🗳️What has the US election campaign taught us about elections?
So here we are again. Another US election campaign is winding up and, to us at least, the smoke and noise seems to leave Americans in a similar place as in 2020.
The two rival factions are still neck and neck after a campaign that was short on constructive debate and long on repetitive, personal insults. The cost is still staggering (at least $12 billion raised by all candidates so far). More than 80% of Americans think there is no reason to change their minds when money rules out ordinary people running for office, that parties are more interested in fighting each other than governing, and that special interest groups hold too much sway. Trust in government remains at historic lows.
With US voters long equally divided and one-third of the electorate likely to stay away from the polls, we feel confident in predicting that more than half of the population will wake up on 6 November to an incoming president who either doesn't interest them, or, most likely, whom they actively oppose.
One podcaster following the hustings summarised the popular feeling: "People hate politicians!" reporter Katty Kay said on the Rest is Politics US.
We at DemocracyNext wish it was otherwise and are trying to do something about it.
The campaign has only strengthened our belief that all citizens should play an active part in setting the policies that govern all aspects of our lives. That's why we are doing all we can to support new ideas to upgrade democracy with citizens' assemblies – spaces for creative problem solving.
Three key ideas make them different to both electoral politics and most participatory approaches out there: 1) the ancient practice of sortition – randomly selecting decision makers; 2) deliberation – collectively weighing evidence as the basis for shared decision making; and 3) the rotation of power – we take turns with the privilege and responsibility of decision making.
Change can happen. As the dismal carnival of the campaign continued, we took great courage from witnessing the latest pioneering citizens' assembly in the US. The Deschutes Civic Assembly is just one more small, but mightily impressive, step showing that everybody has the agency, dignity, and capacity to learn, overcome polarising prejudices, and come up with common sense policy proposals.
Read on in this week's DemNext newsletter 👇
🇺🇸 We'd love to hear from our American readers in particular - can citizens' assemblies help renew American democracy?
