The Solution in Plain Sight
Hello, I hope that your weekend was great.
Trump’s appointments are coming in every hour. Some of them are better than others. Of course, the most unprecedented is to see what Elon Musk can do as one of the co-efficiency czars.
I’m in the school of thought that, yes, there are many extraneous expenses and employees in the massive federal government, but you don’t want to take a wrecking ball to it because you might need something or someone and there are a lot of legacy responsibilities, so you have to go in with a scalpel. You also want to give everyone some notice and time to adjust, both within the government and among the many people that are touched by various programs. But we are likely going to see the wrecking ball approach.
This regime is going to seriously engage with its stated missions and will let very little stand in its way. That’s how they won, after all.
I’m particularly focused on whether they genuinely can deliver a better standard of living for working class voters. The history of the Republican Party under Trump has been measures that exacerbate the plight of the have-nots combined with symbolic gestures that gin up energy.
I’ve been trying to improve people’s circumstances since my presidential run started in 2018. Right now Humanity Forward is lobbying for a return of the enhanced child tax credit, which is the biggest anti-poverty opportunity on the table. There is an expressed openness among Republicans to doing something that their base would like; JD Vance for example was very bullish on the CTC during the campaign. There is hope on this front.
Bigger picture, I have been working on reforming the political system so that it can respond to people and solve problems. Forward Party got many new members last week and helped elect 25 new office holders, bringing the national total to 65. That’s not bad for a scrappy upstart party.
I’ve been a big proponent of ballot initiatives for open primaries and ranked choice voting, most of which had a very tough Election Day.
This week on the podcast, a new front in the democracy reform movement has been opened up. It’s allowing people to vote by phone.
“Why are our politics so dysfunctional? It’s because a small proportion of extreme voters vote in our primaries, making our politics more extreme,” says Bradley Tusk the founder of MobileVoting.org. “One way of opening up the electorate is primary reform, which I’m all for. But the other way is to allow people to vote on our phones.”
“Fundamentally, how do we make the primary electorate bigger?” Bradley asks. “Make it easier to vote. We all run our lives on our phones – we might be able to triple the number of people who vote in primaries if we can do it on our phones.” That would indeed transform politics.
Bradley explains, “We need a solution that can be advanced at the local level, without an act of Congress. Individual towns and cities can decide to use mobile voting technology to complement their existing systems – we can make it so that each digital vote actually prints out a paper ballot and can integrate with existing ballots so no one is nervous about how it gets processed or counted.”
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Who’s going to build this? Here’s the phenomenal thing: Bradley already did it. “We got started back in 2020 and I spent $20 million building it. It’s already been used by servicemembers stationed at military bases and piloted in multiple states. Now, any city or town can use it for free.” Yes, free. This is all a philanthropic venture.
Why is he doing it? “My family immigrated to this country for a better life, and it happened,” Bradley says. “I spent years working in politics and technology and genuinely think this is the last and best hope we have for democracy.” He may be right about that.
Forward is going to be helping to make mobile voting the norm – we already have Forward-affiliated mayors who are interested. I love the idea of voting on your phone; the leaders who make it happen in America will have changed the system for good. Plus, last I checked I’m the candidate from the future, and in the future we definitely vote on our phones, don’t we? Bradley is leading the way to make it happen.
For my interview with Bradley Tusk click here. To check out mobilevoting.org click here. To order Bradley’s new book ‘Vote With Your Phone’ click here. To fuel the political movement that will be embracing mobile voting head to Forward – let’s go build the future.
