Direct Democracy Revisited with an Advanced Workaround…

Making the case for person to person, community to community, democracy with advanced guardrails (an ideals algorithm), and more strategically and comprehensively involving a much larger percentage of Americans.

Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash.

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Essay originally published on Medium.

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We must unlearn the theories that are distrustful of, or antagonistic towards, direct democracy, so we are able to survive and thrive, and continue our experiment at an unassailable social distance from autocracy, aristocracy, plutocracy, and dictatorship. That unlearning will also help us shed the rhetorical dilemma, and institutional perception, and indoctrination, of socialism and capitalism that causes so many rifts in our politics. There is an advanced form of direct democracy that does not require a separate economic theory. Citizens and workers decide how our economics will be arranged and our civic interactions will be conducted, not a coterie of megalomaniacal plutocrats, and their socially retrogressive, political minions.

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Democracy is meant to be a flexible and fluid structure, however, over time the ability to change is greatly restricted by the encrusting of tradition, and cultural stagnation, which contributes to an ever more cumbersome and weighty, slow go, status quo, inertia. I am not talking ethnic traditions or group culture; it is about a politicized government refusing to evolve, still anchored in tired personal responsibility ideas, cynical of societal improvement, and against applying the comprehensive fixes required. The result is standing still, ignoring multiple oncoming flash floods. Here are a couple general thoughts this inertia-laden, status quo likely has… “How things were done by our parents (or ancestors) was good enough for them, so it should be good enough for us.” “There is nothing new to vote on, so why is a democracy still needed.”. When enough citizens of a democracy are thinking in this way, that democracy is beginning its end, unless an intervention is commenced.

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Majority rule is the voting aspect of democracy, but not necessarily its social and moral basis. The social basis is what I call an ideals algorithm. Our nation is guided by such an algorithm today, a.k.a. the Constitution of the United States. Democracies not guided by some basic, immutable ideals could unleash a Pandora’s box of mob actions. Effective democracies, with long term stamina in their ideals via regular civic revitalization, will more than likely have truth on their side. Diluting or drowning-down the public thirst for knowledge and truth, due to substandard educational expectations and unequal opportunities, and fogging up the electoral process through voter suppression and municipality by municipality voting structures, undermines civic competency, increases political conspiracy acceptance, makes polarization easier, and finally causes disunion, and unrest. Mob action does not occur because of democracy; it happens when the political environment is allowed to collapse on itself due to the circumstances noted above, and related issues.

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In contrast, actual, and mostly valid revolts or uprisings by the people are rare. When the people rise up, they only do so in situations where the lack of doing so will imperil their own lives, or their children, acutely, or immediately, or when their lives are in definite and permanent jeopardy. Of course, rising up, without support from a great number of citizens, only happens very infrequently, even if injustice is rampant, often because such uprisings by the people have been crushed so thoroughly; e.g. Nat Turner’s revolt and John Brown’s raid. Crushing authoritarianism leaves much of how the people live their lives in the hands of the-powers-that-be. America has always harbored such authoritarian potential, and has deployed its forces against various segments of society.

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That said, the January 6th insurrection was not instigated by the people; most rioters were the supplicants of an autocrat, or a supremacist government, a.k.a. unreflectingly loyal to the-powers-that-be. The people would not have run, and scattered — like scared cats swept up by a storm — they would have stood their ground. Additionally, the people would not have denied their involvement, or lied about why they did it. True American heroes would know their cause is righteous, and are not afraid to face the music of their actions.

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The-powers-that-be concept always has a negative connotation. The only way for the government to be released from this designation is to give the people the power over their lives they deserve, as soon as possible.

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Economic Democracy.

No one economic theory is fully valid, or always viable. Some can make a few rich; others can give workers and citizens better options and outcomes. Every side has a biased constituency, appreciatively promoting what benefits them. Their economic ideas could be 100% correct, a justification for making the wealthy wealthier, and forever increasing the inequality gap:

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• Maybe our supposed failings mean we, non-wealthy Americans, deserve what we currently get, and will get in the future?
• Possibly a large corporation has the legal authority to pay workers non-livable wages, which make health insurance, housing, and higher education impossible to afford?
• Perhaps those same corporations and billionaires can collude with the powers-that-be to define public policy so taxes cannot be collected to provide those necessary services, which the wages they pay make unaffordable?

