Last August, Dylan Combellick’s daily update on the Ukraine/Russian war went on a different path. The latter portions of Dylan’s article were critical of critics of the Ukraine Army. I’ll just bring back one paragraph:
Armchair generals and eternally angry Lvivites [citizens of Lviv, Ukraine] don’t have the information that Syrskyi [Ukraine’s top general] and his team have. The generals know better than any of us what is happening. They are human and make mistakes, but they are more knowledgeable than we are, more experienced than we are, and feel the weight of command far more heavily than we do. Do you doubt that they would love to put air defences at every training base to protect the soldiers there? Sure. Does Ukraine have unlimited air defence resources? No.
When reading that article, I could not help but think: “That’s the kind of attitude that future citizens around the world should have of their future TDG (tiered democratic governance) governors.” They will not be too critical of the decisions coming from the TDG — just because TDG leaders are capable people making good decisions (most of the time). Following politics will not be a serious activity.
Here is the link to Dylan’s entire article.
The above link is not likely to work if you are not a Medium member.
Western Democracy
While Dylan gives the Ukrainian military leaders the benefit of the doubt, his writing is very critical of the American political leadership. He often cites geopolitical mistakes made by Obama, Trump 1.0, Biden, and Trump 2.0. He gives no benefit of doubt for these leaders.
It seems he was right: the Russia’s plans always were to reconquer Ukraine. Appeasement was never going to work.
So there is a paradox here. Why do some leaders deserve extreme scrutiny and criticism and other leaders get a free pass? Who decides who gets the free pass? And who decides who decides?
Why should future citizens under a TDG give their political leaders the benefit of their doubt?
A Glimpse of Our Future Democracy
Here is how a hypothetical city of 100,000 people would build a TDG structure.
If you don’t want to read this “schematic” article, I shall summarize the three TDG tiers of this city:
1) The 100,000 citizens will elect 500 neighborhood representatives. Each representative lives in the neighborhood they were elected in.
2) The 500 neighborhood representatives elect the 60 district representatives.
3) The 60 district representatives elect the 10-member Council. The Council makes the big decisions.
In most municipalities today, the citizens directly elect the members for the council. In contrast, the TDG has indirect elections. Why is that?
Inspiration for the TDG
In my last days of being an active member in a political party, I realized that we voters know very little about the people on the ballot. Not many of us have ever had to work face-to-face with even one of the names on the ballot to see how they approach life, people, meetings, ethics, and accomplishment.
In essence, we are voting for: 1) stated ideology, 2) self-interest, 3) promises made, 4) tradition, 5) charisma of the party leader, and/or 6) ability to put together a noisy campaign. These are not wise ways to cast a vote, are they?
I spent a couple of weeks pondering about this serious flaw in western democracy. Ponder, ponder, ponder.
Then, while out on a walk, I got the inspiration for the TDG. Somehow, I concluded that we needed to reduce the size of electoral districts to about 200 residents. In other words, a neighborhood.
These neighborhoods would allow neighbors to get to know each other. With this knowledge, they would be more likely to vote for a neighbor of good character and capacity for governance to represent the neighborhood. The TDG neighborhood elections would be a better filter to find quality in politicians than whatever filter western democracy has.
As the neighborhood representatives are working on district issues, they would be assessing each other for good character and capacity for governance. As they get to know each other, the more able of these representatives would be elected to be the district representative.
And then the district representatives would elect the Council in the same way.
Council members will have passed three important tests to be a Council member: the neighborhood election, the district election, and the Council election. In each tier, they were voted for by people who knew them reasonably well.
Legitimacy of Representatives
Let’s imagine the 10-member Council. Each member knows all Council members got to the Council by the same path: the elections at the neighborhood, district, and Council. They all earned the right to be in Council because they had proven competence and trustworthiness. They should not assume that some Council members got this position by nefarious means so common in western democracy.
So, rather than being suspicious of their colleagues, each Council member can assume the other members are worthy of working together. This creates a level of cooperation so they can start working on the issues that face society.
In western democracy, elected representatives often spend more time manipulating and degrading each other than solving actual problems.
If a turkey gets elected at the neighborhood or district level, the turkey traits will become better known as the turkey assumes a public profile. The next annual TDG election will most likely find someone else to serve, thus solving the turkey problem without much drama.
There will be very few turkeys finding their way to the third tier: the Council. Even if a turkey shows up there, the other nine members should have the skills to work around the turkey. But they might have to wait for the next election to see the turkey no longer serving on the Council.
A Culture of Consultation
The TDG will develop a culture of consultation. In essence, consultation is combining the knowledge, experience, and wisdom of all the participants into reaching one decision.
This might seem too utopic to many readers, but the early TDG builders will be deliberately and consciously be building this culture. But the time this hypothetical city has its TDG Council, the culture of consultation will be well in place. Consultation will be the normal way to work through issues.
