I did a search for “Fixing our Broken Democracy” on Google. The top results are stale. We already know them. They have good ideas, but no real path to get them implemented.

#1 – A 36-minute YouTube video from February, 2015 called Fixing Our Broken Democracy by Paul Lauenstein. It’s about Move to Amend, a constitutional amendment saying money is not speech and corporations are not people.

#2 – The search phrase isn’t even on this page on the site of the Communication Workers of America. The page is about the 1% silencing their voices and the link between rights at work and political rights.

#3 – A June, 2014 Huffington post article titled: How to Fix our Broken Democracy. It discusses some important concepts in the history of politics, and says we need to balance them, but doesn’t offer a solution.

#4 – A book called:  Fixing our broken democracy: The case for ‘Total Representation’. It proposes a way to give losing votes in an election some weight, and is focused on the UK. It’s an important concept. But implementing it will probably first require fixing democracy.

#5 – A 2009 paper by an engineer at Columbia University. It’s about money in politics, fraud, plurality voting and a bit more. It’s nicely written, but goes along the lines of the usual answers.

#6 – An article on BillMoyers.com: Five bills to help fix our broken democracy – They could help a bit, but they’d first need help getting passed.

#7 – The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU has their page: Is Democracy Broken. It has similar ideas about elections and voting.

#8 – An article on Medium by John Lisney advises citizenship education, more hands-on issues and events (vague), and re-thinking elections. This last intrigued me. But he quickly concludes that elections are all that is possible, so we should get more young people to vote.

#9 – A pointer to a now-finished workshop on fixing democracy.  It seems to have been about money in elections and corporate personhood.

#10 – An European idea- get more young people to vote.

#11 – The Green Party on the topic, with a host of the usual ideas, plus advocating changes to help third parties.

#12 – An article about the UK supporting instant-runoff elections.

After these were articles about fixing our voting system and fixing immigration. And many thousands followed. So far, PeopleCount seems unique. Please add your email address to our announcement list.

Bernie’s “Our Revolution” seems like the same old politics.

I’m on a lot of different political mailing lists. I received a message from Bernie Sanders. Well, it wasn’t really from him. It was signed “Bernie Sanders”, but the “From” address was info@berniesanders.com. I’ve written to them many times, but never received an answer. It’s the same political run-around.

The gist of the message was in a paragraph:

Join Our Revolution and help continue our critical work to create a government which represents all of us, and not just the 1 percent – a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice. Add your name here.

 

Same old plea for money

If you click on it, you’ll see it goes to OurRevolution.com. It’s a simple 2-page site (for now). The first page asks for your email address and zip code. I filled it in and clicked on the submit button which is named: “Join the Fight.”

That brings you to the second page, which is TRULY REVOLUTIONARY! (Trigger warning, facetiousness!) You won’t believe how brilliant it is. Unlike any other campaign in history- can you guess? There’s a donation form!!!

I was very disappointed.

They want to create a revolution!

But are using the same-old politics.

They want to represent all of us!

But they use the same old kinds of push-communication, like emails.

They want to overturn Citizens United!

Their plan: Donate money.

This is OUR Revolution!

The Democrats will be running it from an undisclosed location. Who’s running it? ActBlue. There’s no phone number, no person to contact. It’s the same people that have been running half of the political system for the last century. Don’t talk to them, just send money.

I can promise a REAL revolution

I’ll make you a promise. Whatever money you’ve donated to politicians, if 1% of you donate 1/10th of that amount to PeopleCount.org, I’ll guarantee you a revolution that’ll blow your socks off within 3 months.

Or, email Bernie. Well, his dwindling campaign. Maybe your letters will get his attention. Mine didn’t.

We need more than a few new laws

We need new laws. The Democrats’ New American Security Agenda is a good start. But we need much more than those. In its unveiling at the Democratic convention, they said it took a year and a half to put these common-sense changes together! That’s much too long. Most of them were known 7 years ago when the Democrats had control. Plus, there’s no realistic plan for how to get Congress to pass it. And many more changes will be necessary. Those will take decades. And the Republicans will have ample opportunity to hinder and stop the progress. And to reverse it.

We need more. Please add your name to our announcement list. Your participation will be key to making a REAL revolution successful.