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Then again…

• It is more plausible that the economic system we have is rigged by the-powers-that-be than it is the fault of the less powerful and those with no wealth for being in such a debilitating situation.
• And we have probably always deserved more than what we receive now from the private sector in the form of wages, and our government in the form of a countervailing force against overreach by the very rich.
• No business owner has ever done anything from the start, or on their own. They require, and have always required, citizens, government, workers, or all three to accomplish their goals.
• Therefore, we are not, and should never be, at the mercy of some unfriendly economic cartel, and its invisible handyman henchmen.

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My reasoning on the need to revamp our economic theory is to remove the stain of wealth arrogance, elitism (only a chosen few have the capacity), racism, patriarchalism, and misogyny from our nation’s core beginnings. The founders began with many good intentions, and many of their ideas will stand the test of time. Unfortunately, all of them were also male, and white. And while being mostly the wealthiest, and highly (self or school) educated, may have made them qualified in many ways to lead the nation in that era, their narrower and problematic perspectives have also permeated and oversaturated our present conditions. A direct democratic workaround can bring all segments of society into the decision process to determine what our economic and social construction should be today. We cannot keep our democracy standing or economically and socially viable if we never fully remove the termite ridden beams from its supporting structure. Our economic and social system should not be undergirded by the former winners’ ideas alone, or that of their replicants, but via all Americans equally.

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While we must not frivolously impede or unduly restrict the economy, we also cannot allow it to ruin our future at any speed, as did many automobiles maim and kill before consumer groups and government agencies were created, or became aggressive enough to stop their cost-cutting calamities. The We The People System will insure that the-powers-that-be no longer have the final say, or any major say that would override what should be our more major say.

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Setup To Fail Politics.

There are instances where our government in connection with political forces is setup-to-fail. The best we do is explain away these negative occurrences as so infrequent that they are not so bad, and at worst we throw up our hands in despair of ever changing their occurrence, or in acceptance of flaws we must endure. Barbara Lee, Representative, California, probably provides the most prominent example of an ideals’ backstop. Her response, and vote, against starting the Afghanistan War in the fall of 2001, speaks to one of the setup-to-fail, politically-influenced foils embedded in government decision-making, most glaringly in executive decisions. I call it the looking weak dilemma. Attacking and killing the hated-other via our military is viscerally associated with our continued insistence on capital punishment retribution. When the emotionally-charged rubber hits the road, politicians, almost to a one, pick the much brawn almost zero brain, tough-guy mode.

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It is as impossible for politicians to be against the state killing molesters, and murderers of children because it is barbarous as it is unlikely a politician will aggressively uphold the free-speech rights of a protester who burns an American flag during a burial at Arlington cemetery. In politics, going against these common incensed stances, such as Representative Lee did, are considered by most politicians as an incumbency death knell. If our responses to military(type) attacks, and murders were the only instances where politicians went an ideals bending or breaking direction, maybe their emotional and politically-influenced, decisions’ predicament would be under enough scrutiny, to correct such inherent, human-nature flaws. Unfortunately, these decisions are made in a great many venues, and in numberless instances. Most are not set in stone structures, but are strong traditions with restrictive barriers, or are deeply rutted cultural habits. Below is the short list. .

• First 100 days of a POTUS first term is the best time to pass legislation: That means 1,360 days of nothing or little being done by the president with Congress? .
• No major legislating can be done while an election going on: If national election campaigning occurs for over 10 months every 2 years, that leaves a maximum of 14 months of policymaking for House representatives, 32 months for senators, and 28 months for presidents*. .
• Administration transition going on: Whether handing over power to the opposition or to a friendly, the transition gives rise to a presidential ghost, an apparition without the physical powers to respond constructively; therefore mostly a placeholder policy structure is available during that lame duck period. The transition can be 10 weeks, from the first week of November to the third week of January, or longer, if POTUS puts the breaks on making decisions any amount of time before Election Day. If it is the end of a POTUS 2nd term, they must also defer to their successor during the campaign to some extent;

Think Bill Clinton and Osama Bin Laden scenario, and what Clinton possibly did, or did not do, to avoid disrupting the Gore campaign.* Or Barrack Obama, and the FBI, as to Russian election meddling, or the restrictions on FBI announcements before an election, though not followed in the Hillary Clinton emails case. It may be good to not make announcements before elections for some items, but how is it not always politically charged either way it plays out, or does not play out? .

