The first amendment of the United States constitution reads as follows:
‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’.
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The language seems slightly archaic because it was written in 1789, but is clear enough for us to understand that freedom of speech cannot be curtailed. It can however be restricted, for example when related to threats of violence or pornography.
In 2010, the US Supreme Court eliminated restrictions on the funding of elections, interpreting this as a First Amendment free speech right. Corporations and wealthy individuals were free to influence elections, by creating political action committees that spend money on advertising. This was the outcome of the famous Citizens United case, which fatally damaged US democracy because both their major political parties are now permanently influenced by corporate interests. If the reason you won your seat is your donors, then it is likely that your actions in office will also be influenced by them. This seems to have become inescapable in US politics. However, there is another way of doing politics, and though its formula is simple, its execution is very hard.
To attempt something that carries a high failure rate takes a certain sort of determination and outlook. To succeed in it is truly remarkable. An example of this comes to us from the recent New York election for mayor. There were two different approaches to contesting from the two major candidates. The first approach is the one preferred by both major political parties and their candidates, which is to win by raising more money than the opponent. This money is then deployed chiefly on messaging: advertising on television and mailers to overwhelm the voter with positive impressions about the candidate paying for the ad and negative ones about the opponent.
The more ads one can put out the greater the chance of success. A report from 2018 headlined ‘How money affects elections’ found that more than 90% of the time, the candidate who raised and spent more than their rival won their race for a seat in Congress (their version of the Lok Sabha).
One major candidate in New York, Andrew Cuomo, took this approach and raised more than five times the money his opponent had. He lost. Why?
The second approach, the reason this piece is being written, is to convince voters not through advertising but through personal conversations. This is effective but does not seem to be scalable. It seems especially absurd to attempt in a general election where the voters number in the millions. The scale has to be staggering and the number of people required to do this would surely cost more than advertising. And it would be difficult for these people to open conversations with strangers, because many at home would either not answer the door or ask the person to leave, or not stop on the street when hailed.
Even if they chose to speak then it would not be easy to convince them to vote for the candidate. After all this, the success rate is likely worse than 1 in 10. Meaning that for every person that is convinced into voting for the candidate, another 10 slam the door or say they will support the other side or just walk on.
How would one keep these workers motivated enough to keep attempting this and not just stay at home or in a cafe and pretend that they had been knocking on doors or stopping strangers on the street? These are the reasons this approach is not preferred and why candidates choose to just raise more money.
It can only succeed under certain conditions: First, that the message is compelling to a large number of potential voters. Second, that the workers are highly motivated and not put off by the high rate of failure. The motivation of the workers here is not money but the cause. It is similar to propagation and proselytising. Third, that there is some mechanism that monitors the engagement and sees it through to voting day. Meaning to repeatedly stay in touch with people once contact is made.
This was the approach used by Zohran Mamdani, the Indian-origin socialist who won and will be New York’s mayor. Those who say he is inexperienced and knows little about leadership do not understand that to motivate people to throw themselves into something that has a high rate of failure, and then succeed at it, is the highest expression of leadership. An army of over 1 lakh volunteers trained and led by 700 senior volunteers worked for Zohran. These were mostly young people but also many middle aged and old who gave hours, for many months, doing physical work for their cause.
More than $40 million was spent by corporates backing Andrew Cuomo to paint Zohran as a terrorist. They lost to the volunteers who were paid nothing.
This win will be studied for a long time because it reduces to bare essence the two approaches to winning elections and shows the limits of billionaire power.
As activists in America say: They have money, we have people.
By Aakar Patel
