The Challenge

The United States is facing a crisis of confidence in our elected officials and political institutions. Our polarized, dysfunctional government dominated by partisan factions, special interests, big money donors and elected officials who put party interests and personal ambition ahead of country has resulted in a failure to deal with the significant challenges confronting this nation. Politicians have gamed the system so they can be relatively immune from direct accountability even though the public believes they don't deserve to be in office.

 

• The Pew Research Center reports that public trust in government has hit an historic low:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Pew Research Center. Please visit their site to view these charts with enhanced functionality and data.

 

• According to a recent Gallup poll only a quarter of all Americans are happy with the way things are going in this country and 65 percent have lost faith in our government and consider it ineffective.

 

• Americans believe our ineffective government and lack of political leadership is a bigger problem for the nation than the stagnant economy and unemployment.

 

• Approval of Congress has reached a record low. The last Congressional session was the most polarized and least productive in American history.

 

• Partisan Republicans and Democrats are more polarized than ever but more Americans are in the center than at either end of the political spectrum.

 

• There are more Independent voters than ever.

 

• Politicians are putting personal ambition and party before national interest and Americans are not being well represented by politicians or well served by government.

 

• Voter turnout is declining.

 

Political change is badly needed but it cannot come from within this toxic political environment or be voluntarily enacted by those who have benefitted from the current political system. The rules and incentives driving political behavior must be changed.

 

We can change the system by engaging and mobilizing Independents, Millennials and other voters in the middle who feel left out of our political and economic system.

 

The only way to force change is to attack political dysfunction and hyper-partisanship with electoral reform on the local, state and national levels and we can do it with your help.

 

 

 

 

Image Credit: Emil Lendof/The Daily Beast