*Note: the two above are in play only if the first 100 days is not all encompassing, or is invalid. .

• Arrogance and Narrow Goals: When politicians are protected by their inherent powers, and their lack of openness and truth telling, they present a threat to the public that their politically restricted compatriots are unable to thwart; think George W. Bush and the Iraq War. .
• Presidential Power, to make the worst mistakes possible: For example, during a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Richard Clarke in August 2001, Cofer Black, CIA Director of Counterterrorism, pounded his fist on the table. Boom! Then Black prophetically said, “We need to put this country on a war footing now” because of the threats and actions of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda! Rice did nothing. .
• Electing Sheriffs, District Attorneys, Judges: putting the lives of our progeny in the hands of these public servants, who have been run through the wringer of political campaigning and polarized politics, has too much potential to engender indifference to our ideals. At some level political considerations encourage these public servants to overproduce expedient, mouth-breathing, and life-destroying decisions, non-decisions, and outcomes. .
• Loss of continuity, accountability, and institutional knowledge: like the screw ups by local sheriffs’ offices, and others in the 1989 kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling, or in not heeding Barbara Lee (and her American ideals speech), and not avoiding our debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq. .
• Supreme Court stacking: politicized courts, not (current) immutable ideals based; no other recourse, except waiting decades (or longer) for only a possible changeover. This conservative court selectively overlooks our history of rights development, and other realities, after our first few decades, a.k.a. constitutional originalists.Therefore the court is able to place us back in historical contrivances, which corrupt our modernized ideals. .
• Skin-color and Gender hierarchy: It permeates our system. This deeply ingrained, politicized force insures extremely long term turnover, without anything in place to make drastic changes now in the form of termite removal, only the unfulfilling hope of incrementalist improvements should be expected. Although there is an almost totally unfulfilling aspirational arc, coated with a pungent White male supremacist residue, that bends oh-so slightly and reluctantly toward justice. .
• Money and skewed influence peddling: we are told by some that money is not that big of a deal in politics, then why do corporations or the wealthy spend any money on political and issue campaigns, or lobbyists? Or we could just ask Enron’s Ken Lay, or energy derivatives regulator turned Enron board member Wendy Gramm, or her husband Senator Phil Gramm, whose campaign coffer was filled by Enron. A more current as well as historical example is Bechtel Corp. Otherwise, nothing to see here….
• Simplistic answers/anger-ready issues like abortion, guns, and taxes: These issues are so lathered with apoplectic hyperbole, apocalyptic prognostications, and fear mongering that long-term resolution is unlikely. More troubling is that these issues are used as poison pills, forced down the throat of the entire political process that kill it, or are used as I.E.Ds. to destroy all paths to a larger perspective resolution. .
• Abuses by a Minority political party: a smaller group should not decide how a bigger group of voters votes, or what individual rights they get. It happens because less populated states can gain control over the senate, which often means that a much smaller population controls all bills, e.g. voter suppression, abortion, etc. State legislatures similarly can, with a minority of all potential voters, restrict the rights of a majority of citizens. States’ rights has been another abuse of the system, which continues to fragment our nation; Right to Work, and voter suppression are just two current abuses states’ rights allow. Both state and national minority parties are able to illegally and unethically trespass onto our 21st century ideals. .
• Everything that will go unseen, unknown, unresearched, or uninvestigated, i.e. will effectively stay under the general public’s radar. Education and familiarity are essential to incrementalism ever having any progressive results. This problem relates to what We The People did not know, and what the W. Bush administration did know, and did not do, as to the 9–11 attack, noted above, and in many other situations. When in power, incrementalists are fond of misinformation, disinformation, and a saturation of bogus data, whether done by outside organizations, or the administration. Such covering up of current realities helps kick needed changes down the road, or forever buries them.

