What We Have Forgotten

It Shouldn’t Be This Way

The United States of America’s republic is in a dire circumstance. The average working person cannot afford a home. Americans are saddled with crippling debt. Inflation is high. Younger generations are projected to achieve lesser financial success than their parents. The number one cause of personal debt is medical bills. A significant portion of the food supply is basically poisoned.

The ultra wealthy and corporations receive generous tax breaks, while the working class recognizes crumbling infrastructure, reduced social safety nets and higher taxes. The current wealth gap that exists between the top 1% of the population and everyone else is comparable to the Gilded Age, and the gap is growing. Politicians, regardless of party affiliation, serve the rich and ignore – or worse – denigrate their constituents. 

Presidential debates have been reduced to petty squabbles, lacking true substance. The Supreme Court accepts allowable bribes. Members of Congress collect donations (aka legalized bribes) and engage in permissible insider trading. Considered allowable by whom? Legalized by whom? Made permissible by whom? Serving whom? Surely, this does not serve the people.

Though we tout the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, many who do not fit a predetermined mold are effectively outcast from society. Intolerance rages. Greed is rampant. Empathy and compassion have become four-letter words. Our civilization is not civil. Our society is no longer social. Loneliness and unfulfillment are at all-time highs.

But how did we get here? We know what the problems are. Undoubtedly, you, dear reader, could expand upon this list. But how do we fix them?

The People are the Government

The people of the United States are the government. The people who sit in positions at the executive branch, legislative branch and judiciary are merely our representatives. They are the people that we allow to carry out our demands with respect to our shared acceptance of the dictates of the Constitution of the United States of America.

They work for us. That’s it. Full stop.
We decide what is and what is not money.
We decide what the tax code should be.
We decide the best way to spend those taxes.
We decide who is and is not a citizen.
We decide how our money should be spent.
We decide which countries we will ally with.
We decide what happens with our data.
And they execute based on our decisions.

I get it. We’ve gotten to the point that we want to set it and forget it, with regard to execution of governmental concerns. Life is busy. We have spouses, fiances, boyfriends and girlfriends. We have children, nieces and nephews. We have jobs, careers, hobbies and scholarly endeavors. Many of us are completely absorbed with working all of our available hours just to hold off being thrown out into the street. Our calendars are full. We vote for our preferred representatives to handle the arduous task of managing the administration of the government for us.

Unfortunately, in this day and age, the branches of the U.S. government seem to have run askew of their stated directive. And it’s time to change that.

Don’t you want to have a direct voice into our governance? You work hard. You pay taxes. You should have a say. You should demand a say.

But how? If you can’t directly access your representatives in government, then what do you do? If your calls and emails go unanswered, then where do you turn? If you attend a town hall and your representative throws red herrings and hollow, sound-bite-laden talking points at you, then how should you respond?

Our Power

Protests have long been an effective means of displaying power through solidarity. However, I’m not sure that singularly focusing on street protests will work. What if we had an organization that could put pressure on the other three branches of government? If money is all that matters in politics, then we, the people, need to figure out a way to combat all of the money in politics, until we can affect a change to the laws that provide these questionable allowances.

In the United States, our federal union is designed as a democratically governed constitutional republic. This form of government is applied to ensure that “…a government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” (Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, PA, November 19, 1863). 

All money and power flow from us. Trust me on this. All money is a representation of the value that we create in society through the work that we do in order to both provide the services and create the products that are used in society. Our power is generated through our collective voice and action.

How can we affect either the economy or the government? Well, we can shut down all of modern society. Before you ask me how crazy I am, hear me out. The only way that anything gets done in this country is because of us: the working class. Don’t believe me? Let me ask you a few questions:

1. Is it possible that there is a team of engineers at Meta that could lock Mark Zuckerberg out of all of Meta’s social media platforms? Is there a security force that could disable his access to the physical grounds of Meta, locking him out of the buildings?
2. Is there a team of medical staff that could lock the owners of a hospital out of it and perform whatever procedures that they want to?
3. Do the CEOs of banks have direct access to your accounts, or does that access belong to working class tellers, bank managers, financial advisors, etc.?
4. Does the owner of the dealership sell you the car, or do you buy it based on the interactions that you have with the salesperson and the finance manager?
5. Who opens and runs Kroger, Ralphs, Walmart, Target or Albertsons? Do the owners and shareholders open those stores? Or is this done by working class grocery managers, stockroom personnel, cashiers, etc.?

Nothing happens without us. Nothing. Perhaps it is time that we remind the elites of this truth. It is absolutely within our power to shut down the country, voice our demands and negotiate terms to procure the resources that we desire for our local communities, our cities, our states and our national society.

Congress has power because it represents the will of the people.
The Presidency has power because it represents the action of the people.
The Supreme Court has power because it represents the judgement of the people.
A representative is only a proxy for the power of its principal, the entity that holds true power.

The Office of the President, the U.S. Federal Courts and Congress are the representatives, as are those who hold local and state offices. We are the principal. But there’s a catch. We can only wield our principal power when we act as a united group. United, we stand. Divided, we fall.

If a representative can divide the attention of its principal, then that representative can wield the powers of the principal to achieve selfish goals, while the principal is otherwise distracted. This is where we find ourselves as citizens of the United States in the year 2025. We are distracted, as we have been. The groups that comprise political party conventions have usurped our power, while we distract ourselves with sports, celebrity news, video games, shopping for useless, overpriced items and petty infighting amongst the working class and the poor. And it’s time to stop this. It’s time for us to wake up. It’s time for us to take our power back.

Our Shared Human Values

How do we unite and take back our power? We have to build community in order to bind ourselves together for a common purpose. This can be done by rallying around ideals that we have for both the type and quality of life that we want as citizens.

Our shared values are the same as all who retain citizenship through either birthright or naturalization, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or physical ability: a rising quality of life that is commensurate with the productivity advancements of our society. This includes, but is not limited to: career advancement/resource accumulation; starting a family; providing increasing opportunity for our children and future generations commensurate to societal productivity advancements and our individual efforts to secure wealth through contributing to said advancements; safety from physical, social, and economic threats; security of access to an equitable share in both societal advancements and societal wealth generation, the ability and right to protect ourselves, our families and our interests, including our individual, communal and societal interests, where not inhibiting the freedoms of others or posing a real and present threat to others.

Our Call to Action

If you find yourself dissatisfied with the direction in which this country is heading, then I have only one statement to share. It was written by those who found themselves in troubling times that mirror our own.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all persons are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, Congress, United States of America, July 4, 1776

If any of what I have written resonates with you, then keep your eye out for subsequent articles in this series, in which I will explore possible solutions to our current political challenges.