Question 1

Why constitutional democracy?

Accepted Answer

Human beings thrive when they can steer their own lives — both in their private lives and by acting together in the public sphere. Constitutional democracy is the only form of government that makes this possible for all. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s the best that’s humanly imaginable.

Question 2

Why shouldn’t we just chuck ours and start over?

Accepted Answer

A democracy is a technology for collective, human decision-making. In the 18th century, people made some breakthroughs in understanding how to organize decision-making in fairer ways. We’ve continued to improve our understanding ever since. There’s a lot of wisdom and learning packed into our existing system that we shouldn’t throw away. Did electric carmaker Tesla throw away all previous models of the automobile and start from scratch in innovating to better address today’s needs? No. It built on learning to date and added new breakthroughs. Improving democracy works the same way.

Question 3

Why isn’t the democracy we have fine the way it is?

Accepted Answer

The constitutional democracy set up in the 18th century started from the idea that power could be reserved to some (mainly White, male holders of property, with some exceptions) while nonetheless being deployed for the good of all. This proposition is false. The only way to ensure that a political system serves the good of all is to ensure that power is shared by all. We’re still learning how to build a political system that genuinely supports fully inclusive power-sharing.

Question 4

But was it actually a democracy in the 18th century? Wasn’t it a republic?

Accepted Answer

The debate over this never ends, but the question is a red herring. Both terms were used in the 18th century in advocating the new system. James Madison used the term “republic” in advocating the new Constitution in the Federalist Papers. Alexander Hamilton described the new system as a “representative democracy” when advocating it at the New York state constitutional convention.

Question 5

What is democracy renovation?

Accepted Answer

Democracy renovation is made up of two things: (a) reconnecting people to civic service, civic collaboration, civic engagement, and their civic power and responsibility; and (b) reforming our political institutions and civic infrastructure so that people have the tools they need to be responsible and effective citizens — and politicians have the incentives they need to deliver responsive and accountable representation.

Question 6

What are the most important strategies for reconnecting people to their civic power?

Accepted Answer

Broadly, forums for deliberation, civic education, organizing experiences and pathways to participation in the many available civic roles. Those roles include voting, running for office, jury duty, serving on boards and commissions at municipal, county, state and federal levels. They include writing letters to the editor and other expressive efforts to influence opinion. They include participating in nonviolent demonstrations and protests, and in civil society organizations with advocacy and civic missions, including local chapters of political parties. The list goes on.

Question 7

What are the most important strategies for renovating our political institutions and civic infrastructure?

Accepted Answer

Some of these I’ve written about already; some will be explored in columns to come. Employing unified all-comers preliminaries in place of party primaries, and having those preliminaries move four or five finalists forward to a final round where there is an instant runoff using ranked-choice voting; increasing the size of the House of Representatives; eradicating news deserts; ensuring full voter access; and embedding citizen deliberation in our representative system.

Question 8

Is democracy renovation partisan?

Accepted Answer

No, but it is cross-partisan. Any stable democracy must have a supermajority of citizens who are willing to invest time, talent and treasure in the healthy operation of the system itself, and that supermajority will necessarily span ideological divisions. The supermajority has to work together on democracy renovation to ensure that we have a stable system for contesting matters of substantive policy. This part we inevitably do along partisan lines. A core proposition of democracy is that continuous contestation of substantive policy enables us to discover solutions to our hard challenges over time. A word on supermajorities. That standard is misused in parts of our democratic system — for instance, in the Senate filibuster, whereby ordinary legislation is held to a supermajority vote. But the fact that the concept is misused in some places does not make it a useless one. Having a stable, durable, sustainable constitutional democracy depends on there being a supermajority of citizens who support its existence and some of its bright-line ethical boundaries, including universal participation and inclusion in that democracy, rule of law and nonviolence as the standard for dispute resolution.

Question 9

I’m an active partisan. Can I also be a democracy renovator?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it is possible to be both an active partisan and a democracy renovator. One does this by advocating within one’s party for the policy choices and the candidates who support democracy renovation. One can also advocate party rules and policies that help your party connect people to civic experience and provide healthy incentives for elected officials and thereby support institutions for responsive representation.

Question 10

But our democracy is on the verge of breaking down. How does any of this help protect it?

Accepted Answer

To achieve healthy 21st-century democracy, we must both protect and renovate democracy. Protection requires achieving election integrity. It requires leaders who set norms of respect for elections, the law and opponents. And it requires projects to bridge social and ideological divides, deliver civic education and encourage public service, along with a healthy information ecosystem. Renovation, in turn, requires redesign of institutions to support good incentives for elected officials and responsive representation, as well as reanimation of civic experience for the disconnected and alienated, which is most people. The two tasks go hand in hand and reinforce each other.

Question 11

This all sounds like hard work. Why should I make the effort?

Accepted Answer

It feels good! Civic engagement and empowerment are good for mental health. Also, having a secure political system that protects freedom and equality improves our chances of achieving policy outcomes that permit one generation after the next to have better lives than their parents.

Question 12

Okay, so we need both protection and renovation, and pitching in might even make me feel better. But how do I decide how and what to do?

Accepted Answer

Think of your engagement with our democracy as a civic portfolio. Every single one of us should have one of these. This involves choosing how we allocate our time, talent or treasure to civic pursuits. Maybe you decide to allocate zero hours or zero dollars. That’s fine, so long as it’s an active choice — something you have actively chosen and have reasons for. If you do choose to allocate time, talent and treasure to a civic portfolio, you have to decide how much of each you can contribute, and then you have to decide how to spread your contributions across a portfolio of democracy protection, democracy renovation and partisan electoral work. One person might allocate 30 minutes a week or $500 a year, or an hour a week or $1,000 a year, or 10 hours a week or $10,000 a year, or both time and treasure. I apportion a good deal of my nights and weekends, as well as 20 percent of my workweek, to civic pursuits. In addition, my professional area of focus is democracy renovation; I’m fortunate that I can do basic research and teaching on this subject as my job. As a result, I’ll admit, democracy work takes up nearly all my time beyond eating, sleeping, exercising, walking the dogs and spending time with my family. Many would say I have overallocated to civic life. I am sure they are right. I wish our current politics didn’t make this feel necessary, but to me it does — urgently so. Most people aren’t in a position to dedicate that large a portion of their lives to their own civic portfolio. But I believe nearly everyone can find some way to engage in this work. Across my own civic portfolio, I allocate 25 percent to democracy protection (via work on civic education), 5 percent to partisan work (via service as the chair of my local party committee) and 70 percent to democracy renovation. So my civic portfolio looks like this: I’m curious to know more about your civic portfolio. How much time do you spend on civic pursuits? What is the balance of your allocation among democracy protection, democracy renovation and partisan pursuits? May I ask you to fill out this survey with a self-assessment? I’ll review and report back on your responses down the road. Selfishly, for the sake of my own health and longevity, I am grateful every time I see another person pitch in on democracy renovation. It’s very clear that the more of us there are doing this work, the sooner we will get to a place where we can take a collective breath and have confidence in the health of our constitutional democracy. And since that’s the best available form of government to support human thriving, how can we not do what we can to deliver yet another new birth of freedom and ensure that constitutional democracy shall not perish from the Earth?

Question 13

How will you help renovate our democracy? Tell The Post.

Accepted Answer

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Opinion Is fixing democracy partisan? Here are answers to this and more questions.