacked that high, the Legislature is still considering an extralegal redrawing of our Congressional districts.

The fact that GOP leaders in our state hold a supermajority and all statewide offices, and yet are being threatened by people who are most likely members of their own party for not completely locking 40+% of our citizens out of the process, shows that the social contract has truly begun to break down.

Restoring the social contract means getting in the fight

We do have power, though - and it lies in breaking the analysts' models of our determination to engage and vote. They don't believe we care, so blow up their phones. They don't think we can raise money, so donate to a Democratic office or candidate. They don't think we'll vote, so make sure you're registered and get your friends registered too. They don't think we'll be ready for the next election, so let's get ready now.

Yes, everything is exhausting, but we have to keep up the fight. We can't afford to lose any more progress, and the power is in our hands.