Medium is full of thinkers who have great ideas on how to reform the American electoral system. Here is a short list of improvements that I have encountered on Medium:
1. Replacing the electoral college with popular vote.
2. End of gerrymandering of electoral districts.
3. Put a lid on campaign contributions from the corporate world.
4. Term limits for Congress representatives
5. Ranked-choice voting
6. Proportional representation
I will agree that #5 and #6 will make American democracy a bit better. It will give voters a few more choices than the two-party hegemony which is polarizing the USA. No longer will Americans have to vote strategically for a possible winner; rather, they can vote for the party that best aligns their interest.
#1, #2, #3, and #4 will not have much effect. If these changes are made, elected politicians will still have a much greater loyalty to their party than the people who elected them. And by the way, #5 and #6 will still have this feature as well.
Regardless, the likelihood of getting any of these changes implemented within the next decade is next to zero. As I see things, American democracy is unreformable these days.
So why are we talking about change? When change is so unlikely?
May I suggest that this kind of talk is mostly about wishful thinking?
Yes, we can talk and post things up on the internet and write clever Medium articles and believe that if enough of us are doing all this talk, the changes we advocate for will eventually somehow be made. That is how democracy is supposed to work, right?
Here’s my Dr. Phil question: “So how’s that working for you all?”
I have a long-term solution about making real political change
I spent six years in a Canadian political party, circa 1990. I saw a lot of dysfunctional behavior in that time. I left politics after realizing that I could not change things. But somehow, I invented another system of democratic governance. That system addressed all the dysfunction I saw. In 1997, I started putting pen to paper. Twenty-four years ago!
Here is a quick summary of Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG). It has no political parties. Voters cast their vote based on good character and capacity for governance. Elected representatives work with the process of consultation, not partisanship, to decide things. These features make for a kinder, wiser democracy.
That explanation is too simple. So I really invite you to read my book. It will take you about three hours to see how all the pieces of the TDG fit together. Those three hours just might cause you to rethink “doing politics” much differently than how we are doing them today.
My book gets little attention. Why is that?
It is perhaps a little easy to dismiss me as a quack. After all, I am not rich and famous. I have no foothold in academia. My only credentials are being a disgruntled worker for a political party 30 years ago. I come from the lower middle class with a job with little status. My job in today’s democracy is only to complain about government in the coffee shop, vote every few years, and maybe do some protesting.
My life status says I should just quit trying to reform the world. But I took a marketing course in 1991 from Heriot Watt University. It said that if an innovative product is introduced to the marketplace AND the early adopters see its value, they will overlook any flaws in the packaging and promotion to buy that product. I only need a good and innovative product.
It’s not hard to find people who recognize that something is seriously wrong with western democracy. Yet they cannot overlook the poor packaging (i.e. me) of my TDG and do a little investigation. Why is this?
Here are the solutions they are used to seeing:
1. Replacing the electoral college with popular vote.
2. End of gerrymandering of electoral districts.
3. Put a lid on campaign contributions from the corporate world.
4. Term limits for Congress representatives
5. Ranked-choice voting
6. Proportional representation
Yeah, you have seen this list somewhere before. But you too have been conditioned not to look too far beyond this list. This list is where many Americans will find happiness in democracy. They only, only, only, only need to implement these ideas. Then they will have their democratic utopia. That is their hope, right?
Throwing out political parties is an important feature of the TDG. Throwing out political parties is not on this list. So, the TDG cannot be on this list. You have been conditioned to not inspect such an idea. Think about that!
The Deep State
I’m not a believer in any Deep State. But if there is one, it should be overjoyed that the discussion on improving democracy is centered around the above list. Even if one or all six of the changes are implemented, the Deep State will remain intact. In fact, the Deep State just might be keeping these six items on the front burners of popular political discussion to occupy your interest in meaningless change.
The Deep State won’t like the TDG. For starters, the TDG will be electing more competent and collaborative politicians into high office. We will see some shaking of the fools in high places when the TDG matures.
The mainstream news media won’t like the TDG. The TDG will not produce as much drama, which provides great stories to generate advertising revenue. Sensationalists will be out of a job. Political writers on Medium won’t have much to write about.
The political parties won’t like the TDG. The TDG will open up governance to many more citizens. The parties’ internal instincts are to limit the competition for status, influence, and power.
Brainwashed or not?
My TDG book is available for a free read from my website. It will take you about three hours to discover how the various parts of the TDG are put together. You will see a formula for a kinder, wiser democracy.
You will probably spend three hours this week writing and reading Medium articles.
If you have come this far into this article, you want to see the world in a better place. You are someone for improving democracy. Either you will read my book, or you will not read my book.
If you don’t want to read my book, consider that you might be brainwashed.
Published on Medium 2021
Call to Political Fortune Tellers
