Excellent insights. I would offer a simple concept that seems to work for local citizen volunteer groups and is likely what many Americans think they mean about being a citizen. People should enter public life asking themselves how can I help my fellow citizens. Personal benefit seems to have replaced the more altruistic service to others who need help. Compromise once accepted has become to some a sign of weakness. I particularly like the analysis of the weakening of Congress lying in part with the deevolution of the professional staffs. I would agree that a dysfunctional Congress only allows a Testosterone driven Executive to further policies that limit the benefits of Federal Government to a small class of power holders. The Courts are far to slow (though needed) to react and correct excesses of the Executive by design. And then they may only reinforce the Executive's position.
You have correctly identified where the best effort to restore the Framers checks and balances system. Perhaps a rising younger group of elected leaders can work toward that end.
The current administration has found a way to separate thousands professionals serving in the Executive Branch and labeling the remaining public servants as "fat, dumb and lazy." Disfunction is fed by growing distrust of individuals, groups and the positions they advocate. Disinformation replaces authoritative studies of issues that need solving. Personalities and their influencers matter more than actual positive changes to society. Style replaces substance in government. Disinformation becomes more influential than facts. Trust is no longer achievable if it is every person for their individualized, culture war imperative.
But I hold out hope that every year young people come to Washington to be interns and junior staffers, learning about government and how to have an impact. Hopefully once this cycle of Executive cultism passes, those young people can assert their views of how Congress should operate.
these problems can only be solved by decentralization, diffusion of decision making, and variable policy. Otherwise its just most people getting the proverbial shaft.
The United States once had genuinely democratic governance structures, however imperfect and limited, fundamentally based around decentralized and publicly accessible mass-member parties. The Democratic Party, as a small "d" democratic institution, and the Republican Party, as a small "r" republican institution, were honest in their naming and functioned within a politically, economically, governmentally, financially, and scientifically decentralized and pluralized system that had legal and regulatory variability, policy variability, an intentionally diffused and pluralized private sector, and local fiscal dominance. These parties, while far from flawless, allowed for real representation, genuinely participatory governance structures even for very serious policy matters by serving as an organizational interface and coordinating mesh for a wide array of organizational linked publicly accessible decision making bodies that spanned economy-schooling/training-culture-science-government, and a level of public accountability in political, economic, governmental, financial, and scientific decision making.
However, after WW2 a long multi decadal transformation began due to the dirty deeds of a convergence of several interests and an assortment of powerful special interest groups, and then our parties were transformed into centralized, exclusionary membership organizations. The so called Democratic Party has become a technocracy party, and the so called Republican Party became a conservative party. Neither really represents their original principles of democracy or republicanism, and they don't offer meaningful access or representation to the public. This transformation of the parties has been accompanied by a broader centralization of political, economic, and scientific decision making, which has caused the effective loss of most democratic governance structures.
We need a more representative democracy with proportional representation (if a party gets 30% of the vote, it gets 30% of the seats). It would end gerrymandering and elect more diverse representatives!
Thanks Charlie. A great piece. Glad I am old!
Excellent insights. I would offer a simple concept that seems to work for local citizen volunteer groups and is likely what many Americans think they mean about being a citizen. People should enter public life asking themselves how can I help my fellow citizens. Personal benefit seems to have replaced the more altruistic service to others who need help. Compromise once accepted has become to some a sign of weakness. I particularly like the analysis of the weakening of Congress lying in part with the deevolution of the professional staffs. I would agree that a dysfunctional Congress only allows a Testosterone driven Executive to further policies that limit the benefits of Federal Government to a small class of power holders. The Courts are far to slow (though needed) to react and correct excesses of the Executive by design. And then they may only reinforce the Executive's position.
You have correctly identified where the best effort to restore the Framers checks and balances system. Perhaps a rising younger group of elected leaders can work toward that end.
The current administration has found a way to separate thousands professionals serving in the Executive Branch and labeling the remaining public servants as "fat, dumb and lazy." Disfunction is fed by growing distrust of individuals, groups and the positions they advocate. Disinformation replaces authoritative studies of issues that need solving. Personalities and their influencers matter more than actual positive changes to society. Style replaces substance in government. Disinformation becomes more influential than facts. Trust is no longer achievable if it is every person for their individualized, culture war imperative.
But I hold out hope that every year young people come to Washington to be interns and junior staffers, learning about government and how to have an impact. Hopefully once this cycle of Executive cultism passes, those young people can assert their views of how Congress should operate.
these problems can only be solved by decentralization, diffusion of decision making, and variable policy. Otherwise its just most people getting the proverbial shaft.
The United States once had genuinely democratic governance structures, however imperfect and limited, fundamentally based around decentralized and publicly accessible mass-member parties. The Democratic Party, as a small "d" democratic institution, and the Republican Party, as a small "r" republican institution, were honest in their naming and functioned within a politically, economically, governmentally, financially, and scientifically decentralized and pluralized system that had legal and regulatory variability, policy variability, an intentionally diffused and pluralized private sector, and local fiscal dominance. These parties, while far from flawless, allowed for real representation, genuinely participatory governance structures even for very serious policy matters by serving as an organizational interface and coordinating mesh for a wide array of organizational linked publicly accessible decision making bodies that spanned economy-schooling/training-culture-science-government, and a level of public accountability in political, economic, governmental, financial, and scientific decision making.
However, after WW2 a long multi decadal transformation began due to the dirty deeds of a convergence of several interests and an assortment of powerful special interest groups, and then our parties were transformed into centralized, exclusionary membership organizations. The so called Democratic Party has become a technocracy party, and the so called Republican Party became a conservative party. Neither really represents their original principles of democracy or republicanism, and they don't offer meaningful access or representation to the public. This transformation of the parties has been accompanied by a broader centralization of political, economic, and scientific decision making, which has caused the effective loss of most democratic governance structures.
We need a more representative democracy with proportional representation (if a party gets 30% of the vote, it gets 30% of the seats). It would end gerrymandering and elect more diverse representatives!
Well said and worrisome at the least!