The New President’s Toughest Job: A Polarized America
If a core of legislators of both parties are willing to work with the Biden administration, find common ground, and pass legislation that makes the country better, then perhaps Washington can actually set an example that helps a reeling nation heal.
What a President-Elect Must Deal With
How to fulfill promises, how to deal with Congress, what to do about a slew of issues that will soon land on President-Elect Biden’s desk—all will require hard decision-making.
It is Time to Show Our Resilience
The world pays close attention to how we deal with internal problems, and our actions within our borders profoundly affect our standing and leverage as we assert global leadership.
The Pandemic Lays Bare Our Information Problems
The United States failed to provide a comprehensive, federally led nationwide strategy providing clear guidance on mask-wearing, offering resources for contact tracing, and helping states develop their approaches to quarantining for those exposed to the virus—the three legs vital for early containment.
To see one party mounting an all-out attack on the integrity of the countless Americans who view running elections as a sacred trust is, to put it mildly, disturbing.
I think there’s one key factor for voters when they decide who to cast their vote for that doesn’t get taken as seriously as it should: likability.
If this minority-rule pattern continues and US political and judicial leadership no longer represents a majority, one has to wonder, with Lincoln, how long such a country can endure.
Let’s Be Clear About Democracy
Every state and local election official has to do their best to ensure that everyone who is entitled to vote can cast a ballot, and that those ballots are counted as transparently as possible, without vote-suppression shenanigans.
The people we put in office this election will shape the future of the US for decades.
The Art of Giving Political Speeches
The chance to watch great communicators at work gives you a better sense of who they are, why they have succeeded, and why our multi-faceted political system is so interesting, engaging, and important.
We have the strength to rebuild, but not if we continue to withdraw to our little warring camps and lob insults at one another.
The Faith We Place in Our Elections
I’m not alone in thinking of this year’s vote as the most important of my lifetime, and woe betide us if our confidence in the result—which will play a big part in our willingness to accept the result—is betrayed by politicians seeking to game the system or by elections officials who don’t live up to the trust Americans place in them to get it right.
All of Us Need to Help Revitalize Our Democracy
We need to strengthen representative democracy by restoring the effectiveness of government, rebuild Congress as a functional, co-equal branch of the federal government, and restore confidence in our institutions, public and private.
It’s Time to Learn What Our System’s About from the Inside
Listening to our peers, understanding their hopes, appreciating the differences among them, grasping why accommodation and compromise are crucial to resolving those differences, and learning how to accomplish them are part and parcel of making a representative democracy work.
This is a Testing Time for All of Us
The country won’t be out of control if each of us steps up to the challenges we see in our own neighborhoods and our nation.
Our system calls on citizens to make it work and to make it better. There’s no doubt that we face great stresses, and while we may make progress in enhancing individuals’ pursuit of happiness, it’s rarely straight ahead.
Why Representative Democracy Matters
We can’t look at representative democracy in isolation but have to compare it to the alternatives. And the alternatives, I’d argue, don’t stack up.
Exceptional? Only If We Get to Work
The coronavirus has laid bare a country fumbling for a response; a federal government that, despite pockets of brilliance, has failed overall to protect and offer guidance to Americans; a health care system that has been forced to scramble for the most basic supplies; and an economic downturn that has wreaked disproportionate havoc on the lives of middle-class and wage-earning Americans.
Worrisome Trends Affecting Representative Democracy
Voters need to reclaim our democracy and demand that the system that made us a great nation—one that adhered to the checks and balances and separate institutional responsibilities laid out in our Constitution—be restored.
There was a time when members of Congress on both sides of the aisle considered Congress to be equal in stature to the President and the executive branch, and their speech-making reflected this: they saw strong oratory as a chance to encapsulate ideas and inspire Americans to rally behind them.
What Makes a Successful Politician?
One of the ironies of our system is that the skills and attributes that put someone in office are usually not the skills needed for success once they’re there.
Can Congress Make Democratic Governance Work?
Our challenge — and Congress’s in particular — is to respond as the situation demands while preserving the best that democratic governance offers: solutions to the country’s problems that reflect the best thinking and collective wisdom of a great, diverse, and creative nation.
Congress remains the spot where the cross-currents of American popular opinion have their best chance of being heard, listened to, and acted upon.
Our freedoms give us the capability to stand back, watch the process unfold, search for the truth, try to understand what’s happening in the country and the world, and then make decisions based on the information we have in front of us.
Without Civility, Our System Doesn’t Work
In a democracy like ours, the key challenge is to foster a debate that respects all voices, even those of dissent and protest, and create an environment that enables the agreements we need to advance the common good.
