The founding fathers through their Constitution anticipated many avenues of corruption entering governance; also, ways those in power can corrupt it from within. But not all. They did not anticipate Manifest Destiny, the nation spreading from coast to coast creating circumstances for so many political divisions. Nor, an entire group of politicians--one party--seeking to overthrow the government. So what to do?
Extremists attack the voting base nowadays to diminish opposition numbers. So ordinary citizens must learn how important their individual vote really is and get out on election days. It is said that the 2024 presidential election will be decided by around a 100,000 votes in a handful of states, not 210 million voting-eligible citizens. That means extensive education in expensive and social media; it mandates citizenship training for all in public and private schools. (Today many college prep students in high school get only general American history coursework with citizenship limited to less adept non-college-bound students). High turnout of democracy/America thinking/favoring voters is the aim. Current events that militate against either voting or voting the 'right' ticket must be explained at all economic/social levels. Local, state and national political clubs must manage to facilitate voting in person with amenities on the long waiting lines and transporting those people without means to travel. Those things will counter the recent moves of extremist anti-government agents to lower vote totals. The efforts must be coordinated nationally by the democracy-minded party.
As for those already in government, they must be identified by mainstream media--not the ultra-partisan opposition ones--highlighted in their home districts, and ousted at the next election. This requires a lot of money for ads and personnel so newly-empowered unions, political and civic groups and wealthy individuals must step up and donate. Not the nickel and dime requests so prevalent in social media today but massive fund-raisers at critical moments in the election cycle.
Identifying radicals isn't hard since media tend to focus on them for audience attraction and resulting ratings/income production. Highlighting them is harder except in comparison to the good, citizen oriented, progressive actions--laws and regulations--that one party likes to promote. Side-by-side comparison and contrast, that old time technique for illuminating ideas and deeds is in order. Finally the sporadic and candidate specific 'give what you can' to a candidate or civic organization must yield to higher order thinking, planning and distribution of massive amounts of funds collected, say, at candidate announcement times (hopefully more coordinated across the nation), before-primary preparation/lead-up times, and campaign times especially just before elections when millions of folks actually decide on who they will vote for.
We need a modern day Manifest Destiny focused on preserving and enhancing democracy for every subsequent election, or yield to the forces who want to slow, stop or eliminate our government as we have long known it and want it to disappear in favor of dictatorship/autocracy/or fat-cat-ism rule.
I am pleased to see you are proposing principled and practical ways to deal with dilemma. of the precarious state of American democracy. (I think of a problem as something having one solution and a dilemma as something requiring more than one.) I believe the process of solution begins with defining the issues as precisely as you can, collecting data and rigorously interpreting them. I am a hypothesis-to-theory kind of guy. The issues you have raised cover a swath of different problems and these are among the topics I would love to involve more people in these exchanges.
The founding fathers through their Constitution anticipated many avenues of corruption entering governance; also, ways those in power can corrupt it from within. But not all. They did not anticipate Manifest Destiny, the nation spreading from coast to coast creating circumstances for so many political divisions. Nor, an entire group of politicians--one party--seeking to overthrow the government. So what to do?
Extremists attack the voting base nowadays to diminish opposition numbers. So ordinary citizens must learn how important their individual vote really is and get out on election days. It is said that the 2024 presidential election will be decided by around a 100,000 votes in a handful of states, not 210 million voting-eligible citizens. That means extensive education in expensive and social media; it mandates citizenship training for all in public and private schools. (Today many college prep students in high school get only general American history coursework with citizenship limited to less adept non-college-bound students). High turnout of democracy/America thinking/favoring voters is the aim. Current events that militate against either voting or voting the 'right' ticket must be explained at all economic/social levels. Local, state and national political clubs must manage to facilitate voting in person with amenities on the long waiting lines and transporting those people without means to travel. Those things will counter the recent moves of extremist anti-government agents to lower vote totals. The efforts must be coordinated nationally by the democracy-minded party.
As for those already in government, they must be identified by mainstream media--not the ultra-partisan opposition ones--highlighted in their home districts, and ousted at the next election. This requires a lot of money for ads and personnel so newly-empowered unions, political and civic groups and wealthy individuals must step up and donate. Not the nickel and dime requests so prevalent in social media today but massive fund-raisers at critical moments in the election cycle.
Identifying radicals isn't hard since media tend to focus on them for audience attraction and resulting ratings/income production. Highlighting them is harder except in comparison to the good, citizen oriented, progressive actions--laws and regulations--that one party likes to promote. Side-by-side comparison and contrast, that old time technique for illuminating ideas and deeds is in order. Finally the sporadic and candidate specific 'give what you can' to a candidate or civic organization must yield to higher order thinking, planning and distribution of massive amounts of funds collected, say, at candidate announcement times (hopefully more coordinated across the nation), before-primary preparation/lead-up times, and campaign times especially just before elections when millions of folks actually decide on who they will vote for.
We need a modern day Manifest Destiny focused on preserving and enhancing democracy for every subsequent election, or yield to the forces who want to slow, stop or eliminate our government as we have long known it and want it to disappear in favor of dictatorship/autocracy/or fat-cat-ism rule.
I am pleased to see you are proposing principled and practical ways to deal with dilemma. of the precarious state of American democracy. (I think of a problem as something having one solution and a dilemma as something requiring more than one.) I believe the process of solution begins with defining the issues as precisely as you can, collecting data and rigorously interpreting them. I am a hypothesis-to-theory kind of guy. The issues you have raised cover a swath of different problems and these are among the topics I would love to involve more people in these exchanges.