Democracy, The Resistance and civ.works
American democracy is perilously close to being relegated to a footnote in history and recognized as a failed yet interesting attempt.
The vision I once held was that if we worked hard we would be treated fairly, paid a good wage and be able to provide a decent quality of life for ourselves and our families. We dream that our children and each new generation would have an opportunity to earn a great education (and trade skills) and share the American dream with their children.
The majority of Americans understand that something is deeply wrong. Many of us understand the outcomes of this “wrongness”. Money elevated to speech. An eroding public education system. The attack on unions and collective bargaining. The challenges to voting rights and voter suppression. The assault on women’s rights. The pursuit of profit as a priority over people and planet. A justice system that is for those that can afford it. The consolidation of wealth and power. A slow, uneven economic recovery that favored Wall Street over all of us. Political gridlock. Police having access to military style weaponry. The rise of ignorance-based objectification and hatred (or “othering”) of people of color, people that believe differently, people that love differently and people that are fleeing horror and violence in their country of origin. The consolidation of media and news. People that are killed because of the color of their skin.
I’ve spent many years of my career correlating events and outcomes to identify root cause. (I started as an actuary –and that wasn’t quite boring enough so I became a software engineer). And while certainly many of the issues above have manifested throughout history –the outcomes track closely to a memo written by Lewis Powell to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on August 23, 1971. In this memo Powell describes a “system” or “machine” that could protect the interests of the wealthiest Americans over the interests of the people. The memo is brief (34 pages) and should be required reading for all. Powell defines the plans for the “machine” that is killing democracy and the American dream.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), right-wing think tanks such as The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, The Hoover Institute and The Heartland Institute, working to control textbooks and curriculum in K-12 and higher education, control of information and media and asserting legislation and policy that leads to the transfer and consolidation of wealth (and thus power) to the already wealthy were all directly or indirectly a part of the Powell memo.
We are intentionally divided and thus conquered. We want a better quality of life for ourselves and our families however the erosion of education and the consolidation of media have manipulated the American people to believe it’s “the other” that is causing us to work harder for less. We would be well-off if not for “Big Government”. We would be safe if not for “the immigrants”. We would have more for ourselves if not for “the Cadillac driving welfare queen”. Climate change is a “liberal hoax”. People are coming to America and taking our jobs. Our tax money is used for education and healthcare for “illegals”. The American people harbor a growing resentment, anger and frustration rooted in economics. This anger has been building for 40 years –since the Reagan tax cuts for the wealthy. The chart below helps us understand why. CEO pay skyrocketed while average worker wages flattened. Reagan economic policy and his notable attacks on unions, collective bargaining, education, mental health and the impoverished were well-aligned with the Powell memo and put us on track for today.
In 2016 (not pictured) –for the first time in many years –due to President Obama’s economic policy –worker wages were beginning to track upward aligned with worker productivity. (Thanks Obama!).
So for a generation –there was growing income inequality (which of course leads to wealth inequality). Then in 2010 the “Citizens United” US Supreme Court decision essentially elevated money to speech. (It was a 5–4 split decision –Reagan/Bush nominees in the majority –for those that still believe political parties are the same).
This allows the obscenely wealthy to drop hundreds of millions of dollars into any election cycle and shape local, state and federal government to pass legislation and policy that protects and exacerbates wealth inequality in America. (When you look at the Trump/Ryan budget –the elimination of estate taxes and other cuts directly benefit the wealthiest Americans).
In the 2016 election cycle –concerned that a candidate who didn’t fully support the interests of the obscenely wealthy could win, an unholy alliance was formed. A hedge fund manager, Robert Mercer (connected to the Trump campaign), a data analytics company (connected to Steve Bannon) were able to use Facebook and other social media data to target people with propaganda such as the below. Distributing the propaganda to targeted individuals (that were most likely to share with their friends and connections) created an intensifying impact upon the visibility of the fake stories. This caused enough people to either vote against their self-interest or not vote at all –especially in key/swing states from an electoral vote perspective. And so began the Trump administration –the most corrupt and incompetent in American history.
