A Bipartisan Prescription For American Democracy

It’s easy to lament the curdled state of American democracy. Political polarization, the decline in legislating and the warped incentive structure that pervades public life are all alarming. And the twin scourges of declining faith in institutions and diminished prospects for the middle class are a fire bell in the night.

This is, however, a country built on the idea of not just self-government but self-improvement.

The founders made that clear by crafting a Constitution with the capacity for amendment. The next century’s best chronicler of America, Alexis de Tocqueville, said that the genius of the nation was its capacity for correction.

The idea of America as an evolving project is so woven into the national DNA that on the country’s 200th birthday, President Gerald Ford called this a “union of corrected wrongs and expanded rights” while making sure to note that “the struggle for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is never truly won.”

So rather than only despairing over the present or pining for what was, I want to use this milestone July 4th to look forward.

On the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, and in the spirit of a forward-looking country built on perpetual striving, let’s consider ways to sustain and improve the nation. Here are some ideas across the political spectrum, some specific and some broader in scope, that amount to a sort of prescription for a healthier democracy — from addressing AI-induced wealth inequality to improving history education.

It helps that the country, the patient in question, already has so many advantages. While our civic health may be wanting, America’s innovation, military, economic might and soft power influence are unmatched. A nation that dominates in nearly every field can surely summon a way to apply its talents toward better self-governance.

To put it less politely, the country that first forged democracy, sent man to the Moon and invented the internet can do better than being led by what many see as a clown show. Although, it may be precisely that which accelerates change.

“President Trump is violating so many of the norms — more norms of the presidency than anybody before and maybe all of them put together — that it will lead to a backlash,” predicted Jerry Brown.

Brown was California’s governor during the Bicentennial and witnessed the hunger for post-Vietnam and Watergate reform as a candidate for president that year. He foresees a repeat of that campaign. “In ancient Rome, it was called reductio ad absurdum — you take your opponent’s argument and articulate it in a way to show its utter absurdity," Brown said.

More reassuring is that most every generation has found a way to correct the mistakes of its elders. Tomorrow’s Americans, those born here and those coming by choice, can do the same.

The country has always depended on that combination of the native-born and the immigrant; it’s our built-in advantage and can’t be squandered. No other country attracts talent and ambition like America.

As Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, memorably said: “China can draw on a talent pool of 1.3 billion people, but the United States can draw on a talent pool of 7 billion and recombine them in a diverse culture.”

The world, or at least those who can travel or who’ve read about those who have, has recently witnessed what lures so many here. The World Cup visitors have shined a light on who we are, but also on the dissonance between the relative health of society and the toxicity of state.

“We’re a happy people who eat a lot of food, have big homes, better living standards and free refills,” said former Speaker Paul Ryan, noting the reflections of the soccer de Tocquevilles. “The country is still that.”

How to make society better reflected in state is the central challenge. Ryan is betting that voters will demand it, eventually craving a sort-of reverse Donald Trump who’s determined to revive institutions, resist self-dealing and present solutions — not scapegoats.

“Voters are going to reward an inclusive, aspirational problem-solver,” Ryan predicted. “That person may only have a 20 percent chance of winning in 2028, but they will by 2032 or soon after. People are just fatigued with hating each other. And whichever ambitious politician recognizes that and takes the risk, they’re going to have first-mover advantage.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a top progressive voice in the House, also believes we’ve not found bottom yet, but we can just about see it.

“It has to get really bad sometimes before it gets good; it takes a level of despair,” said Jayapal. “That’s part of what drove the founding of the country.”

Ever since, America has always had periods of excess followed by seasons of reform. The Gilded Age begets the Progressive Era, for example.

Danielle Allen, who directs the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School, is as optimistic as Ryan and Jayapal that the reaction is upon us.

“We’re there already,” Allen said. “The forces of reform have been building for a decade, and I believe the next 10 to 20 years are going to bring significant structural reforms.”

She proposes an expansive suite of initiatives that would amend the Constitution to regulate money in politics, create a larger and more proportional House of Representatives and transform primaries and end gerrymandering to elect lawmakers who reflect a broader swath of voters.

“We must make the decisive election the general election again so the whole electorate can make the decision about who represents them,” Allen said, noting that because of gerrymandering and closed primaries, 60 million Americans — about a quarter of the country — “no longer have a meaningful voice in federal elections.”

Jayapal said structural changes, including dumping the electoral college, are critical as much for slaying apathy as for fairness.

“At the core of everything is: How do people feel again like they have a voice and that Congress and the president represent that voice?” she said. “And money can’t count more than votes.”

