The message Dean Phillips needs to send

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With President Joe Biden's low poll numbers and declining support among key Democratic constituencies, one might expect U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips' campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination to be soaring. Breaking the rule of silence among party leaders, he warned the party for months that Biden faced large challenges.

In 2018, Phillips, a respected local businessman and moderate, was the first Democrat elected in Minnesota's Third Congressional District since 1961. He is a leader in the Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus and is an outspoken advocate of cross-partisan work. His cross-partisan message should resonate. Yet his campaign to date has been met with sharp criticism even among some of Minnesota's political leaders.

The problem is that Phillips' focus on Biden's electability is too narrow to inspire an insurgent presidential campaign. A much more powerful message than either electability or today's dominant Democratic message of "delivery" is the idea of bringing everyday citizens into the work of public life in ways that build civic muscle. Here Phillips has been a leader.

Such civic politics conveys the work of "we the people," but it also needs political leaders who are champions and partners. Dean Phillips is an outstanding example.

Civic politics has both Republican and Democratic pedigrees. For instance, it was at the heart of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency in the 1930s. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt proposed that "the dark days" of the Depression "will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and our fellow men." He made the case for increasing our collective civic capacities, our civic muscle, and he followed up with the Civilian Conservation Corps and other efforts that enlisted millions of Americans in meeting the Depression's challenges.

Seventy-five years later, Barack Obama based his 2008 campaign on the same idea. "I'm not asking you to believe in my ability to make change," as the campaign website put it. "I'm asking you to believe in yours."

Civic politics and civic muscle have been the signature of Minnesota's civic culture, prompting Time magazine's 1973 cover story about "the Minnesota Miracle." In the Civic Health Index conducted each year by the congressionally mandated National Conference on Citizenship, Minnesota leads the nation on civic measures from voting levels and volunteering to involvement in neighborhood problem-solving and charitable contributions. In 2010, the Center for Democracy and Citizenship that I directed at the University of Minnesota found that the Twin Cities and its suburbs are the most civic metropolitan area in the country.

This leadership in civic muscle-building continues. Take, for instance, the Minnesota Humanities Center's "Third Way Civics" initiative, which promotes a depolarizing approach to teaching undergraduates about American history that develops students' capacities to think, learn and work across differences. It has gained support from champions at the conservative Christian Southeastern University in Florida and the liberal Stanford University in California. It puts students in the role of co-creators of the American story, discussing primary texts in our history from many different vantages.

The citizen group Braver Angels, dedicated to depolarization and civic renewal, is another example. Formed after the election in 2016, William Doherty, professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota, created the method the organization uses for people to "bring their best selves forward, listen to the other person and not immediately get into an argument." At the second convention in 2019 the platform called for "building our civic muscle" and striving for the "beloved community." The third convention — with 700 delegates, half "blues" and half "reds" — was held in Gettysburg, where President Abraham Lincoln called for a birth of freedom based on "government of the people, by the people, for the people." It marked new initiatives, including teaching skills of depolarization to members of the Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus. Phillips and Spencer Cox, Republican governor of Utah, played prominent roles.

Phillips has brought this message to his Third District, working closely with Doherty to organize more than a dozen meetings across the district, in which citizens of different views talked about how they might collectively address hot-button issues. Phillips has said he will bring these experiences to his campaign. His first town meeting, held on Oct. 27 in Concord, communicated that "Everyone's Invited."

The message of civic muscle and a rebirth of freedom is one that citizens are desperate to hear — and to be part of it.

Dean Phillips has an opportunity to take it to the nation.

Harry Boyte was founder, director and co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota. From 1993 to 1995 he coordinated the national, cross-partisan "Reinventing Citizenship" initiative with the Clinton White House and was co-director of the civic engagement subcommittee of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.