Americans, and American understandings about politics are organized around a lot of erroneous thoughts. Let’s look at some of these and create a new way to organize.
David Roberts wrote an article in Vox titled:
Tech nerds are smart. But they can’t seem to get their heads around politics.
His conclusion:
Only when they understand politics, and figure out how to make it work better, will all their dreams find their way into the real world.
It’s a beautiful article, full of things to expand the understanding of most of us. My conversations with people show that most of us think in very human ways- we simplify. We make sense out of the world pretty quickly, and stop when we’ve put a sensible picture together- not an accurate picture, just one that’s sensible to us.
And then we act on that understanding. We talk, we rant, we complain, many of us proclaim and even preach. And most of us end up generalizing, not particularly respectfully, about the “others”.
David gives a number of statements that pierce our generalizations.
Aren’t 45% of American voters registered as independent?
“…independents are not independent. … (they) resemble weaker partisans much more than they do real independents. In actuality, real independents make up just over 10 percent of Americans, and a small fraction of Americans who actually vote”
But aren’t many of these independents moderate?
“…moderates … gravitate toward the political center, splitting the difference between the mainstream positions of the two parties. If that’s a moderate, then America doesn’t have many of those either.”
They should be more centrist than others, shouldn’t they?
Moderates also tend to be more disengaged from politics. More engaged voters will tend to follow … the positions of party leaders. People who know little … will tend to support positions outside the mainstream… A voter with deeply informed, mildly center-left positions will code as “more partisan” than a moderate who has ill-informed positions that are all over the map, but that doesn’t mean the moderate is more centrist…
At PeopleCount.org, we say that political parties organize us and divide us. They capture allegiance on a few issues, often offering an emotional hook like an injustice or threat. Then they pretend to represent us on a host of issues, usurping our power for their own purposes which often seems to be battling “the opposition” for power.
This is why so many people are registered as independent. Not because they don’t favor one party, but because each party represents a platform and ideology that doesn’t agree with them in important ways and are they are run to use their power regardless of what The People want.
PeopleCount.org proposes a new way to politically organize. Let’s organize separately around each issue, see where we stand and hold Congress accountable for results. While we are buffeted by new circumstances, we are organized by old parties. We react to old ideas and drift, paralyzed, into a random future. Let’s try something new. Let’s deal with each issue on its own and design our future together.
Instead of politicians being accountable to the parties, let’s have them be accountable to you and me, The People.
PeopleCount.org is now making progress and targeting our launch this Winter! To help us succeed, please register and vote on some issues. And please donate a few bucks and join our mailing list.