The political revolution to make America great again
Standing at opposite poles, two populist presidential candidates have some really great sounding slogans, but do either of them have a reasonable plan for creating a “political revolution” to “make America great again”? The truth is — even if they had the best plans in the world — the power of the president to affect the kind of changes they promise is pretty limited. Through the EqualCitizens.US project, we want to go beyond the flowery rhetoric of campaigns and get very specific about what achieving such fantastic claims will actually take.
You do not help a drunk find sobriety by having them promise or sign a pledge to work on it.
America has always had a deep love/hate relationship with presidents, which is why their elections capture more of the public’s attention — the percentage of voter turnout is an average 14 points higher compared to midterm elections. Yet the vast majority of policy decisions fall on Congress, not the presidency. More importantly, when it comes to fixing Congress, the president has very few options.
This is precisely why mobilizing ordinary citizens is just about the only chance we have at getting elections that aren’t rigged, a Congress that is free of corruption, and voting that is both convenient and secure. More plainly — You do not help a drunk find sobriety by having them promise or sign a pledge to work on it. You help an addict by changing the incentives and the environment until they themselves truly commit to reform.
We may indeed need a political revolution to make America great again, but before that is even possible, what we really need is a political intervention. Not a confrontation, not a fight, not another mass protest lacking in substance and a realistic plan of action.
Like any good intervention, you have to start with being very frank about the current state of affairs — Uncle Sam, you are a drunk — and how this reality affects the world around them. Next, you clearly identify all the steps — entirely possible right now — towards achieving sobriety. Lastly, you provide a strong community of support to help keep the addict honest and on the road to recovery.
EqualCitizens.US is a political intervention that is taking on the root causes of political inequality by bridging the gap between grassroots activism and expert reformers to pass real, honest federal legislation. To be sure, nothing like this has ever been done before, but building on the success of other crowdfunding and crowdsourcing approaches, we believe that the combination of good technology and a good process will produce success where other approaches have fallen short.
So what will it mean to “crowdsource” federal legislation? The exciting part is we really don’t know. It will likely be different for every bill that we consider in 2016. For example, our partners at FairVote have a largely complete and finalized bill for restoring multi-member districts to House elections and for incorporating Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). In this case, much of the work will be explaining to the crowd the problem — (gerrymandering, gridlock, etc.) and how the RCV Act goes about providing a solution — before holding an up or down vote of citizen approval.
In the case of taking on the corruption stemming from lobbying and campaign finance, our partners at Issue One have assembled the ReFormers Caucus to build upon past reform legislation to craft a new version that is both comprehensive and realistic. For this case the crowdsourcing will hopefully take on a more active role in shaping the legislation so that it addresses all the concerns and questions of average citizens.
To be clear, there is no guarantee that the crowd will fully endorse any or all of the bills being considered. Yet for anyone that truly believes in the power of a democratic process, crowdsourcing these bills is our best opportunity for passing real reforms in 2016 and 2017. Compared to the consequences of continuing to accept a failed system, the risk of only moving the dialogue along a little further forward is absolutely worth it.
If you agree, help give this political intervention a head start now by pledging to be an official co-sponsor today.
Bruce Skarin is the founder of EqualCitizens.US, a nonpartisan project to crowdsource three reforms by August 2016. Follow him on Twitter.
