You Can Fix Our Government
Part I: Fire Them All
A simple way for citizens to demand accountability from politicians and encourage representation of the whole republic with the consent of the governed.

Trust in the U.S. government is extremely low and in a continuous decline. In 1972, Gallup asked Americans how much trust and confidence they had in the federal government to handle domestic problems — 70% said either a “great deal” or “fair amount,” and 29% said either “not very much” or “none at all.” When asked the same question in 2019, just 35% answered a “great deal” or “fair amount,” and 63% said either “not very much” or “none at all” (the remainder answered “no opinion”). Pew Research Center’s consensus news polls are even more dire, with just 17% of saying they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (3%) or “most of the time” (14%)
Think about that. In a matter of decades, a majority Americans no longer trust their own government.
This is a problem. If you ask Americans to think about who the people in Washington, D.C. work for, many would come up with some variation of the following list:
- Themselves and their power
- Rich donors
- Corporations
- Their party
- Special interests
See anything missing in that list? Yes. You. YOU are missing! So, who is working for you?
Who’s looking out for you?
Who has your best interests in mind? Not your representatives, that’s pretty clear. It doesn’t matter what party is in power, who is President, or whether the representatives are long time incumbents or new to politics. They all serve interests other than yours. Here’s some evidence. Politifact tracks politician’s promises, focusing on the president and the party in power. They show President Obama kept his promises 48.4 percent of the time while in office. The GOP is at 37.7 percent and, President Trump, 2+ years into his administration at a low 17 percent, with 27 percent “stalled” and another 27 percent as “in the works.” President Trump’s approval rating is at 40 percent and the job approval rating for Congress is an abysmal 19 percent (with 78 percent disapproval). If the Federal Government were a private business, they would be out of business pretty quickly!
But the press is watching our backs, right? Nope. The professional press is supposed to be a watchdog for citizens, giving us an ear to otherwise hidden facts and a voice to participate in otherwise private conversations. This “fourth estate” has a responsibility to keep politicians in check and keep them honest. But are they doing that job effectively? Gallup reported in 2016 that American’s trust in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” has dropped to its lowest level in their polling history (just 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media). There are many possible reasons for this, one being the proliferation of online “reporting” in free blogs and social media that has undercut the financial base of professional reporting. Others point to systemic problems including political and social bias and shifts in consumer expectations for what is “fair”. In fact, a recent Columbia Journalism Review poll found that 42% of Democrats believe the media does not have a partisan bias, while just 10% of Republicans believe the same. The press, it seems, has little interest in representing the facts, and more and more in pandering to biased public opinion.
When it comes to looking out for the best interest of the country as a whole, it seems we’re on our own. How on earth did it get this way?
Our current dysfunction
The politicians seem to be losing their focus, but it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Our founders set up a system intended to give everyone a chance at the American dream. The job of our representatives in federal government is not just to represent the people of their state, but to balance those interests with the best interests of the country. They are chartered with taking the incredible diversity of ideas, opinions, and needs of the whole republic and, with their colleagues, synthesize those into policy that serves everyone.
This dysfunctional state is a government of our making, and thus we have the government we deserve.
We have often been very far from our ideals. From the travesty of slavery to the persistent struggle for the rights of women and minorities, to the failure of the press, we have fought, violently at times, to live up to the model of equality and liberty to “pursue happiness” within the context of American law and culture. Our current dysfunction is a failure of state, but fortunately we have a powerful, peaceful way of “altering” our government, and each of us can participate..
It comes down to this. If you’re a citizen, I have to tell you something you won’t want to hear, but there’s really no getting around it — the current situation is your fault. Not you specifically, of course, it’s the fault of all of us. Why? Well, it comes down to something written into the basic foundations of the American republic. We read in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
You see, our government exists only by the consent of the governed. That’s you. That’s me. It’s all citizens. Whatever dysfunction exists in our government is there because we the governed have allowed it to form, fester, and flourish. We’ve given our consent by our collective political tribalism, apathy, and inaction.
Voters succumb to the echo chamber of internet media and have forced the mainstream media to become more polarized and sensational to ensure they can grab our increasingly limited attention. Then we cheer on the loudest hard-line politicians in that echo chamber. The result is that our government is no longer an institution focused on governing the whole of the republic, but a highly charged political battle ground intent on making sure just one side controls power to appease the fringe in their party.
When eligible voters don’t vote, it exacerbates the issues. Apathy plays a primary role, with just 55% of eligible voters voting in presidential elections, and far fewer in local and primary elections.
And whether we vote or not, it doesn’t stop us from having political opinions. We take hard-line stances aligned to political parties and deem those who disagree with our party not just wrong, but evil people that must be shouted down and silenced. We expect the same from our politicians and punish those who don’t fall in line.
