Democracy Dies: Unless ‘We The People’ Powerfully Reconstruct And Revive Real Populism.

 Essay first published on Medium.

The rush to create a Constitution in 1787, due to rebellion and divisions among the states, likely made our democracy possible. Today, our precious incrementalism has turned farcically harmful. The more we debate a great idea, the less time we have to legitimately deliberate on, and successfully implement, a nearly great solution. Worse yet the once great idea is reduced to a caricature of its original form.

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Nothing is ever perfect that humans finally get their hands on; that is why the nearly great solution. That said, we hold on longer, and mess with things even more than normal imperfect humans should. Stalling, obfuscating, and ranting do not give debate more value.

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American Ingenuity Turned To Goo.

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We The People still have great, big ideas, but as we debate them over and over again, they ooze out as gray matter goo. Our attempts to solve colossal problems becomes a blended brain matter drainer. Then we squeeze, and strain ideas into useless viscous.

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Our concept of nuance is nothing but French fried for coarse chicken scratches on the brain. Many argue viciously about each issue, as if they all are from a black or white binary position, so we proceed to puree the gradation matter in between into mush.

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As we battle continuously in a mosh pit of messy policy mush, the billionaire industrialists are working on their great, and big ideas in earnest. And Congress is listening closely, and implementing widely. They are not working on our great, and big, ideas to any extent.

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The industrialists are lifted to the highest heights by Congress; we are considered a rabble, who mostly whine for handouts, and languish in a no-go zone. To demand changes in the political process, so We The People can have a real say, is scandalous, blasphemous, treasonous, and socialist. Our power to change anything substantial is limited to 233 years ago when white aristocratic slave owners roamed the southeastern steppes of America.

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The Democrats try as they do, often give the billionaires, and massive corporations too much credit for the work they have done. Republican leaders ignore most Americans altogether unless it is about squandering our votes.

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I am not making a both sides do it argument. My argument is if We The People do not have the power in society like the great industrialists, we can never really trust that either party will or can deliver for us. Taking over this power vacuum dynamic requires a new dynamic.

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Enhanced Populism To The Rescue.

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Now considered by many as a nativist movement of angry people, populists were actually hardworking Americans of all colors. They were creating a political coalition to defend their way of life, and building an awareness of their exploited labor, in an economy run by a small coterie of crony capitalists.

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Regrettably, the real Populist Movement of the 1890s was disbanded barely over a decade after it had begun because of its inability to find consistent, national common ground. Making an emotional appeal alone, to a national audience, to get out the vote, as did William Jennings Bryan, while not constructing a strong matrix of constituencies, leaders, and workers that will outlast the initial energizing, guarantees the movement will peter out.

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Large corporations and billionaires never require an emotional component, therefore often are the energizer robot rabbits of the political sphere. Unless there is a comparable countervailing force, they will continue to have the rabbit ears of the political establishment on a consistently powerful basis.

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The greater public is left to scraping off pieces of policies that at best partially fit our circumstances and realities. Our great, and big ideas are sympathized with in Democratic corridors, but finalization, and implementation is vacated because their power base is only available intermittently.

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In turn we become apathetic and lax in our political pursuits just at the moment we may have made significant progress. The robber barons never hit this wall. Therefore our great and big ideas are put aside to gather dust, again.

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To proceed with something as expansive as the Green New Deal, or similar, the political power available for liftoff is slim, and to achieve anything near timely completion status can be multiplied by a factor of zero. About half of Congress will put on a bullshit show, or have a bloody stool fight to keep anything big from happening.

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Bryan had many farmer, labor, and peoples’ organizations behind him when he ran for president in 1896, but they were not connected to him directly. It seemed that these real populists brought in the perfect ringer to fight their fight. He was a great orator, and tent revival specialist, yet Bryan was not insinuated into a nationwide organization that could successfully go the distance once, let alone day after day, year after year, or term after term.

