"It's time for a minivan"
“Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.” - Thomas Jefferson
One of the best purchases I ever made was a grey 2014 Toyota Sienna. Power sliding doors. Captain seats. So many cup holders.
For years, I tried convincing my wife that we should get one. Our family was growing, but she believed we were able to manage okay with just our Honda Accord. We usually biked or took public transit to work, so we rarely needed to drive to different places at the same time.
But then we decided to make a road trip out of a cross-country move from Denver back to DC. We packed our three young kids in the back seats of the Accord and our luggage in the trunk. And the floor in the back. And on top of car seats. And at the passenger’s feet. For the next several weeks, we drove through 12 states, looking like a clown car at every stop. We visited my brother in Chicago. We toured Disneyworld and Legoland. We beach hopped our way up the east coast. It was an amazing trip. But each night as I unpacked the car, I wished for a minivan. At each gas station, at each park, at each restaurant.
When we arrived home in DC, my wife finally relented: “it’s time for a minivan.” I was ecstatic. It wasn’t that I hated our Accord. I love the fond memories we created with that car, especially on that road trip. We had simply outgrown it.
There is nothing wrong with recognizing a change is needed, while appreciating what has gotten you where you are. Progress is good. But it often requires giving up something you cherish, or a way that you’ve always done it. And that’s scary.
I think we all can recognize that Congress is broken. Its approval rating is 16% for a reason. The question is: what do we do about it? Do we cling to it, holding out hope that somehow we can make it work? Or do we look to alternatives that improve on what we have?
We’ve outgrown elections. The Founding of our country was an incredible moment in history, a giant leap for government as a country experimented with democracy. But why should that leap be our final one? We’ve learned a lot from that experiment: about government, about elections, about the public. And our society has evolved over the past 250 years. We should take all that knowledge and growth, and channel it toward the next step. We should embrace the next evolution.
It’s time for Democracy+.
Two comments:
1) Citizens Assemblies aka sortition, (the original form of democracy, as you pointed out) can and should replace the "clown car" (using term from your piece) that is "representative" (actually, oligarchic) "democracy." We the People need to come together and make this change--with the sense of urgency it deserves--before the country breaks. Regular peoples' voices need to be heard. Regular people, chosen randomly, need to come together to deliberate and make policy.
Democracy Without Elections is one such organization that is working on this: democracywithoutelections.org Paris is the first major city of our time to institutionalize a Citizens Assembly--here's a great podcast that can be used as a road map for that: https://realdemocracynow.libsyn.com/the-paris-citizens-assembly-0
2) Our 2001 Toyota minivan and our 2004 Toyota Prius are the 2 best purchase we ever made for our family. Hopefully the quality of your 2014 is as good as the 2001?
I love this analogy! I agree - we’ve outgrown the system. But I think for a lot of us, we feel helpless - like we can’t do anything about it. It’s time for a minivan. It’s time for Democracy+!