Is the downfall of Democracy dependent on something as simple as the decline of social clubs?

That’s the central theme of “Join or Die,” a documentary film that screened at film festivals in 2023 and is currently making the rounds at community film screenings across the country.

“The trend toward greater polarization in America did not begin five years ago. It certainly did not begin with Covid. It didn’t begin with Trump. It began 50 years ago. You can see very clearly in the data that America began to become more polarized in about 1965 or 1970, a long time ago,” said Harvard professor, Dr. Robert Putnam, a retired social scientist, who is the main subject of the film, during a question and answer session at a recent screening at the Coolidge Corner Theatre.

“I think probably everybody in America is worried about that degree of polarization and the violence that’s coming with that…. It won’t change overnight. No matter who wins this election, it won’t change overnight. It’ll take a lot of hard work by your generation.”

Named after an infamous political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin, the film follows the story of Dr . Putnam. Putnam was joined at the Coolidge with his wife, Rosemary, and a co-director of the film, Rebecca Davis and her brother, Pete Davis, a brother and sister team of first-time filmmakers who made this film after being inspired by Dr. Putnam.

According to Pete Davis, who narrates the film, “Join or Die” is “a film about why you should join a club.” The film claims that clubs used to be so much a part of the fabric of American life that there were clubs within clubs. Davis claims that clubs “helped a nation of immigrants get on their feet in their new home.”
“There is no America without clubs,” argues Dr. Putnam.

These are strong assertions, and the film’s main issue is that it often gives little evidence to back up its claims. Instead, it relies on an emotional shorthand to assume that its audience is on the same page as the narration. Judging from the choice of interview subjects who agreed to be in the film, the film is targeted to a liberal audience. In the question-and-answer session after the screening Dr Putnam said “This is made for, intentionally made for, 20-somethings. Because unless we can convince 20-somethings to take up this cause … They are going to save America.”

He continued by saying that the style of the film was very contemporary in order to draw in young viewers.

The film introduces a handful of easily recognizable interview subjects such as former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, economist Glenn Loury, and Secretary of Transportation and former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who all talk about the importance of clubs in American life.

“Bob is really into clubs. Bob is actually famous for being into clubs,” Clinton said in the film, drawing laughs from the audience in the theater. Clinton was glibly referring to Dr. Putnam’s work on his 2000 National Bestselling book, “Bowling Alone,” which documents the “collapse and revival of American Community. “

The film introduces Dr. Putnam and Rosemary Putnam, detailing how Dr. Putnam grew up on Lake Erie and was “a joiner” in clubs in school.

“I went back to look at my high school yearbook and I belonged to everything.”

He says he was the worst person on the bowling team.

“Join or Die” discusses how Dr. Putnam and Rosemary met in the ‘60s and fell in love. In the film, they discuss how they both attended a presidential rally for John F. Kennedy as a date and eventually attended Kennedy’s inauguration in Washington, where they heard him deliver the speech where he declared, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Dr. Putnam said that he felt in that moment like President Kennedy was talking directly to him in the crowd.

Dr. Putnam came up with a theory that the decrease in involvement in clubs in the U.S. was linked to the so-called “collapse of American Community.” The film doesn’t go into much depth about how American communities have collapsed since the mid-1900s. There was a brief montage with video footage of the announcement of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and footage from the Insurrection of 2021, as well as other brief scenes of unrest spliced in. The audience is meant to understand and agree with the idea straightaway that American communities are collapsing.

Dr. Putnam published a paper in 1995 about his theory, and was quickly interviewed by People Magazine and was invited to meet with the Clintons at Camp David. Five years later he published the book “Bowling Alone.”

An issue that kept coming up in the film was the lack of current participation in bowling leagues. According to the narration, “people are bowling alone instead of in leagues, so the number of bowlers has gone up, but league participation is way down.” This is where the idea for the name of Dr. Putnam’s book, “Bowling Alone” originated. The film argues that public trust in government eroded in the decades between the ‘60s and ‘90s and beyond, that “Membership was falling in the PTA.”

It appears as if the audience is meant to see a connection between these different statements and conclude that clubs are what will save American Democracy.

Without the data, it’s hard to see where involvement in clubs has actually decreased when so many people, especially the younger Millennials and Gen Z adults are involved in religious organizations, Dungeons & Dragons clubs, gaming groups, writing societies, book groups, or political clubs.

The film briefly mentions that Dr. Putnam had some push-back to his initial paper about clubs and someone said in the response that clubs just look different now than they did in the 1950s and1960s, with youth soccer, for example, replacing traditional clubs. The skeptics may have been onto something. No longer do people rely on the Lion’s Club or the Rotary Club. Now with the internet, it’s easier than ever to find people with shared niche interests. The film briefly mentions how the internet can be used for organizing people such as through the app Meetup. But it’s more than that. There are millions of groups on Facebook or Reddit hat function as clubs for every conceivable interest. People have more ways of connecting with each other than ever before through the devices in their pockets.

Dr. Putnam makes the bold claim “Your chances of dying are high, but your chances of dying over the next year are cut in half by joining one group.” This brings up the question, what parameters is he using to define a group? Do online groups count? Dr Putnam acknowledged during the film that for a time he considered television to be the cause of the collapse of the American community; he said he didn’t enjoy being a “cultural grouch” and he eventually moved away from that hypothesis.

This film featured interviews with around dozen interview subjects, yet did not have a very compelling argument by the end. It’s hard to know if this is because the first-time filmmakers were not great at proving the point they were trying to make, or if the argument they were basing the premise upon is just too weak to hold up to scrutiny.

The film ended on an optimistic note with Attorney General Vivek Murthy saying, “This is our opportunity to move from a social recession to a social revival.”

Dr. Putnam is doing what the narrator referred to as “doing his part preaching the gospel of social democracy to anyone who will listen” and his ideas are certain to spread with this film. Will more people join clubs after seeing this film? Perhaps, but whether that will “save American democracy” is yet to be seen.