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How do the political problems and society stressors above corrupt the democratic process? .

Each instance above may be defended, or possibly made moot, by one argument or another. However, since I have not presented a complete list, and that each item or category has at least the potential to restrict the franchise for tens of millions, if not over time corrupt it entirely, we must confront the problems produced by their presence in the culture, and the predicament their interference in the process puts us in. Perfection is not possible, but it is possible to remove these obvious obstacles faster than the sluggish status quo still goes slow mo.

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First Mover, Long Term Advantage.

White men always have had the vote in the United States, so they were personally responsible in giving the vote to Black Americans, other Americans, and all women, which obviously shows their centuries of irresponsibility as well as lack of foresight, ethics, presence of mind, and morality. Big, ugly misogynist and White supremacist mover advantage, and its failings, also make it obvious why women and many people of color still lack full rights:

• Abortion, Male Made Immorality: Abortion is only wrong because men made it wrong. Sure, it may have begun with their interpretation of what a male god wanted for our rib or women. A god which human men made male, coincidentally and conveniently. Why do many women still go along with first-mover advantaged males? My guess is that a large number of women cannot detach their own consciousness from millennia of male influence. Having control over your own body is feminazi thinking. Rather submit your body to the ancient rules of men, and their conveniently male god. This male tendency to control women derives from an early hominid misogynazi brain stem, only slightly evolved in many White men today;

While one man can get 100 women pregnant in one year, a woman can only get pregnant and bring to term one baby per year. Yet women must follow a rule men created, equals patriarchy in its most misogynist malarkey form. .

• Half-Assed Healthcare and Public Health: since White men made much more income on average than Black men and women in general, healthcare began as a perk for mostly middle to upper class White families, where the main income generator was a White male. In the last fifty years, the income gap has improved grudgingly for White women, and job prospects have improved less so for Black women, although beyond the menial home-service industry alone. Men of color, and Black men foremost, are still struggling, especially due to the drug wars, and continued criminalizing of the poor;

Whether the gains from any group, has improved much or not, the reality is that we are in this predicament because of a long-lasting, and overt misogynist and White supremacist orientation, and laws and a culture that still reflect it. Healthcare costs are directly associated with this ugly orientation, and how it positions even the working poor to fail, no matter their gender, or skin-color. The personal irresponsibility of the White elite in developing and upholding such a demeaning and degrading health system has no modern role model, or precedent. .

• Lower Taxes (for who?) Scheming: besides being a simplistic way to approach the public when asking for lower taxes, the legislation will mostly lower taxes on the wealthiest. As with many misdirection myths and crazy conspiracies, it is Republicans that tend to plant and promote them. For example, the bait and switch lie that says death taxes will hurt family farmers. That lie, and all the others never will help 95 percent of the 77 to 117 million nonvoters, or those households in the bottom 40 to 60 percent of incomes. .
• Society was, and is set up for men, the lives of women in most of its permutations were not considered by men, and still are not. Legacies men, as a general political body, are loath to correct. .
• Violence and angry protest was fine for white men, but not for others. .
• Once angry righteous white men made the laws, everyone else had to play nice. .
• Since white men got all they wanted 200 plus years ago, why do we need to change anything else, or be upset that things change so slowly?

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Because of the first mover advantages of the White (male) power structure, the political process will always be skewed injuriously, unless significant action is taken to dismantle its wealth, and power. Even fundamental ideas like political compromise are compromised because of it. Political compromise is fine in toss-up questions, but when it is to demean, disenfranchise, or disqualify, the rights of a large swath of Americans deemed by one side as socially unworthy, compromise only plays to the dissing group, and the incrementalist fetishizers.

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For example, if one of two major political parties was made up of all women of color today, and the other party is all White men, compromising would still always favor the party of White men. If you remain on the high ground, no fair compromise is possible. The White men continue to look down their noses with an air of stolen, unwarranted, or oversold superiority. No down pillows are made from such compromises; just the standard yearly molting occurs, barely anything of consequence is removed from the White man’s power base.