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Bryan’s appearance on the scene was like Jimmy Carter’s, except of course Carter won in 1980. While he was not a populist, he could not keep Congress on his side, and like Bryan he did not effectively cultivate a large core, national constituency. Relying on the power of one politician is never enough, no matter how enthused they make us feel, or push us to act at times.

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Sadly, since the 1890s, Americans have mostly been the Joad ‘families’, and The Great Migration passing like dust bowl bound caravans in the twilight, on a loop.

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Thomas Frank in his book, The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism, deftly describes and deconstructs the pseudo-populist politicians that tried to co-opt true populism in the last 120 years. FDR, MLK, and the groups SNCC, and less so SDS, are probably the best post 19th century examples of populists or populist movements. But read his book to get the whole scoop.

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One Percenters’ Econ Job Voodoo.

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The public can be swayed by changing personal, economic, or political conditions, as well as the candidate’s failings discovered during the campaign or while serving. Pejoratively this has been called the public’s fickleness, but in reality life upheavals, and persuasion by negative news (true or not), are powerful change agents.

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Unfortunately, corporations and billionaires can ignore all of the noise, and keep pushing their political position. And the switching of allegiance to the one percent’s party candidate by just 5% of voters in our close election environment, can destroy the gains we have made. Even if switching of allegiance is done in a few select states due to the Electoral College. That dilemma is a major reason why an adjunct democratic structure is required.

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To finalize and implement our great and big ideas, We The People need to build a structure that is broad, wise, and strong enough to withstand everything the 1% can throw at us. William Jennings Bryan was crushed by the most lopsided, and likely the biggest, campaign war chest ever in American history, according to historian Thomas Frank.

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With the WTP system, we can break the think tank banks of the bully billionaires, and deplete their dangerous political donor dollar dominance.

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Think of this adjunctive structure as the perpetual, propulsion system for American civic and worker empowerment. Like the assistance moving walkways and escalators provide, but for assisting our civic participation on those days, and years when we are tired of carrying all the political baggage. Relying on the political process alone leaves us vulnerable.

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Politics and politicians are not replaced in this new system; We The People will instead be able to more consistently, and effectively intercede in politics and the process, as well as more quickly and comprehensively exact our desired outcome. Rather than a political activity generator, the structure is a policy activating system.

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Moving fast and effectively was shown to be the very thing we were not able to do with COVID-19. While Trump was incompetent in his response, those types of mistakes must never happen again. Yet they will happen again if our power continues to be intermittent compared to the monopolists and the one percenters.

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We The People need a finalizing and implementing system that greatly improves civic participation, and transcends politics. That includes if required, responding conclusively and comprehensively to another inside-our-borders 9–11, a Hurricane Katrina, a 2008 crash, or as we must, ASAP with the climate crisis.

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A Conclusion Too.

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Yes, there may be 15% to 35% of Americans who will always stay on the outside. That being said, the system is constructed to be as bipartisan as possible. However, even with just 60% of Americans on board, the prospects for influencing Congress, and the president of either party is highly probable.

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I have developed the outlines of the structure with various elements to help workers and citizens to get more done, better and faster. For example, its Jobs Development Platform has an instantaneous job placement function, where the applicant picks their own job. That means an end to illegal discrimination in hiring including for the formerly incarcerated. Only skill and competency are valid criteria, with exceptional education or training facilitated when needed.

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There are components for delegating civic responsibilities, greatly reducing crime, ending mass incarceration, and the opioid crisis. It is constructed to tackle the climate crisis by effectively coordinating and deploying all forms of clean energy, energy savers, and waste reduction strategies. The system vastly improves responses to pandemics and disasters in the natural environment.

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Of course, it will require a We The People movement to put in place. Much of the system can be assembled using current technology, and completely implemented when the WTP movement comes through by pushing Congress to fund the system. While I have worked out the basic framework and made suggestions for specific elements, the movement relies on the involvement of millions like you, and the system requires your ideas and skills to finalize.

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by Richard The Chwalek.

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To get a fuller explanation and the reasons why I believe this type of structure is needed, get my ebook: Our Democracy Requires An Update: A Transformational We The People System.