Democracy in the United States is broken. The 2016 election exposed the problems, making them obvious and undeniable. But the problems existed before November. The election cycle is never ending. Bi-partisan cooperation is a thing of the past. The political divide is vast and widening. A huge reason our democracy is broken is because of a dangerous philosophy of public life that is agreed upon by both major parties at the grass roots level.
The philosophy is this: my role in politics as an individual is to try to get people elected to public office who agree with my beliefs and who will try to make those beliefs into law. I will call this philosophy Ideological Democracy. This philosophy may seem harmless at first glance. Trying to elect people who agree with my beliefs may even seem synonymous with democracy itself. Elections would seem to be a powerful way to live out my beliefs by means of collective action. But when Ideological Democracy is put into practice it creates a host of problems that get worse and worse over time. Ideological Democracy creates the endless election cycle. It creates intractable governmental gridlock. It creates a vast and ever-widening partisan divide. These are features of Ideological Democracy playing themselves out. This philosophy is a huge reason our democracy is broken. But it is not the only way for individuals to engage in collective action or to change the law. This argument has two sections—describing the problem, and offering an alternative.
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AuthorI'm a Christian, a progressive, a pastor, and a community organizer. Archives
August 2017
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