The game of politics can be an uncivil, ugly one. The events of this week’s Republican National Convention are a strong reminder.

Uncivil examples from the Republican convention

Perhaps the most widely reported event of the week was Ted Cruz’s Wednesday night speech. He encouraged convention attendees to “vote your conscience”. The crowd began to boo him because of his refusal to endorse Donald Trump. Cruz responded in a separate rally the next day. He vowed not to support a candidate who had attacked both his wife and father in the media.

Trump launched a series of personal attacks on Cruz throughout his campaign. The most notable ones were those Cruz mentioned in his Thursday rally. Trump publicly mocked the appearance of Cruz’s wife Heidi. He tried to link Cruz’s father to the assassination of JFK.

Many people have sympathized with Cruz. They praise him for choosing his principles over party allegiance. But one has to wonder: Why is politics so uncivil?

Negative Campaigning Is The Most informative

One reason: Being rude, mean and insulting often works. Negative campaigning has been around since the days of the Abraham Lincoln-Stephen Douglas debates, with their cheering, booing, and accusations. Negative ads expose the weaknesses in an opponent’s policies or character. Though they’re often nasty, these ads tend to be the only ones that dive into specifics.

CNN’s Joshua Spivak explored this in depth in a 2012 editorial. Positive ads often hone in on personality traits and characteristics. They serve as a window into a politician’s life but not his or her platform. And because of this, negative ads seem to be the one advertising strategy that’s informative.

The Media Cherishes The Uncivil

Since the days of Watergate, the press has rallied around stories of corruption and political failure. The moment a scandal breaks, the 24-hour news cycle devours and exposes it. These are the stories that have dominated our radios, TV, and news feeds for decades. The negative stories keep politicians on the defensive. And because all of this negativity is on full display, each candidate has a wealth of material to choose from in an effort to take down the opponent.

The more negative the story, the more impressive its presentation. We’ve been molded to reward bad news with our attention. So instead of rising above it, our politicians feed us more of it.

How Do We Fix It?

A shorter election cycle would reduce the squabbling between politicians. This cycle’s top candidates have been campaigning for a year. In an age where news drops from trending topics in a matter of hours, that’s a long time to stay visible. Negativity cuts through, and each candidate has to find new ways to maintain relevancy.

We could also demand better. We could stop responding to the negative ads. We could show our politicians that we expect real policy conversations before an election. Less rhetoric. More specifics. Until then, there will be more of the same.

The American political system leaves voters almost powerless. It’s really a lousy system.

The election is over for me.  I know whom I’m going to vote for. I read this article on how Trump manipulates people and what he and his followers believe. I read this article that says Trump is almost certainly a rapist and a child rapist. And I’ve seen many allegations against Hillary, but all the serious ones are lies disguised as exaggerations. Most can be debunked on Snopes.com.

What kind of system lets those with power, the voters, ignore the system for years? A lousy one.

Since I’m powerless, I can safely ignore national politics for the next two years

So I know how I’ll vote in November. And I know who I’ll vote for for Congress and my Senator. So I can safely ignore federal politics for the next two years.

Doesn’t it strike you as odd that we’re supposed to be a “government of, by and for The People”, but our political system gives citizens nothing to do after choosing who to vote for?

This certainly explains why Americans are mostly ignorant and apathetic about politics. If I pay attention to politics and issues, what good does it do? Mainly, it makes me frustrated or unhappy…

Maybe voting should be the start, not the end

What if voting for someone was merely the beginning of your political participation? What if you actually had a job to do during your representative and senators terms?

That job would have to be pretty easy and fast- most of us have jobs and families to take care of.

But what if there were more to do than just judging personalities every two years and then taking a few minutes to vote?

Add your name to our announcement list and we’ll send you a note when there is.

Over the last week, America has been rocked by the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, as well as the deaths of five Dallas police officers. We hear from celebrities and Facebook friends. We should contact our Senators and Representatives. But what happens if we do? Will our politicians actually listen to us and use our words as motivation to make changes?

In my experience, the answer is “No”.

