Like most of us, I have been impressed and energized by the way in which the Obama "movement" has inspired young people, independents and the skeptical, drawing back into politics many who seemed weary of their citizenship. In a country where only a bare majority vote in Presidential elections (far less in state and local elections), and where often less than one of five young people have voted at all, such a domestic surge can only be greeted with enthusiasm.
But I have been less impressed by the peculiar understanding of what a movement is and by the perverse notion of citizenship as discretionary activity that candidates have to "earn" with movement-like campaigns.
So welcome to all whom Senator Obama has inspired. But, sorry folks, his is not a movement. Movements are not electoral instruments organized by political candidates or their supporters to win a nomination or an election. And movements do not issue in an election, after which participants go back to doing what they were doing before.
A movement is about a cause: peace, civil rights, health reform, feminism, economic justice, global fairness. Or, for those of another mind, about the right to life or the place of religion in public life. Participants in a movement work for the cause -- day in and day out, in and out of electoral seasons. Yet for too many Obama supporters, the cause seems to be Obama himself.
Movements outlast candidates and candidacies. Their leaders generally don't even run for office -- think Martin Luther King, Hugo Chavez, Benjamin Spock, and Betty Friedan; or Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. Candidates may become attached to or embody a cause, but the cause comes first and the candidate is never himself (herself) the cause, any more than working to elect the candidate is the movement. Movements do not start in a candidacy or end in an election.
This brings me to the meaning of citizenship. I am thrilled to see such a vigorous primary season, with so many Americans on both sides of the aisle newly engaged in debating and choosing their nominee for the Presidential race. Yet on both side of the aisle, too many seem to think their participation is purely discretionary, a present, a gift to the process, to be withdrawn if their candidate does not win. "If McCain wins," I am sitting it out!" "If Obama is not the nominee, I may revert to passivity, complacency, cynicism. And you'll be sorry."
Only it doesn't work that way. It is your liberty that is at stake in your participation. Withdraw from politics and your freedom is imperiled and it is you who will be sorry. Freedom is a right, but participation is an obligation. Nor is your participation just about voting; it is about civic commitment, jury service, military duty, local participation, community service and a dozen other responsibilities that have nothing to do with who wins or loses an election.
When Senator Obama calls for your engagement in the political and civic process, do you really think he means only as long as it's about voting for him? About voting at all? If there is a movement attached to his cause, beyond making him the nominee, it is a movement to call on citizens to reassume the responsibilities and obligations of citizenship. To understand that the quality of our democracy depends less on the quality of leadership than the quality of citizenship.
Whether Obama wins or loses, his cause can only win if his supporters understand that there is no going back now to cynicism or complacency or resentment. That they owe America their engagement whether their man wins or loses. That voting in the primary and again in November is only the first and in some ways least significant responsibility of citizenship.
So next time someone says "yes we can!" what I will be "hoping" (I believe in hope too!) is that it means more than "yes we can elect Obama!"