I suspect the readership of this column could expand if this Project were to pick sides and join in the stalemated fray called American politics.  The reason that doesn’t happen is The Good Decision Project is about good and how that word plays into the decisions you make.  Good is such a personal, social and political word it could never fit into one or the other political stances in this nation.  Democracy gets its oxygen from the tolerance, diversity and passionate commitment to democracy’s virtues. That said, to anyone reading this , like it or not the current government has demonstrated it could care less about what democracy needs. They have  invested nearly 100 percent in the word ‘power’.  Democracy treats power neutrally.  Power is amoral. Anything good or evil coming from power is sourced at the user’s morality. In the current world, for a time, the rule is no power, no play and the liberal establishment has been losing the battle for legitimate power.  

As the United States turns from environmental protection, leadership and world peace to personal fortune, empire building, and time travel back to fossil fuels, there is confusion in this country and the world how a few people could get such complete control of the massive enterprise called the United States. Those few people accomplished this because they understood power. They grasped that money represented increments of power and they proselytized  or intimidated a sufficient number America’s billionaires to abandon their country and consolidate fortunes behind their private values. They have methodically formed a private power more powerful than the standing democratic government. In terms of actual votes, which is the only formal legitimate democratic increment of political  power, this group is numerically a voting minority.  They were able to win an election thanks to their understanding of the Electoral College, and how money strategically  invested, can buy an election.  The trance is beginning to break as more and more citizens recognize what is really going on. 

A modest proposal for Good

The tragic mess being made by the autocrats opens the door for someone to pitch a big tent to recruit America’s political exiles. What we see on the streets and in our lives is finally being noticed. This writer recommends the liberal to moderate left influences in America jettison a lot of secondary issues and concentrate on winning an election by a significant margin.  This is no time to dither. This never ending approximately 50/50 voting split has paralyzed this nation.  It has been several election cycles since anyone has won the election by a sufficient long lasting working margin. The power of government has been effectively neutralized and an oligarchy has made themselves at home harvesting the power the stymied government needs to govern. Liberals love tolerance but cannot tolerate the intolerables. They still don’t understand the word “despicables” was the second shot heard around the world. The big tent of 55% plus requires genuine tolerance of many different views coupled with a passionate active commitment to democracy as a value system.  We have seen the price of being powerless.  It takes power to play so lets get to work.