Politicians are not listening

I’ve reached out to several candidates on various issues. I’ve received little assistance. I’ve reached out to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump.  No one has returned any of my messages. I’ve sent letters to my representatives. On the bright side, they’ve sent responses. But these responses are often filled with typical political rhetoric that doesn’t answer my questions.

I’ve even attempted to make appointments with my local representatives. They’ve relied on ME to suggest times for a meeting. But each time I suggest times, they’re not available.

The truth about surveys and polls

I can’t speak to politicians directly. Perhaps polls and surveys can at least help reflect my concerns and opinions, right? Wrong. The people questioned in these surveys are largely uninformed and unprepared. Those conducting the surveys don’t ask substantive questions and don’t provide respondents enough time to think about their answers. Additionally, in a 2015 New York Times article, it was revealed that many polling companies still rely on landline phone surveys when a majority of the public primarily uses mobile phones.

Town hall meetings are only slightly better. Politicians are forced to answer questions because they’re face-to-face with their constituency. But they only take questions from a handful of attendees. And those questions are often pre-screened.

Why aren’t politicians listening?

It depends on who you ask. One school of thought suggests that the politicians’ amount of wealth and privilege prevents them from sympathizing with the concerns of the people they serve. In late 2013, Mic posted an article about a study conducted by University of California at Berkeley researcher Paul Piff. Among many other points, the study highlighted that voters continue to elect politicians who don’t identify with their needs. This results in a continued lack of fair representation.

But the more popular school of thought is that they can’t even discover the concerns of the people they serve. Our politicians are immersed in the world of politics. The citizens are competing for their attention with the parties, wealthy donors and lobbyists. More often than not, they’re going to listen to the people who are funneling money into their campaigns and the people who are sitting next to them on Capitol Hill.

There are too many of us

There are simply too many of us and too few of them. They settle for the status quo instead of finding a more effective way to connect with us.  If we really want to get through to them, we can’t simply demand change on individual issues. We have to demand a change in the way our politicians communicate with us. Or we’ll never get through.

This is what we’re building at PeopleCount.org. Join us.

Our political system isn’t injured. It’s been decaying for the last 150 years due to forces that our founders never envisioned. It was designed for a world where corporations were prohibited.

A world without corporations

The founders prohibited corporations by common consent. They didn’t realize their understanding would be eroded by time.

America was built with a tight reign on corporations. The abuses and crimes of the British East India Company were in the forefront of our founding fathers’ minds. (This corporation’s tea was at the heart of the Boston Tea Party.)

See the free book Gangs of America, by Ted Nace.  For most of America’s first century, corporations were on a tight leash. Corporations were chartered by states only for specific purposes and only for finite amount of times. They were not independent entities. They had no rights except the ones granted by their charters. None was allowed to change its name or purpose. None could own stock in another corporation much less merge with or purchase one.

This wisdom was carried out for decades in the culture of America and in practice. Corporations were chartered by states only for specific purposes by states. In the 1700’s, everyone was well aware of the dangers of corporations. They never anticipated that they would forget. They never codified this wisdom into law.

Corporations were Unleashed after the Civil War

The civil war was a tragic distraction. At the end of it, Americans had dim memories of the dangers of corporations. A few men asked for a bit more freedom for corporations and a few states complied. With their new powers, they were soon able to dominate markets, starting with the railroads. For more details, see this post about their history.

Since then, all sorts of corporations, and the people who became wealthy from them, have worked hard to influence politics. They’ve bribed. Some have threatened representatives and officials.  Many buy media and ads at a rate that subverts elections.

Corporations are powerful actors with no ethics

Americas founders built a country in which American corporations were tightly controlled. Since then, they’ve become forces that dominate much of the world, including American politics.

Corporations have no ethics. Some CEOs are very ethical. Many companies have ethical missions. But these can be discarded easily, and are broken without punishment. While there’s a new kind of corporation, a “benefit corporation” that has ethics built into its charter, traditional corporations are legally liable only for the creation of wealth for their owners. There is nothing in the law that says they should benefit employees or customers, nor society.

Right now, you have no say about whether this is right or not. Corporate money works hard to control your politicians and the parties. It succeeds in many ways.

If you want to take back American power and make it accountable to The People, add your email address to our announcement list.

See also this post about Teddy Roosevelt: Corporations are not People