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Not Counting Out The Nonvoters.

More than 77 million Americans did not vote in the 2020 election for president. That is three million more than Trump’s 74 million, and four million less than Biden’s 81 million, (2 million voted for 3rd party candidates). That means, if our rights are being interfered with by one party, an additional 77 million Americans, almost as many Americans who vote for the winner, are also subject to their whims. The great bulk of nonvoters, who remain nonvoters, or almost never vote, get the whiplash of the winner’s policies, and the self-flagellation of the losers, so they sink deeper into their apathy or disgust than the losing side because they perceive, and will take, no future recourse. For example, as a party member, they would have the anticipation, and at least a chance for a positive boost by being in the winner’s circle of the next election.

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In 2016 the winners were reversed, the Republican candidate won, but even fewer Americans voted. There were 94 million nonvoters; whereas Trump received 62 million votes, and Clinton received 65 million, and about 8 million voted for others. Neither candidate got anywhere close to fifty percent of the total potential or eligible vote. In 2016 half of all eligible voters, 230 million, would have been about 115 million voters, nearly twice as many as each candidate received. While some may dismiss these extra Americans, about 100 million on average, due to their lack of initiative to vote, it is very dangerous to write off Americans for that reason. Especially when we make voting much more difficult than it needs to be, and our civic preparation and education is egregiously lax at best. More forebodingly, such a massive group of nonvoters make this democracy, made for all of us, vulnerable.

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While not everyone will vote, no matter the get-out-the-vote strategy, there is no cause for celebration when we have something near 100 million citizens who are disaffected, dissatisfied, or disconnected on a consistent basis. Being engaged shows a desire to improve our society, and interact with others who can help improve it. For many, it can elicit a wider awareness of the situations and circumstances others face. Voting and political engagement are not the only avenues for improving our communities and nation, but something in close proximity to complete disinterest of the voting franchise, by so many of us, does not give our democracy much cushion during disruptions or unrest.

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While I believe Republicans are more harmful to individual rights due to how they specifically select who wins and who loses, the mismatch in voters and nonvoters is a very serious threat to our democracy, and must be corrected to avoid further apathy and disunion. If a third of, or more, Americans are regularly checking out of the process, both parties will eventually fail us. Our polarization into more and more severe Democrat and Republican camps is the catalyst for disunion. More extreme versions of the parties will not successfully grow the constituency of either long term. The center cannot hold with so much burning up, and falling away from the inside, and on the edges, of the supporting structure.

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The Pankhurst Paradox.

The British activist Emmeline Pankhurst presents a perfect example of this electoral and societal quandary in her striving for women’s suffrage in the first 2 decades of the 20th century. She confronted the contradictions and paradox of the maledominated nation that had to vote on whether females should have the right to vote. There were no good arguments against her demands. The logical arguments she presented had no competition, merely standard, dominant group incrementalist claptrap and cacophonous canards.

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Pankhurst came close to showing why the French Revolution ended in madness and murder. When leaders fail to show leadership, and succumb to ancient stupid, the center will not hold, a majority loses faith in the system, and civilization breaks down. The most aggressive tactics she and her group deployed included breaking windows and burning empty buildings and mailboxes, which made it hard for the British politicians to ignore the women’s demands for the franchise. This civil disobedience strategy only occurred after many promises were broken by the leadership over nearly a decade, and their staggering ineptitude to counter any of her arguments.

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Her group was maligned for all their tactics; simply bringing petitions to leadership and parliament were met with police brutality, ordered by higher ups. They were jailed by the hundreds for protesting, and force fed, before and after the window breaking and burnings tactics were employed. Political police followed many of her members, spied on them, and searched through their houses. These spying tactics were going on even though public sentiment was mostly on their side after the first few years. In one instance, nearly a half million marchers showed up (women and men) to the biggest rally in the British island’s history — to that point — by a factor of 10.

