Representative Democracy

     The fact that Americans are largely uninformed and disconnected with government has been an issue from the beginning. It is why the founders of the constitution instituted the electoral college and formed a representative government, instead of a pure democracy. Political parties formed to organize and inform the public about who to vote for and to bridge the gap between the everyday citizen and the government. Political parties are really just minority groups who have risen because of a disorganized, apathetic public.

Many Americans today are fed up with the division political parties create and the distraction from issues that need to be dealt with. Congress cannot seem to get anything done because each party wants to have it's way. Even worse, the president bipasses congress to make laws through executive orders.This is unconstitutional and in my opinion, leads to the downfall of the American government.  So, the point of this blog entry is to take a look at what is going wrong here, not to see the symptom of the problem but to get down to where the problem really lies. 

How do we inform the public, and get a better system of Government? To begin with throw out the two party system! Todd Phillips has some great ideas in his article, Local Electors,  Phillips states, " We should view political parties as a symptom of an underlying problem—a disorganized, apathetic, uninformed, and disconnected public—and as a “solution” that conflicts with the core value of democracy—that the people shall govern themselves. Government by political parties is government by minority groups, which is contrary to the intentions of the Framers of our Constitution and contrary to the central premise of democracy."

I think the reason our government is no longer functioning as it was ment to be is because we have become too big. We need smaller, more manageable, more local governement. Communities need to be represented on a smaller scale, and those representatives need to be the public's way of being informed. Our country has grown, we are huge compared to when the founders wrote the constitution. We are still trying to run it without enough representatives and without a better form of communication. This two party system is not the answer, it only divides and polarizes the country.