It’s both a paradox and a gift of our system that we have a form of government that encourages ordinary people to solve the problems of their communities, states, and the nation as a whole, and yet effective leadership is vital.
Fixing the System is Up to All of Us
We must always be alert to the fact that our freedoms and rights can be eroded. To prevent this erosion, we have to step up to the task of responsible citizenship.
How Presidents Get Their Facts
Presidents differ on how systematically and thoroughly they do this fact-gathering, but generally they seek out sources of information with different perspectives and biases.
To make our system and this country work, we need a lot of experts and competent bureaucrats to deal with the problems that come cascading down on government.
At its heart, representative democracy is about how we resolve our differences in order to move the country forward, and if the parties lack trust, then it becomes hugely more difficult to do so.
How Do We Keep Our Democracy Healthy?
In essence, I think we need always to be mindful about how we teach and encourage people to participate — through efforts to educate and register voters, through citizen-led advocacy, through neighbors getting together to change the speed limit on their road or fight groundwater contamination… It all matters.
We Make Progress When Citizens Tackle the Small Stuff
Participating in the process challenges us to make our case, develop our skills of persuasion, and become better at speaking, listening, building consensus, and being an engaged member of a community.
We Need Regular Ways to Hold Presidents Accountable
What I’m talking about is a way for knowledgeable people to step beyond the White House’s control of presidential appearances, ask tough questions, and get real answers so that the American people can judge the President’s actions and reasoning.
We Should Continue to Be a Nation of Immigrants
This country is a defender of individual rights, a beacon of tolerance and equality, and a champion of the notion that offering opportunity to all who live here — regardless of national origin — yields the innovation and hard work that drive our economy and culture.
The satisfactions of engaging in politics do not just come when things are easy or running smoothly. They’re most acute, in fact, when circumstances are difficult, when being involved can make a difference, and when working through fraught times yields progress on the other side.
At a time of concern and, in many quarters, cynicism about democracy and its prospects, we’re reminded of a basic truth: people want a say in how they’re governed.
There’s cause for Both Concern and Optimism When it comes to Democracy
Many countries are home to anti-democratic movements that reject the basic freedoms, civil liberties, and pluralism that we associate with democracy.
Democracy Won’t Die If We Don’t Let It
As voters we have to look for candidates and leaders who are committed to making the political institutions of democracy stronger: a Congress that works, a judiciary that is independent of political pressure, an executive branch that’s transparent and accountable, a noisy and robust free press, the rule of law, a sturdy civil society.
How Should Americans Engage Globally?
Our obligation in its broadest terms is to try to make our nation and the world safer, freer, and more prosperous when and where we can.
Let’s Not Just Focus on Elections, But on How We Elect
It’s distressingly common to find officials who are uninterested in promoting a fair and convenient vote, but instead are looking for ways to manipulate the system so that their preferences emerge from the voting.
Getting Congress Back on Track
Largely because Congress has abandoned the regular order, the institution no longer plays the role that our founders envisioned and that our diverse, complex society needs.
How Long Can the Federal Debt Keep Rising?
We’re paying more in interest on the debt than we spend on our children, and we’re headed toward doing the same with defense. I doubt that fits the priorities of most Americans.
Compromise is the Essence of Our Democracy
Shouting “No Compromise!” may fire up the crowd, but it’s a recipe for failure when it comes to getting things done in office.
The Key to Representative Democracy? Persuasion.
In our democracy, you need help from allies, partners, friends, sometimes even antagonists — because you’re trying to find common ground and build coalitions of support.
To Improve, Congress Needs to Look Inward
Legislators need to accommodate differences and find common ground. Otherwise, each side just sits in its corner and maneuvers to beat the other at the next election and we, as a nation, spin in circles.
What Would Make Congress Better?
“What are the paths that will lead Congress back to relevance, effectiveness, and higher standing in public opinion?”
“When I began in politics, elected officials believed that compromise and negotiation were core political values, intrinsic to our democracy and crucial to making it work for everyone.”
Political and Policy Skills Are Merging
Our representative democracy is in stress, if not in peril. We must return to our traditional approach: coalition-building across diverse groups of people.
Accountability Makes Good Government
Holding the president and other public officials accountable is not a detour from governing; it is the essence of good government.
In Politics, You Need Priorities
Many of our policy challenges are intractable, impossible to solve. The best we can do is manage them, chipping away year by year.
Center on Representative Government
201 N. Indiana Ave.
Bloomington, Indiana
Phone: (812) 856-4706
Fax: (812) 856-4703
