Parties are bad

Parties are not all bad. They help publicize important issues and give Americans a choice about them. But parties are mostly bad.

Dominate political power and conversation

Parties concentrate political power in a narrow-minded hierarchy. I’ve tried to reach people in both parties. They are largely unreachable. When reached, people are too busy to consider a new approach.

They dominate the political conversation. Many want a balanced budget or to audit the Federal Reserve Bank’s decisions. Some want a central US Bank. Others want deregulation or to end to the shadow banking system. Many want an end to corruption or climate change. But politicians and the parties dominate the media with news against the other party. Their messaging floods the airwaves with one-sided rhetoric. Other ideas gain little of no attention.

Corruption: Parties represent the elite

Both parties are dominated by the economic elite. Clearly the wealthy have more time and money to spend on politics. But America has effectively become an oligarchy, serving a variety of wealthy special interests, rather than its voters.

Parties represent the political elite. Most Americans are in favor of term limits for Congress. Neither party will touch this issue, so it has been virtually invisible for decades, even though a compromise is available. When it did a survey, the above anti-corruption effort found 97% of Americans favored it. Congress did nothing and we hear nothing from big media.

Parties work against freedom and choice

Parties work hard to stifle third parties. In the last election, the Democratic party worked hard to ensure Lawrence Lessig was kept out of their debate. After the primaries, the parties refused to let the Libertarian and Green parties take part. Part of this is the natural desire to beat all opposition and collect power. But part is that there is no check or balance to them. The two parties run the Federal Election Commission and years ago they took control of the presidential debates. They steadfastly oppose a voting method that would make third-party candidacies easier.

They end up working against democracy, choice and representation. Our representatives can only form coalitions today with their party’s blessing. Many successfully “reach across the aisle”, but without party support, no legislation is passed. The message of parties to America- support one of us or have no political say.

Solution

There are lots of ways to organize ourselves and lessen or eliminate our 2-party monopoly. But almost all of them involve changes in laws. That means fighting the powerful parties.

PeopleCount proposes making politicians accountable to voters rather than parties, donors or special interests. It starts by letting Americans vote on interesting issues, chosen by themselves. But it doesn’t stop there. It includes communication with and from your politicians, a system that creates a relationship of accountability with voters. This relationship between voters and politicians will supplant the both of their dependence on parties.

After a short time of using PeopleCount, voters can easily influence their politicians to align with the will of the people. And when they disagree, they’ll be motivated to compromise, such as with term limits.

Please add your email address to our announcement list.

The American political system was poorly designed for modern times. Most people praise America’s founders for their wisdom and foresight in creating a system of government that seemed to be a highly workable system. It largely resisted tyranny. And it clawed its way back from many types of corruption.

A system of government is not a political system.

There’s more to a political system than just a system of government. The government is the institutions that make and interpret laws and carry them out, plus the laws about election. The political system includes all the ways the government is chosen and influenced. While the founders said a lot about government, they said little about elections and almost nothing about influence.

Our political system was designed for 1776, poorly designed for the 1900s

Our political system was founded on some ideas about good people acting in good faith for the benefit of a free country. In 1776, Freedom and Democracy were old ideas but new practices. It hadn’t been tried on a national level for over a millennium. We honor our founders and find wisdom in their writing. But we shouldn’t think their basic solution was sufficient, especially for today’s world, which was very different from theirs.

America’s first Constitution ignored rights, corporations and political parties

In the beginning, America’s constitution did not even guarantee basic rights. The constitution was signed in September, 1787. The Bill of Rights was proposed two years later, and signed into law after another two years.

What else didn’t they plan for?

They warned against political parties

Washington warned against political parties and “factions” before he left office. Madison wrote about it in the Federalist papers. He hoped being a federation would stop them from taking over. He was mistaken. No checks and balances were designed to keep them from warping our politics or stealing our power.

They did not plann for lobbying

In their day, lobbying was abhorrent. People had the right to petition government. But no one had the right to hire influential people to petition government for them. That was unthinkable. Prohibitions of it were written into state constitutions at times, but eventually those were lost.

Corporations and even huge companies

Corporations were abhorrent to America’s founders. Their rise in America was against everything the founders believed.  They certain never intended corporations to have the rights of people. Yet today, corporations with budgets larger than most countries operate with near impunity, often influencing and even bribing our Congress.

Accountability was never designed

Mostly, the founders didn’t think much about democracy. To them, citizens were unreliable, uneducated and poorly informed. The founders had debates about whether they should have any say at all- perhaps just landowners? Perhaps just the educated? They didn’t foresee a time when most people could read and write. They didn’t foresee a time when most every citizen had access to media. They certainly didn’t conceive of the anything like the internet.

To them, voting for representatives was a pretty new idea. It hadn’t been around long enough for them to see the possible flaws and corruption. They didn’t think hard about ensuring that politicians would be accountable to people, accept in elections. Nor did they foresee that elections would be influenced by huge corporations and politicians would be corrupted by lobbyists.

What we need is a new design

PeopleCount has taken a hard, deep look at accountability. We’ve designed a way for politicians to be accountable to citizens after the election is over. And a way for citizens to hold their elected officials accountable. But we need your support. Please add your email address to our announcement list.