The American Experiment Isn't Over

But it's up to us to give it new life.

We’re taught to think that whatever the problem, we should be able to fix it…or at least someone else can. And men, even more than women, are trained to think they should at least pretend to have the answer to a problem even when they don’t.

All of this has made this moment particularly difficult, because clearly no one has a simple answer for how to put the humpty dumpty of our broken democracy back together again. With a generalized breakdown of our institutions in ways we wouldn’t have thought possible even ten years ago, people are wondering at this point if the American experiment will even survive. Anger, nihilism, cynicism and anxiety seem to fill the air, as more and more people seem to be throwing up their hands and surrendering to the thought that it might not.

It’s true, of course, that democracy isn’t guaranteed. It’s true as well that there are people in this country who are bent on destroying it. It’s even true that things have gone so far down the rabbit hole that it’s possible we can’t get out.

But it’s also true…that we can change direction. That we can become the phoenix that rises from the ashes. That we can in fact have a new birth of freedom. Either the experiment is going to end, or it’s going to be revitalized. Which one it will be is entirely up to us.

I grew up in a household where my father would often say, “No whining!” It just wasn’t allowed. Giving in to the idea that things are terrible and there’s just nothing we can do about it is the last place we need to be right now. No, we don’t have all the answers. But the very conviction that we’re not going to stop looking until we find them, opens a realm of possibility that doesn’t otherwise exist. The fact is, the answers for today’s problems aren’t coming from yesterday’s modes of problem-solving. The new wine for this country will not be coming from old bottles. The answers will come from people, and ideas, and modes of thinking and living that are new.

In the realm of politics, that means new candidates! The US Congress is feeling like an old dusty attic that needs to be aired out. There are some good people there, to be sure, but there are way too many who represent ideas, and forces, that signify nothing more than modern corruption. They are there to serve a corporatist, not a democratic agenda. They do more to serve the profit maximization of huge corporate interests that fund their campaigns, than the health and safety and well-being of their constituents.

Yet those corporate dollars continue to fund them, and we must override that.

That’s why I’ve endorsed non-corporate backed candidates in the Congressional primary campaigns - people who stand for issues and policies like universal health care, cancellation of the college loan debt, free college and the Green New Deal - all things that our corporate overlords resist. We’re at a point where a forty year long, massive transfer of wealth into the hands of one percent of Americans (literally at the expense of the other 99) has created a disparity of opportunity so critical as to undermine the strength of our democracy. The issues mentioned above are not so much drastic measures, as simply the minimum improvements necessary to level the playing field so that tens of millions of Americans now left out of the game can get into it and play their best.

You can see some of these awesome people at CandidateSummit.com, a site full of candidates who are mounting inspiring, non-corporate backed primary campaigns. And on February 16, my colleagues Krystal Ball, Julianna Forlano, Briahna Joy Gray, Katie Halper and I will be doing a livestream in which we’ll introduce you to quite a few of them.

I can’t wait! Please put Wednesday night, February 16 from 7-10pm ET on your calendar and settle in to join us for what I know will be a wonderful event.

We can change the direction that this country is moving in. And we can emerge from this period of time even better than we were before. But not unless we get busy and get going. And now! We must support a different kind of candidate, if we want to see a different kind of country.

Please join us for what I know will be a very moving event.

See you then!