There’s a growing recognition that the country’s soaring concentration of wealth and declining social mobility can’t be separated from America’s civic ills.

Democrats as different as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, potential presidential candidates from opposing factions and generations, both say as much.

“Economic instability and the collapse of democracy are intertwined,” Ocasio-Cortez recently told MSNOW’s Jen Psaki.

“The moment the American dream became unaffordable, American democracy became unstable,” Emanuel has said for months as he scampers around the country, proposing a roster of targeted reforms on healthcare, education, housing and retirement.

Even an ambitious Republican and noted capitalist such as Sen. David McCormick (R-Penn.) recognizes the risks of the widening wealth gap in American life, which he has called “a fundamental problem.” To that end, he’s urging tech billionaires to recognize the burden they have to help fund the AI build-out, which will require enormous investments in infrastructure and energy and have profound implications for the job market.

No less a conservative stalwart than former Speaker Newt Gingrich said today’s Gilded Age would prompt what he called “a countervailing democratic response — ‘we’re very happy you’re successful, but we’re not going to let your wealth be proportionate to your political power.’”

Those concerns are becoming especially relevant as AI reshapes the economy, and socialism, or at least a heavier state hand in the economy, loses its stigma. The question of whether the government should take a stake in AI companies looms, with figures as different as Trump, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and some of the tech executives themselves, seeing pitchforks in their future, have warmed to. Perhaps an Alaska Permanent Fund-style dividend payout, which distributes a share of the state's oil revenues directly to residents, could ensure consensus and avert a Universal Basic Income-style handout?

Gingrich, forever the futurist, envisions a coming American golden age delivered by technology that must be harnessed but not constrained by the government.

“There’s going to be an explosion of innovation on a scale you can't imagine over the next 20 years,” he said, predicting today’s 20-year-olds would live to 115 and eventual migration to the Moon and Mars, to include “Four Seasons or Ritz Maui-type space station hotels.”

Here on earth, and America to be specific, a more functional political system must come from healthier communities, though.

“I truly believe the answer to all our problems as a country comes down to one word: community,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who has a book coming this fall about “how to be a peacemaker in an age of contempt.”

But a ground-up push to create stronger neighborhoods requires actual conversation and getting out of ideological silos that today’s technology pushes us deeper in with every click.

“The social media piece is the leading edge of so many of our problems because of the incentive structure. It rewards the demagogues, not the builders,” said Cox, arguing for holding technology companies accountable and hailing the push in other democracies toward banning minors from social media.

The next generation, also, can’t fix today’s flaws if they don’t grasp the country’s history, purpose and promise.

Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.) is determined to restore the intensive teaching of American government and history in schools so children can understand what binds us.

“Knowing our history is not just about memorizing a series of dates. It’s about better understanding where we have been as a people,” said Boyle. “Reviving civics education in our schools is crucial if we are to go from Pluribus into Unum.”

Congress itself is crying out for self-improvement, and perhaps most critical is wooing the best of the country to resist, or delay, financial temptations to pursue public service. It may poll down there with compulsory veganism, but significantly increasing congressional salaries from the current $174,000 is essential for recruitment and retention.

In addition, bolstering democracy in this century, and fulfilling the founders’ vision, means renewing Article I. Congress must reclaim its role in governing and stop deferring to the executive and judiciary for de facto lawmaking.

That means reclaiming its role in war-making.

“American First’ism in both parties is a good pressure point to reexamine all the things we’re doing in the world,” Brown told me. “I’m not saying isolate, I’m saying rethink overseas commitments.”

Congress also must spread power from the leadership suites back to committees.

“Right now, the rank-and-file are just running around knocking beehives over, obsessed with getting hits and clicks,” said Ryan.

There’s no better way to jump-start a somnolent legislative branch than an out-of-control executive — but only if voters demand it.

“We need to have people rise to the occasion, and paradoxically I think Trump is going to provide a stimulus for that reexamination and renewal,” said Brown.

Which gets to the most important, and most attainable, change required. You, the voter, have to demand better from the country’s leaders. And you must shoulder the burden for improving the quality of American democracy so it can prosper for another 250 years.

To borrow one of the best lines from the man who led the Bicentennial 50 years ago, former Virginia Sen. John Warner, “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”

I knew I would end this column with that exhortation late last month, when I visited the Lincoln Memorial and was inspired.

There was a grandmother there, and she bent down to read to her young granddaughter the words above the statue.

“In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the union the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”

This is the way. This is how the greatest idea conceived by man continues, how the union is saved again in our time.

Happy birthday, America, here’s to many more.