People position themselves to respond to the failures of politics and government. We keep politics the way it is mostly with our resignation, but also with our complaining and our dislike of it.

The one thing we don’t do is demand a solution. If you’ve listened to the presidential debates, no one even questioned what the candidates would do about the problems with partisan politics, gridlock and the alienation of citizens. Some of the democrats talked about making election day a holiday and other voting changes, but no one tackled the bigger question of accountability.

True, Lawrence Lessig organized his candidacy around this but “politics” prevented him from being able to debate. And no one invited PeopleCount, either…

Politics is expensive and combative, so citizens stay away, keeping it expensive. When citizens approach, it’s often with weapons raised, so it adds to the combative atmosphere. Government is full of fighting and little communication. It’s not surprising it’s unresponsive. Of course we keep politics at arms length, it’s a negative experience.

So when approaching PeopleCount, even though it’s new, different and promising, people think of the negative “politics” they know and can’t get that it can be constructive, fast, easy, even rewarding. All the current problems and negative experiences crowd out the possibilities.

In politics, it’s common to try to beat the other side. So people want to beat politics itself. Lessig’s previous attempt to reform politics was to fund political fights. Lots of people don’t want to fight or beat people, but our culture says loud and clear that’s the only thing that works.

One of the beauties of PeopleCount is that it empowers the current political players as well as citizens. Since most people are listening for a solution that beats the “other side”, they can’t hear, at first, that PeopleCount offers a real solution.

The only things that can survive are those that can resist change. If it can’t resist change, it changes. As time wears on, forces are constantly wrestling with everything. The forces that don’t kill it makes it stronger. After 200 years of being buffeted back and forth, our political system has strong, pervasive conversations that survive. Our amount of communication has skyrocketed over the last few decades, but politics has adapted and survived, utilizing its strengths, fear and anger. How can communication win out?

In many ways. Easily. All it takes is a bit of awareness on your part. Recognize how your actions and attitudes feed the status quo daily.

And accept my invitation to support PeopleCount. Be part of a real solution.