With a shared concern for the corrupting influence of money in politics and the lack of civic participation (and the resultant impact upon quality of life and democracy in America), Golda Velez, Adam Lake and I started having discussions well before the 2016 election cycle about what we could do. Our initial focus was on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC produces model law at the local, state and federal level that has been at the heart of voter suppression, “Stand Your Ground” laws (remembering Trayvon Martin), “Right to Work” laws (which are pro-employer/anti-employee) and legislation in support of the NRA through weakened gun violence prevention. Thinking about the work of Represent.us and their model anti-corruption bill and the State Innovation Exchange “stateinnovation.org” we thought of becoming “SmartALEC” or “The People’s ALEC” –essentially a database of model law that people could use at the state/local level that would benefit society. Nevertheless we were concerned that working with legislation requires dedicated effort and focus –and as people were already disengaging from the civic process –it would have negligible impact by itself. Furthermore –Golda, Adam and I were working fulltime and didn’t have the capacity among us to begin a dedicated effort.
After the 2016 election cycle, understanding that society was going to be attacked on every front –ranging from the environment, healthcare, economic policy, justice and more –The Resistance was born. Groups like Indivisible, RISE Stronger, Action Network, Action Group Network, Act Together and many more have become a critical voice in countering, resisting and delaying bad law and policy. I was still at Oracle (my technology home for many years) when our co-CEO, Safra Catz announced that she was joining the Trump transition team (while remaining active as Oracle co-CEO) and issued the statement “I plan to tell the president-elect that we are with him and will help in any way we can.” As a result I publicly resigned from Oracle and started dedicating my effort and resources to the civ.works concept.
We determined that while working purely on legislation would be a “heavy-lift” for any of us (despite my own background of having worked for a few years for the Legislative Counsel) there is a spectrum of meaningful civic action that could be supported by a civic engagement platform concept. We engaged Arck Interactive in Portland, Oregon and provided the conceptual design of the civ.works platform. This was to be a “democracy machine” for all of us. It would use a privacy-protected (no selling data to anyone), ad-free social network as something of a “gateway drug” to sustained, meaningful civic action. We launched on February 14 of this year (for the love of democracy) and are continuing to add powerful new features and functionality to the platform.
On a daily basis we have hundreds of local, state, regional and nationwide “civic action engagement opportunities” flowing through the system ranging from resistance, policy and advocacy groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, Black Lives Matter, Indivisible, Moms Rising, the ACLU, United We Dream, Sierra Club, Organizing for America, Greenpeace and many more. We match the actions to our growing number of subscribers (we are a non-profit and are subscriber-supported) based upon the issues they care about and their geographic location and do not overwhelm them. You won’t find “Do these 10 things now or the world will end!” on civ.works. You will also not generally find petitions. When our subscribers perform an action they can “check-in” gaining civic action points on our platform.
The vital concept of actions on our platform evolved from collaboration with the Progressive Coders Network, Action Alliance, Indivisible Virginia, Moms Rising, Action Network and Action Group Network. We are deeply grateful for those that openly transcended typical organizational barriers in order to accelerate the impact of all of us working together.
We are getting ready to roll-out the concept of “Virtual Town Halls” –a civ.works group page in which the only members are an elected official (or elected body) and their validated constituents –for commenting and voting on upcoming legislation or policy. Colleen Hardwick and Place Speak are already doing excellent work in this area. Eventually we’d like to grow this to participatory budgeting (in conjunction with the effort by Josh Lerner and the Participatory Budgeting Project).
We are also building out a civic action education curriculum and a model law/policy center.
Eventually — working together we seek to transcend the resistance –we want to use the same concept of “societal flash mobs” to support and advance great law and policy that will restore the American dream –for all. While many of our early subscribers are progressive minded, we recognize we must engage the center and some conservatives that with us believe that the American system must be fair.
Ultimately –this is a long war that won’t be won in the next special election, in the 2018 or even the 2020 cycle. This will not be won by clicking on a petition and high-fiving ourselves. This will not be won with a contribution to a PAC or a particular candidate. The other side has been evolving, funding and growing this for nearly 50 years. This is a long, multi-generational battle that requires strategy, infrastructure, messaging and funding. It requires loosely-coupled unity. We don’t have to agree on every issue –however we can work cooperatively to address wealth inequality –and not allow ourselves to be so readily divided. And we must all remain engaged –paying attention, educating and informing others, registering voters, supporting and volunteering for great candidates –and holding those we elect accountable to “We the People”. Only then can we begin to rebuild the American dream predicated upon fairness, opportunity and justice for all.