Populism

Nobody represents the American people

By Michael Lind

Many Americans have come to the conclusion that nobody represents them in Washington anymore. They are right.

This situation is not the result of a sinister conspiracy by a single, unitary, all-powerful and diabolical elite. The origins of the disconnect are structural. The mass membership organizations that once represented ordinary Americans at the state and national level have been replaced by elite organizations that raise their money from a small number of billionaires rather than hundreds of thousands or millions of dues-paying members.

Phi Beta Iota: This is the first time we have seen this important idea presented so plainly.  GroupOn might yet help solve the problem.  What is clear is that the Internet has spawned the fragmentation of groups even further, without offering something like GroupOn that could bring them all back together issue by issue–this was the reason Earth Intelligence Network was created, to be a proponent for a World Brain and EarthGame that could connect all people with all relevant information, and in this way enable informed participatory democracy across multiple boundaries–Panarchy, the opposite of Anarchy.  Electoral Reform is an important first step, but as the full article suggests, the public desperately needs some vehicle for representing all of the people all of the time.