This dysfunctional state is a government of our making, and thus we have the government we deserve. If our representatives and public institutions have become dysfunctional and we have allowed it to happen, what can be done?
Fire them all
Politicians aren’t on our side. The Press isn’t doing their job. Citizens have become either highly polarized or highly apathetic. What can be done?
We need a simple way for citizens to demand accountability from politicians and encourage representation of the whole republic with the consent of the governed. We can do this by putting their jobs, and thus their power, on the line with the most powerful tool we have — our vote. It will require us to come together with a simple idea I call IncumbentXChange.
IncumbentXChange activates citizens to vote out every single incumbent in federal office in every election until governance is demonstrably “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
In other words, voters are exchanging incumbents with new representatives every election. By sending a message to politicians that they must all work for collective governance or they all lose their jobs, their behavior will improve…over time. As long as the system remains dysfunctional we must assert our power as the governed and not give our consent to those that are part of that system. See, IncumbentXChange operates with the expectation that there are many more people who want a collaborative, functional government than there are people on the extremes who are looking only for a government that supports their group. Extremists may have the loudest voices right now, but it’s time for the silent majority to be silent no longer.
IncumbentXChange is:
- A simple approach to political change that uses the most powerful tool a citizen has — the vote.
- A non-partisan activist movement that anyone can join regardless of your party or political views.
- A way to empower every citizen without having to follow every single issue, worry about districting, or be an expert on candidate “performance.”
- A way to address the systemic problems in Washington without fundamentally changing the way Washington functions. Legislators are still accountable to do their jobs.
IncumbentXChange is not:
- An attempt at direct democracy. Incumbent Exchange does not seek to direct legislation, to direct politicians toward specific policies, or amend the Constitution. Rather, we seek representation that is far more collaborative and far less politicized.
- A PAC or issue-based movement. We do not support specific policies or candidates. Voters are free to choose any candidate they like (other than incumbents) and follow any political ideology.
- An attempt to change the fundamentals of our representative government. We just want it to work better.
How it works — our principles
IncumbentXChange demands accountability from all our politicians. It works by IncumbentXChange members (“XChangers”) voting in every federal election, including primaries. Wherever there is an incumbent we will vote to replace that incumbent. The goal here is not to evaluate the job of any individual politician, but change the system as a whole. When the system is not working the defective parts must be replaced. For this to be effective will require members to strictly follow some core principles:
1. We have no sacred cows — we vote out all incumbents, no exceptions.
In the 2020 elections, that means the following people in each federal branch would be voted out of office:
Executive:
President: Donald Trump
Vice President: Mike Pence
United States Senate:
Alabama: Doug Jones
Alaska: Dan Sullivan
Arizona: Martha McSally
Arkansas: Tom Cotton
Colorado: Cory Gardner
Delaware: Chris Coons
Georgia: David Perdue
Idaho: Jim Risch
Illinois: Dick Durbin
Iowa: Joni Ernst
Kansas: Pat Roberts (retiring)
Kentucky: Mitch McConnell
Louisiana: Bill Cassidy
Maine:Susan Collins
Massachusetts: Ed Markey
Michigan: Gary Peters
Minnesota: Tina Smith
Mississippi: Cindy Hyde-Smith
Montana: Steve Daines
Nebraska: Ben Sasse
New Hampshire: Jeanne Shaheen
New Jersey: Cory Booker
New Mexico: Tom Udall (retiring)
North Carolina: Thom Tillis
Oklahoma: Jim Inhofe
Oregon: Jeff Merkley
Rhode Island: Jack Reed
South Carolina: Lindsey Graham
South Dakota: Mike Rounds
Tennessee: Lamar Alexander (retiring)
Texas: John Cornyn
Virginia: Mark Warner
West Virginia: Shelley Moore Capito
Wyoming: Mike Enzi (retiring)
House of Representatives:
All 435 House seats. Here is the official list of representatives by state.
If you feel you can’t vote to replace even a single candidate in the lists above, IncumbentXChange is not for you. You should vote as you normally would, which is a vote for the status quo.
2. We do not abstain
We vote in every election, including primaries. We understand our vote can be of any party or political affiliation. If we feel no viable candidate is on the ballot, we will write in a candidate.
3. We vote for the good of the republic.
We do not vote based solely on party, but rather for candidates we believe will further the cause of collaborative governance. While we are free to vote along party lines, we are committed to replace every incumbent, regardless of party. But it may also mean that we may vote for someone outside our normal party if that is the best way to replace an incumbent. A good test is to think of who would be your least favorable candidate for President of the United States. If you couldn’t vote for that person in order to replace the incumbent, IncumbentXChange is not for you. Remember, we’re about systemic change over the long term, not about short term partisan politics.
Above we describe the method of political change. In Part II: What We Expect I describe what XChangers expect from our representatives.

