What it comes down to is this: we are incapable of moving our nation forward on the “rails and roads” of the political infrastructure that we have. Like our physical infrastructure it is too old, too decrepit and 50 years behind our actual needs. Indeed, our failed political infrastructure is the main reason we find ourselves in such a seeming free-fall as a society. It is why Trump and MAGA could cause such a train wreck of our country right now. And the pile up they are creating could bring America to a halt for years to come.
Who or what right now — personality, party, politician — could rally a defense against MAGA’s unravelling of our society? Better still, who or what can offer an offense against MAGA?
Do we think that if a Democrat can squeeze into the White House in 2028 it would truly change the direction of the nation? (As it failed to do in 2020?) Too much has been unraveled to knit it back together with any hope of success. Success, rather than slowing the inevitable.
And an overlooked cause for this is not ideological or political: it is the anti-democratic nature of our political infrastructure. Safe seats, 50 different antiquated voting systems, money, money, money, and gerrymandering producing career politicians who not only legislate in a bubble we the people cannot break through but live in one too. And for years we’ve been gazing into that bubble — with loathing or envy, but always outside.
For the people, the electorate, us, this has created a political log jam, a traffic jam as bad as any summer afternoon on I-95 (or the I-495, or the Pike!) Stuck for years in the same overcrowded four lanes (or two lanes!) we’ve done what motorists do when the government fails them: get out of our vehicles and start squabbling with each other!
And we will swelter on that damn political Pike bickering until we repair, update, and modernize our political highways, bridges and rails.
What might just save us is a People’s Infrastructure Party or a Democracy Renewal Movement whose sole commitment is to update and democratize our political infrastructure. To level out, again, our political playing field.
We know what is wrong and what must be modernized, invented, ended or outlawed: Gerrymandering above all else must be eliminated at all levels. If this means turning district assignments over to an AI model, fine. But all districting must be solely to maximize fair representation in Congress.
Money: not just the payoffs of lobbyists and corporations that corrupt politicians, but the fortunes extorted to get and keep elected office must be eliminated. Money cannot be a form of free speech.
Voting reform to end our anti-democratic two-party system. This is a longer-term goal, but perhaps the most important. It will take a fair amount of national conversation to grow support for ranked-choice-voting — the most democratic form of balloting, as it allows for multi-party elections with a real chance for small parties to gain a foothold at the local, state and national levels. Ranked-choice-voting in non-gerrymandered fortune-free elections is the best possible way to re-level our playing field, increase diverse representation, and open a space for democratic change.
The Electoral College also must go. This can be done at the state level, where each state legislature passes a law giving all its electoral votes to the popular vote winner. Thus, no constitutional change would be necessary.
Equally important is transparency in all political things: not a dime to any party, politician, issue, decision, vote or election that is not utterly transparent. A big, beautiful wall must be erected around members of Congress preventing them from profiting from being in office. No Wall Street trades, no left-over campaign cash, no vacations, no trips, no freebies that are not completely transparent and known to constituents. “Transparency” must become the new goal that politicians compete for.
Some of these can be done without a constitutional amendment. But the ultimate need to modernize our political system will require changes to the Constitution in the last phase of this renewal.
The House of Representatives must become four-year terms to keep them from being in a constant state of fund raising for a never-ending reelection cycle. We know the Supreme Court must be limited to 21 years per justice, staggered so that eventually each administration will nominate two justices. Life-long terms for SCOTUS must end.
I am not sure if such a vital agenda could even take life now. The reason it might take three or four election cycles to see such a movement emerge is that the PIP would be utterly non-partisan on all other issues than democratizing our political infrastructure. No anti-anything, no pro anything — no issues, no ism’s, no supporting or opposing anything other than modernizing a political system that is too old and broken to bear the weight of democratic change.
We must accept that our anti-democratic political infrastructure is the primary reason we watch our democracy unravel. We can get out of our cars on the gridlocked Pike that is America, and we can continue to furiously honk our horns, and uselessly scream at each other. But we ain’t going anywhere until we fix our infrastructure.
Joe Gannon, writer and teacher, lives in Easthampton.