Regardless of how much the theorists muse and yearn, the empirical evidence consistently indicates that involvement either in volunteer groups or in rich, real deliberative settings does nothing to help people appreciate and deal successfully with the challenges of democratic governance. But showing that volunteer groups typically do not afford members practice in working through divisive issues in heterogeneous environments and that forced deliberation of divisive issues in heterogeneous environments often results in nothing more than frustrated participants and a delegitimized process is the easy part. The challenge is determining what should be done to help people gain this appreciation and ability. The goal of this chapter is to address this issue.

WE SHOULD JUST ACCEPT THAT GOVERNMENT WILL BE UNPOPULAR

Before discussing the reforms and changes that we believe will and will not help, we need to address the position that nothing need be done. This position holds that we should simply admit that government will often be unpopular and live with it. Certainly, the U.S. government can survive being unpopular. It has done so for most of its 200-plus year history. But this should not be taken to mean that no costs are associated with the public's often intense negativism toward government. It is unfortunate that Easton (1965) led so many to view support, along with policy demands, as an input into the political system. It is better seen as a set of constraints within which political institutions and officials need to work.