With this assurance, citizens will know that all decisions are based on a lot of frank discussion — with some very capable people to work through that discussion. Alternatives are considered; pros and cons of each alternative are evaluated. As the discussion moves forward, a decision will materialize. Almost by magic. If the magic does not happen, most, if not all, of the Council members will approve.
And if the decision does not work out, the Council will change that decision. It is not bound by ideology, fear of election loss, or ancient legislative processes.
Perhaps a good example of a consultative culture is the Ukrainian Army. Dylan and other writers of this war praise the adaptiveness of the army (and Ukrainian economy) to change tactics while working with limited resources. I would say that there is already a high degree of consultation happening in this army. General Syrskyi has set up this culture to allow local leaders find their own innovative solutions. And lessons learned on one part of the front give those experiences to other parts.
I suspect many front-line Ukrainian soldiers believe General Syrskyi is more of a dictator than a collaborator, hence the criticism. However, many of us in less stressful occupations cannot tell the difference between decisions made by consultation and decisions made by power or democracy. I have a consultation workshop that helps learners see these differences. When we understand what consultation truly is, then we can work to make it better . . .
. . . instead of complaining.
Avenues of Organic Complaint
The Council in this hypothetical TDG might be seemingly given god-like powers, with only the input of the 10 Council members. However, there will be connections to ensure the Council is not making decision on its own.
The Council will be connected to the 60 district representatives. There will be much communication between these two tiers. And the district tier will be communicating with neighborhood representatives. And the representatives will be communicating with their neighbors. As well, the TDG Advisory Board will be giving a different perspective to the Council. There will be much discussion before any big decision is reached in the TDG.
The average citizen has two avenues of complaint. First, he/she can approach the neighborhood representative who does not live too far away. If the representative gets a few complaints like this, he/she will take it to the district level. If other neighborhood representatives have similar complaints, the issue should rise to the Council. Second, the citizen can approach the advisor assigned to the neighborhood. Again, if enough people are complaining to the advisory board, it will force the elected side of the TDG to deal with the issue.
The media will be different in the TDG. Maybe more like the Walter Cronkite philosophy, where the media provides the facts and the media consumers make up their own mind. The media will assist in helping the public finding a better understanding, which then filters up to the Council. No, the Council won’t need to control the media. Nor should it want to.
Here is my most recent article on Financing the New Media
An Example of a Controversial Issue
Let’s assume the TDG Council has appointed Adam Indychka as chief of police. High profile positions are likely to generate a few complaints. But these complaints seem to be growing.
Rather than wait for the situation to get critical, the Council could conduct a little investigation into the workings of Chief Indychka. It can interview the complainants, members of the police force, and other government departments. Within a few hours, the Council can determine whether there is a problem worthy of a deeper investigation. If the deeper investigation reveals some serious concerns, the Council can help Chief Indychka with some constructive criticism or messaging. If the temperature comes down, Chief Indychka can keep his job.
This is a proactive way to deal with small problems before they become big problems. By not having so many big problems (and re-election considerations), the Council has more time to deal with other issues.
The 10-member Council has a much bigger picture than 1000 complainers of Chief Indychka’s performance. So the Council should be the final arbitrator. Yet the 1000 complainers had an important role to make this work. Most of them will accept the Council’s handling of this matter, knowing that their complaints somehow had a hand in the final resolution, which could conclude that the police force is working well under Chief Indychka’s leadership.
But sometimes a police chief needs to be fired. The Council will have tried all it can before this action is taken.
Conclusion
For western democracy to work well, many citizens are required to be vigilant with the political world around them. Some politicians are inept; others are corrupt; others are trying to force their rigid agenda on everyone else. If these politicians are not watched, they will take their society in a bad direction.
With the TDG, a lot of this vigilance can go away. Citizens have confidence that their leaders are competent, trustworthy, and open-minded. The structure and culture of the TDG takes care of that, almost as if governing is on auto-pilot. The citizens can put that time and energy to other societal endeavors, like maybe volunteering at local NGOs. But it all starts with citizens voting for good character and capacity for governance at the neighborhood elections.
Let me summarize:
1. The TDG elects capable people.
2. Both elected representatives and the citizenry regard the elected representatives as legitimate, allowing cooperation instead of fighting for the higher political chairs.
3. There will be a culture of consultation, which opens up the discussion, leading to better decisions.
4. The organic connections in the TDG allow citizens to make their concern(s) known to the elected representatives. The higher tiers are not disconnected from citizens.
In these politically turbulent times, we should be looking at different ways. Right?
Thanks
Thanks to Dylan for the inspiration for this article. I’ve been wanting to write this article for a long time but could not find the right beginning.
And thanks to Dylan for his almost daily reports on the Ukraine-Russia war. For the past four years, Dylan has somehow mastered researching for these daily articles to weave a consistent story line. A fabricated story line would be difficult to maintain.
Published on Medium 2026
Criticizing an Alternative Democracy
