Let’s Upgrade To A New Type Of Democracy
When the American founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence back in 1776, they began a new era for not just one country, but for everyone around the world. It’s hard to imagine a world without a democratic United States now. However, even the most well-thought-out plan can become obsolete over time. Well-intentioned laws can be misinterpreted and misused. As new generations replace the old, priorities change, beliefs change, and technologies change. We’ll be hitting the 250-year-mark in a handful of years, and it’s becoming more and more apparent that we’re overdue for an update. We’re capable of providing a new democracy that is more representative of each voter’s preferences.
Issues Surrounding Our Current Democratic System
I see several major problems with the current democracy. Though the founding fathers never meant for it to happen, we’ve settled on a two-party system where an independent candidate has no chance of winning. The two parties have become so entrenched in their ideologies that a candidate who strays even slightly risks being voted out. Though lawmakers talk about bipartisan action, they’re too afraid to reach across the aisle. It has become the norm for the voters to pick the lesser of the two evils. Party affiliation has become too divisive and detrimental. It needs to go.
It’s the chicken or the egg at this point, but campaign financing clearly exasperates the problem of division. These days, candidates hardly use their funds to inform the public who they are. The money is for bad-mouthing and smearing the other candidates. This gives too much power to those who can contribute large sums, such as corporations and paid lobbyists. The Uvalde school shooting and the debate over gun control is highlighting this problem in particular. We need a system that takes away the necessity for campaigning, which should significantly diminish the power of the lobbyists.
Another problem is that the current election process is still fenced in by the limitations of manual voting. Voters are still required to spend time finding the candidates who will represent them the best. Yet, they have very little say over how the elected officials act once the election is over. The most the voters could do is to vote them out of office in the next election. This gap may have been a necessary evil when votes had to be marked and counted by hand. But we are technologically capable of so much more now. It’s time to update the democratic process to refelct this.
How the New Democracy Will Work
Number one, let’s stop voting for candidates and vote for the issues instead. The new ballots will cover multiple issues that you will rate from 1 to 10, according to how important it is to you. The answers will be collected and averaged out to calculate the importance of each issue at the local level all the way to the federal level. At the end of the survey, you will indicate whether you’re willing to serve as a representative of your fellow voters. The person who most closely matches the public opinion at each level will be selected automatically as the representatives, pending a rigorous background check. This will eliminate the need for campaign donations and the two-party system.
Once elected, the representatives will be divided into “writers” and “passers”. One group is responsible for writing new laws that reflect the interest of the public. The other group will be responsible for deciding if the new laws will benefit the public. If the representatives stray too far from the opinions of those that they are supposed to be serving, the public will have a chance to remove the person from office. The representatives will receive equal pay and have strict restrictions on receiving outside money. This, plus the elimination of campaign financing should significantly diminish the influence of the lobbyists.
Leadership Positions and Taxes in the New Democracy
Each representative will serve for a 3-year-term. They will be coming in on a yearly rotating basis so that the respresentatives will always closely resemble the interest of the people in their district. For positions such as president, governer, and mayor, we’ll need someone who has demonstrated leadership abilities. The representatives who served during the past 3 years will nominate several amongst themselves. The one closest to the public opinion from this small field of candidates will fill the lead position. The rest will fill other leardership roles, such as vice president or the moderator of the “writers” and the “passers”.
Eventually, I think it makes sense to use the questionnaire ballots to help determine the budget as well. Voters will allocate points to the departments that they deem important, which will determine how much of the tax dollars each department will receive. We will, of course, need to keep a portion of the money for emergency use. The lawmakers will have to determine where that money goes, but at least this will address the issue of government shut downs that we’ve been seeing so frequently lately. This also gives the voters a way to participate directly in the democratic process.
It’s time to Start Imagining a New World
I am not a political scientist. Heck, I’m not even an U.S. citizen. Why should you take me seriously? Because when you need a complete overhaul, you need outside help. You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect change. Just like a crumblig marriage has a better chance of surviving with the help of an impartial therapist, a crumbling government needs someone impartial to bring in fresh perspectives. I know I haven’t thought through everything, and we will need to work out many details. But let’s at least recognize that it’s time to begin imagining what a new democracy might look like. America, once again, has the opportunity to be the leader in bringing positive change to the world.
Thanks!
Cheers