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But as I explained above, most people sit on the sidelines during even the most righteous protests. The 1908 rally only elicited more promises, that were broken. It took another 20 years to train enough men on ideas of logic, and how they were infected by misogyny, before all British women age 21 and over were enfranchised. American men only got there to give (White) women the vote 8 years earlier in 1920. To actually allow all people of color to vote, took an additional 45 years.

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Emmeline Pankhurst and her group did what a great majority of Brits were originally against them doing, at least from the perspective of full-fledged, public support. These kinds of obvious after the fact societal changes litter our history, from slavery to wars of choice. The changes come about because a small percentage of people decide it is up to them to make the changes happen. As to our march towards female suffrage, it was three or more generations of these small percentages fighting for the changes. None of them wanted to pass it along to a future generation, and all had the same basic arguments that are as plain as day then, as it is to us today. However, the-powers-that-be can sit on it forever, if it wants, unless full-fledged public support comes through. I guess it is never the wrong time to do what is right, except when the-powers-that-be do not agree.

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Conclusion.

Today, we have a system that continues to allow only what the-powers-that-be, an ultra-minority, allow. That must change. There is no need for constant rebellion to make the changes a conscientious majority believe are needed. Majorities guided by an ideals algorithm, developed by every American willing to participate, cannot tyrannize over a minority. Unfortunately, our actions and approaches are not really based on what most Americans believe are our Constitutional ideals. Rather our laws, economic theories, and societal approach are debased on the first movers’ advantage, and first mover precedents, i.e. what wealthy White males stole and decided early on.

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Since rewriting our Constitution is very unlikely, or more specifically, fully erasing 200 plus years of encrusted wealthy White male residue, is impossible for many generations, we need a comprehensive countervailing workaround to arrest the most egregious and powerful elements of that encrustation and whitewashing excess. The two party political system surely has shown no ability to do it; polarization, science denial, and election process belligerence, are just more evidence of its unleashing of failure and gridlock on progress.

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Two party politics, overly influenced by the mega-wealthy, is here to stay, but we can no longer allow it to be the reason for delay. That is why I recommend proceeding with what is a We The People System. The concept relies on the full capacity of direct democracy guided by an ideals algorithm that makes it impossible for a vote to be made that conflicts, or undermines, with our societal ideals.

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Direct democracy is vital for two main reasons:

(1) When every adult is voting with the same power to influence an outcome, the decisions made are diffusely considered, helping iron out nonessential differences while tamping down problematic policy considerations. .

(2) Deciding what politician to vote for, or whether a referendum is valid, are fraught with hyperbole and confusion as well as teeming with hidden and blatant conflicts of interest. In the WTP System, direct democracy removes the mid-level vote manager, i.e. the politician.

Remember our We The People System would have no part in electing politicians, or your local or state referendums. Instead, the system will create a better America via the influence and direct action of citizens and workers by developing a comprehensive government and private industry watchdog program, implementing strategically coordinated protests, erecting a massive civic participation hybrid, engineering next-level response capabilities for disasters, pandemics, and climate change, and finally, radically improving job prospects for all Americans. Besides extensive contributions by workers and citizens, we will achieve much of this by building an advanced, independent, and immensely powerful data gathering and processing matrix, and collaborative communication infrastructure.

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An ideals algorithm is different than our Constitution in two main ways:

(1) First the algorithm begins with a clean slate to erase precedent residue. After deciding on a minimum age limit, there are no other selectively excluded participants, not by skin-color, gender, or abilities. .

(2) The ideals are developed by We The People participants to have proper and egalitarian control over our future. Many past ideals should never pass away, but filtering our future through those ideals without an application or justification today makes no sense, and is harmful.

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We cannot change our Constitution enough to abrogate 2 hundred plus years of White male precedents, and political partisanship. So the best way to combat such an intimidation and discrimination structure is a comprehensive workaround that lacks those deeply ensconced, and problematic components. The We The People System is that type of workaround.

Embracing change. Engaging in civic advancement and worker outreach. Means encountering a better future. That is the We The People System.

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By Richard The Chwalek.

For more on my direct democracy workaround: We The People System…

America 2024: Collapse Soon or Transformation Now?
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