As the years go by, it increasingly feels like our voices aren’t being heard. Poll after poll indicates what the people want, yet these desires are often sidelined. It sometimes seems as if this neglect is intentional, setting up issues as ammunition for the next election cycle. Once in office, meaningful changes are rare. Gridlock in D.C. is the norm, while we wait for affordable healthcare, fair wages, child care, and guaranteed parental leave, to name just a few.
The crux of this discussion is to pinpoint the root cause so we can address some of the pressing issues before us. We can elect as many new faces as we want, but if the system is broken, we should anticipate the same outcomes. The focus has shifted so drastically that politicians now choose their voters, rather than voters choosing their representatives. Our democracy has been diluted to the point where lobbyists and political parties can easily exploit the bottlenecks this dilution creates. Most elections hinge on just a few states, and within those states, only a handful of voting districts truly matter. The rest of us watch and hope that those few vote in our favor.
In a previous article, “Democracy Diluted: The Declining Representation in America,” I discussed the how and why of this phenomenon. It all began with an act in 1929 that capped the number of…
