The Remedy

A year ago today, we all watched as a group of misguided Americans violently attacked Congress to stop the peaceful transition of power. At the time, I compared it to an abscess blowing open. Twelve months on, all our "doctors," have done is slap a bandage on it and send us on our way, leaving the infection to fester. Out of exhaustion or frustration, too many Americans held their breath until the Inauguration and then stopped paying attention to the news or the actions of government officials.

Now, as we begin 2022, this country is septic. A large chunk of the American electorate is worried about the accuracy of the final tally in future elections. For some people, those concerns were the product of a propaganda campaign, and coup plot carried out by the executive branch of our government and their coconspirators in the media. For others, their concerns only developed after some state legislatures began to use the lies at the center of the propaganda and coup plot as an excuse to pass blatantly unconstitutional voting laws and gerrymandered congressional districts. Worst of all, they've given themselves the power to disregard the voters' will and send electors of their choosing to Washington. It is a strange form of consensus, and I believe it is possible to build a solution based on common ground if it's done by the people, not political parties or opportunists.

Despite this common ground, it's painfully apparent, politicians on both sides have failed to muster the political will to replace the Electoral Count Act of 1887 with new legislation or to pass any pro-voter bill to protect voting rights and the nonpartisan administration of elections in all 50 states. Failure to do so this year could prove catastrophic for our country. I believe it is possible to generate that political will so clearly lacking in most serving American politicians. The answer is a coalition, a syndicate or partnership that any voter or organization can join, regardless of past or present political affiliation or opinion on any other issue. To join our coalition the only requirement is that one hold the following belief in full;

The consent of the governed is the only source of legitimacy from which the US government can borrow, and infringing upon or limiting the freedoms & rights of other citizens is not an effective means to strengthen or improve one's freedoms and rights and should never be the basis of legislation.

This seems like an obvious statement to people with a passing understanding of our country's history and constitution. Unfortunately, only nine states and the District of Columbia require public school students to take a year of civics to graduate. The predictable result is a population with no clue what their rights are or how the American system came to be. If this group can achieve something like Occupy Wall St. 2.0, replicating what we did right and rectifying what we did wrong, we can sidestep the partisan baggage that seems to prevent consensus at every turn. An organization like this could generate bottom up solutions to problems that came from the top down. It can also act as a vehicle to show citizens the many ways to make the government aware of their grievances without using a ballot or a bullet.

This is important because access to the political system is the best way to end terrorist movements. It's still nascent, but that's what we have in the US right now, a burgeoning terrorist movement. Even when we aren't dealing with an autocratic coup and its supporters, our electoral system is an insult. As a New York voter, my vote is 100% irrelevant in federal elections. In the 23 years I've voted in this state, the only time the presidential primary was still undecided by the time it was New York's turn; upon showing up to vote, the poll worker told me I wasn't on the rolls. The next day I found out some partisan hack in the state Board of Elections had purged nearly 300,000 other NY voters and me w/o giving us a chance to fight it. This infuriating experience (and others) make it easy for me to understand the anger of the J6 insurrectionists, even if I reject their tactics. No matter where the anger comes from, the best way to keep people from blowing themselves up as an expression of their anger is to give them a political avenue to voice their opinions. If you want to read more about why we know this is what works, look at a paper called "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida," by Seth G. Jones & Martin C. Libiki, which first came out in 2008. 

The other central element of this syndicate idea is Mentors in Violence Prevention or MVP. I was exposed to this program and theory because my father adapted it for use in the Marine Corps before he retired. It is designed to reframe the conversation around rape and sexual assault in terms of the bystander instead of it always being all about the offender and the victim, as most people will never be either. There are other concepts employed in MVP that would be helpful, too.

I'm trying to establish a timeline anchored to critical dates in the federal legislative calendar. We will need talented creatives to produce media (everything from videography to memes) and a website for the coalition.  With sharp media content, made by gifted creatives, rather than the dry and inaccessible language most government documents use, we could reach non-voters and citizens who don't usually engage with these topics. I'm also writing a survey because most modern polling seems designed to force all opinions into narrow categories (like cattle chutes) rather than simply trying to find out what people think. We will need data. If you're interested in any of this let me know, especially if you can do any of the things mentioned above. Everyone has something to offer and there will be many other areas we need help with so don’t hesitate to get involved.

Please share feedback and ask questions. For the last couple months I’ve been working on this & I have solicited input from many people. I have pages of notes about the group's structure and suggestions for the website. I'm just one person, so I can't do all these things well or replicate the output of ideas, talents, and background education a large group of people represents. More importantly, those things should be decided by the group, not one individual. It can seem daunting to think about the scope of the problem & how far we are from a solution. It makes me think of that saying, “the best time to plant an apple tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today.” I was surprised how quickly Occupy Wall Street took off. We had all been told over and over, "I agree with everything you're saying, but it will never happen. Nobody cares; nobody wants to give up their time or resources for something like this." There are many ways the American public has changed since 2011. For that and many other reasons, the model I’ve been working on offers far more potential to connect people's fears to a realistic and productive solution than Occupy ever did.