Where we want to be

A country in which citizens do not have an equal political voice, in which voters do not choose their representatives, and in which representatives are not beholden to the people who elected them is not, in the meaningful sense of the word, a democracy. Elections still happen. The Constitution has not been suspended. But the word describes a relationship between a people and their government that does not exist.

If this was where the paper ended, it would be a fairly bleak conclusion. Americans are already keenly aware of these issues and the problems that follow from leaving them unsolved. They have been telling pollsters for half a century that big donors have too much influence, that lobbyists sway politicians, that constituents have too little say, that members of Congress should not be trading stocks in industries they regulate, that districts should not be drawn by the people running in them. Where Americans disagree—abortion, immigration, tax policy—the gaps are vast, but every issue covered in this paper is one where an overwhelming percentage of Americans find agreement.

In 1857, Frederick Douglass gave a speech in Canandaigua, New York, on the anniversary of the British emancipation of slaves in the West Indies. "Power concedes nothing without a demand," he told the crowd. "It never did and it never will."¹ Douglass was speaking about American slavery, but the point holds wherever a public wants something its government has not given it. The pages that follow take seven of these issues one at a time, with the reform most Americans support in each case.

Footnotes

1. Frederick Douglass, "The Significance of Emancipation in the West Indies," address delivered at Canandaigua, New York, August 3, 1857. Add: Published in Two Speeches, By Frederick Douglass (Rochester, N.Y.: C.P. Dewey, 1857). Full text at https://frederickdouglasspapersproject.com/s/digitaledition/item/10509 ↩