One of the few things Americans today can agree on is that Americans can barely agree on anything. The U.S. today is facing record leaves of polarization across the political spectrum, and to make matters worse, Americans are increasingly segregating themselves along ideological and class lines.
The result of this separation has been the steady erosion of community ties and the loss of a sense of shared citizenship. Americans increasingly see each other as strangers to be feared and enemies to be fought rather than fellow citizens striving for the same goals, and it’s tearing our nation apart.
For this drastic situation, drastic measures are called for. I believe there is one idea that may be able to solve this crisis: instituting a civil draft.
A civil draft functions similarly to a military draft in that all citizens between a certain age, say 18 to 25, are required to serve. However, unlike in the military, citizens wouldn’t go into the army but would work with a public service organization. The idea of a civil draft has been around for over a hundred years and has been proposed by a variety of figures from liberal intellectuals to retired generals.
The most obvious and important goal of a civil draft would be to pop our regional and partisan bubbles. It would aim to take affluent city dwellers from the west coast and mix them with people from Appalachia and to take liberals from the northeast and mix them with conservatives from the Southwest, or any other combination you can think of.
Far too many of today’s youth only grow up with people just like them and stay trapped in one particular region. This leaves them ignorant of just how big and diverse this country is. By taking citizens from across the nation and making them associate with one another, we could broaden their understanding of the country by helping them see more than just one small part of it.
In addition to bringing the citizens of the nation closer together, a civil draft would also focus on promoting civic values. The survival of democracy depends just as much on the commitment of its citizens as it does on the strengths of its laws and institutions. In America today, commitment to democracy has broken down, as citizens trust in each other and their government has all but collapsed.
A civil draft would endeavor to regain that trust by giving citizens a chance to interact with their fellows beyond a computer screen. It would also serve as a way to slowly rebuild the trust between citizens and their government by having them gain a more intimate look at how it works and what it can do to help them.
While bringing citizens together and healing our democracy are the main goals of a civil draft, there are certain secondary goals that it would be well suited for.
There has emerged within this country a segment of angry alienated young men who have coalesced into a new destructive political movement called the alt-right. These young, mostly white men have gravitated toward a toxic brand of hyper-masculinity and white nationalism that threatens the very essence of the democratic project. The cause for this I believe is that many of these young men feel isolated from any sort of great organization and are confused what their role as men is.
Into this void has stepped the doctrines of white supremacy with its siren song of belonging and a greater purpose. I think that a civil draft might be able to counteract this by providing constructive places to develop a sense of belonging, a healthier conception of masculinity, and the greater purpose of helping people rather than hating them.
The main goals of a civil draft would be to bring the country together and instill democratic values, but the remaining question is how. The simple answer is through undertaking public works, which take many forms. Whether it’s engaging in a construction project, volunteering effort, environmental mission or other program, the goal is always to improve the quality of life for citizens. A civil draft would give each citizen a way to feel they are contributing to the betterment of their country in a meaningful way.
There is some precedent in American history for public works programs that functioned along similar lines to a civil draft, the closest examples being the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps of the Great Depression. Though both programs were conceived as solutions to the crisis of unemployment, they did much to help bring this country together at a difficult time and instill many of the values that would lead to the United States postwar success.
In fact, many of the projects that these organizations did are still around today serving citizens across the country.
These are but few of the reasons that a civil draft would be beneficial to the country, to list them all here would be a monumental undertaking, but I believe that they are among the most critical.