From ‘What’ to ‘How’ in Mountain View
Hello,
I’m writing this right after the Basic Income March in Mountain View, CA, where I saw many old friends from the presidential campaign. The Bay Area is a special place for me on several levels – my parents met there, I’ve spent a lot of time there, and it was one of the first places that embraced my presidential campaign and the site of our first big rally.
Among the old friends I saw were Bill Hotter who was my ‘bodyguard’ in Iowa, Tyrene Pamstein who literally yelled her lungs out at the debates, and Gisele Huff whose son, Gerald was one of our earliest and staunchest supporters prior to his passing away of pancreatic cancer. Gisele – at 85 years old – has made advancing basic income her life’s work in her son’s memory. Gisele’s Gerald Huff Fund for Humanity is an amazing force for good.
Despite being the 3rd annual Basic Income March, this event felt like the beginning of something very new. I characterized the presidential campaign as the ‘What’ – a vision of a human-centered economy and Universal Basic Income. At this point, a majority of Americans actually agree with this vision, though it goes by a few slightly different labels.
The next phase is the ‘How’ we get to Universal Basic Income.
I used to believe that the problem was that people didn’t know what Universal Basic Income was. I was wrong. The problem is that our government doesn’t really listen to us.
And why should it? There are no consequences to our discontent or suffering. Congress has a national approval rating of 28%. That is, 28% of Americans think that Congress is doing a strong job. It has bounced between 21 and 30% or so for the last number of months.
The re-election rate for individual members of Congress? 94%. They will get re-elected regardless of what the overall body does.
Why is that? 83% of Congressional districts, thanks in part to gerrymandering on both sides – are ‘safe seats.’ That is, seats that will be comfortably Democratic or Republican no matter what. Think the Bay Area or rural Alabama. If you get to the general, you win.
The only real challenge you MIGHT get is in the primary, where 20% of the most avid and extreme partisans participate. Your major incentive is simply to avoid getting primaried within your own party. Compromise will likely be used as a weapon against you or a sign of ideological impurity. This is one big reason that Republicans haven’t spoken up against Trump – they are judged not by the general voting public but by the most extreme in their party. Speaking out against Trump is the equivalent of political suicide in most areas because of the closed party primary.
This has led us to an environment where politicians on both sides are rewarded by catering to the extremes and special interests who are closest to the process. It has ramped up polarization to record levels – indeed, political stress as measured by Peter Turchin and others is at Civil War levels. We can all sense it getting worse, not better.
So how do we begin to change this? One state – Alaska – last year adopted Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting. It is one big reason that Senator Lisa Murkowski is the only Republican Senator who voted to impeach Trump who is also up for re-election in 2022. She doesn’t have to go through the Republican primary and can think about what 51% of voters want instead of the most rabid 20%.
Think about this for a second – a legislator can express independent judgment because of a systems change.
That’s the opportunity. 24 states have ballot initiatives where we can make this change. The other states can act similarly through state legislatures.
This is the fix that will make all things possible. And this is where our energies should go - amending our system so that it can actually start working for most of us instead of only the most avid partisans. We can begin to provide a middle ground for people who want to be positive, universal and solutions-oriented and a wet blanket to bring down the temperature of our polarized nation.
I make this argument – layered over stories from the trail, how to fix our equally polarized media and social media, data rights, and many other things – over 302 pages in my book ‘Forward’ which is coming out next Tuesday! And then I’m hitting the road to have extended conversations about the substance of my book. I’m heading to NYC (obviously), Washington D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, SF, Irvine, Des Moines and more in the next four weeks. I hope that you’ll join me for what I believe will be extraordinary sessions. I also hope that you’ll pre-order the book and tell your friends. I’m very proud of it. Evelyn says that it’s a great read and she wouldn’t lie to me. ☺
But the book is just a small component of the movement we must build. I talked before about the sleeping giant of the American people. We are about to wake up to the mechanisms that are being used to both pit us against each other and separate us from real progress. Can we actually fix a broken system? Let’s fight like mad to find out. Gerald Huff would have wanted that.
Yours,
-Andrew
