Commentary: It's not too late to talk about the issues

By John L. Jackson Jr.

Labor Day marks the beginning of the end of campaigning for the presidency of the United States, but it probably doesn't feel that way to most people. This has been an exceptionally long election season with candidacies being announced earlier than ever before. (Ted Cruz declared in late March of 2015, almost 650 days before this November election will be held.)

We are witnessing another election that finds many voters clamoring for change. We should be shining a spotlight on pressing social justice and policy issues that might inform that change, such as gun policy, homelessness, mass incarceration, and mental-health treatment concerns, among other things. It would be valuable to hear the leading candidates discuss these topics at length, topics that must be addressed if we want to make sure that any change we create actually increases the health and strength of our communities.

Of course, those discussions would have to be serious and sustained to be effective, and it is becoming more and more difficult for us to have any substantial public conversations about the issues that impact us most. The question is, what's making it so hard?

One challenge hinges on the difficulty of translating lofty concepts into everyday realities. Many of us can agree on ideals ("freedom," "equality," "inclusion," "fairness," "patriotism," etc.) when they remain abstract and nonspecific, platitudes without particulars. But the moment we start to make those terms concrete, which is exactly what policymakers and activists do, our superficial agreements show signs of strain.

Partisanship in electoral politics is another challenge, maybe the biggest one. So much of public culture is organized around zero-sum blood sport that politicians tend to use a 24-hour news cycle and never-ending electoral campaigning seasons to lob merciless and indiscriminate attacks at one another.

Partisans aren't respecters of policy - much less justice. If the one side backs a reform or recommendation today, the other side rejects it - even if they supported that same position yesterday. Period. American politics today is both hyper-ideological and post-ideological at the same time. It is a world of unflinchingly committed "neoliberals," "neoconservatives," "liberals," and "progressives" who are also usually willing to do whatever it takes to defeat the other side, political ideals be damned.

We, as voters, have to decide for ourselves what issues are most important to us. That's part of what democracy means - and why it takes so much work. And it is not too late to infuse real policy discussions into the last weeks of this presidential election season.

Remember, in addition to the president being elected, 88 percent of Congress and 74 percent of Pennsylvania's legislature are up for reelection. Let's spend these next couple of months asking - no, demanding - that all our candidates for elected office discuss the policies they'd put in place to end homelessness, create more opportunities for young people, lower levels of mass incarceration, pass sensible gun policy, and tackle child poverty. And, then, let's ask them substantive and respectful follow-up questions about how those policies will work.

With the presidential race starting earlier and earlier every election season, it is easy to get election fatigue. Many of us have already tuned out even before there have been any real public discussions about some of our most pressing social issues. Election Day should be an exclamation point on the rich debates we've been having with those running for office, leaving winning candidates energized to craft evidence-based policies that will create positive changes in all of our lives.

Instead, Election Day is like the end of marathon, where the runners - candidates and voters alike - are only thinking of clawing their way to the end and collapsing in a heaving mess at the finish line. This is one of the real changes we have to make this election season. Let's get inspired to really discuss the complicated issues that impact our daily lives and the communities we share.

There is still time before November to change the tone and tenure of our electoral conversations. Together, let's make this election about the issues again - by sincerely, generously, and rigorously discussing them.

John L. Jackson Jr. is dean of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2), which recently published "SP2 Penn Top 10" to educate voters about the 2016 presidential election (www.penntopten.com). deanjackson@sp2.upenn.edu