America, you're better than this

America is crying out for new leadership. We are stuck in a political swamp of hate and being hated. We can’t continue like this – we must make rational decisions to complex problems, and many of them need to be made quickly. It is simply not possible within the system that Congress has created. We need fresh ideas, fresh minds, and a fresh American spirit.

These are dangerous times for American self-government. We’ve heard that warning before—but the threat is here, right now, within the hearts and minds of our elected leaders. The institutions meant to represent us have become paralyzed or simply reneged on their duties. Partisanship has hardened into identity. Politics has turned into tribal combat instead of public service.

And yet, most Americans do not actually hate each other. For the most part, they feel helpless. What they hate is the system we have allowed to grow around us: a system where winning is more important than governing, where parties matter more than people, and where leaders treat political opposition as an enemy to be defeated rather than fellow citizens to be reasoned with.

The problem is not that Americans have different views. We always have. The problem is how we make decisions.

For decades, our public discourse has revolved around the idea that one party must be right and the other must be wrong. But in a country where razor-thin margins routinely decide elections, that framework makes governing impossible. In the last presidential election, the difference between the two major candidates was only 2 million votes — less than 1% of eligible voters. While 155 million voted, 90 million Americans didn’t vote or even register. They felt unrepresented by either side or disenchanted.

With numbers like these, there is no mandate for a political direction. No serious person can claim otherwise.

Yet our governmental structure treats it as one, and the winning party is emboldened by its announced dominance. The party that wins by the smallest of margins gains control of Congress, committee chairs, legislative agendas, and the mechanics of national decision-making. The losing party is basically locked out. The result is predictable: an angry party on one hand, and extremism and distortion on the other.

The Founders gave us a system of cooperation with checks and balances and meaningful representation. Our elected leaders have slowly replaced it with one designed for party control.

For much of our modern history, the unwritten norms of American democracy helped hold things together. The evening news provided a shared understanding of facts. Lies were disqualifying. The Constitution was respected not only in law but in spirit. Lawmakers negotiated differences in conference committees and found compromises that lasted beyond the next election cycle.

Technology, political incentives, and unheard-of wealth in and out of government have changed all of that. The rise of cable news, social media, and algorithmic outrage has fragmented our information environment. Extreme positions are rewarded. Moderation is punished. And the rules of Congress, created by the political parties over decades, have transformed our national legislature into a battlefield rather than a forum for problem-solving.

This is not what the public wants. We need a government we can trust to make high-level, complex decisions. It simply cannot happen in this twisted, entangled maze of politically-backed rules that Congress has woven for itself, where lobbyists and big money run wild.,

This is not a Constitutional problem. Most people don’t realize that the rules of Congress were developed for Congress, by Congress, and can be changed by Congress. The Public can demand that they be changed.

The Constitution allows each chamber of Congress to set its own procedures, its rules of operation. There is no requirement anywhere that the majority party controls committees. There is no constitutional principle that requires only one party to control the legislative process. The Founders never wanted modern party power structures; in fact, Washington explicitly warned they could destroy public liberty, and we can now see he was right.

So the issue is not that America’s founding design has failed — it’s that while we were working, taking care of families, and getting on with life, “we the people” let this miscarriage of governing happen. We ignored the oversight duty the Founders entrusted to us and let the mischief of political parties lead us astray.

Poll after poll shows Americans want cooperation, shared responsibility, and decisions grounded in broad public support. In polls, 70-75% of the public calls for members of Congress to compromise with the other side to address the nation's problems. They want leaders who respect their oath, work hard, and solve problems. They want to see Congress behave like a deliberative body.

Our current decision-making system fails on all counts and exacerbates the problems. It’s not structured to give us the results we want. If we want different outcomes, we have to change the way we make decisions.

A New Model of Bipartisanship

We think of bipartisanship as one side agreeing with the other's position, not as both sides agreeing on a single position. Fortunately, we already have a working model inside Congress. It’s been operational for years, yet most people have never noticed it. The House and Senate Ethics Committees are the only standing committees structured with equal representation from both parties and professional nonpartisan staff. The House Committee even has an independent, non-legislative advisory committee of experts (Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE)) to increase accountability and transparency. These decision-making structures exist because ethical questions are too sensitive to be controlled by a single party.

If we can apply that principle where trust and compromise matter most, why not use it to all committees? If we want cooperation and compromise, why should one party have total control?

Imagine every congressional committee balanced 50/50. Imagine neutral staff, shared subpoena power, and rules requiring that any bill advanced from committee would receive a recorded vote on the House or Senate floor. Imagine informative hearings, not theater. No partisan leadership could bury legislation or shut down a chamber of Congress. Transparency, not messaging, would drive deliberation. Anti-gridlock provisions would force resolution if needed and prevent stalemate.

Republicans could adopt such a balanced committee rule change in the House at any time; however, it is highly unlikely given the current Executive Office's control over that body. If Democrats were to win control of the House in 2026, they could initiate such a change by majority vote at the beginning of the session in 2027. Such a change could be encouraged by various good government NGOs and launched by Democrats as a major response to public demands. A change in the House could serve as a model for the Senate, where there are formal (2/3rds majority) and informal (simple majority) processes for changing the rules.

Technology could help provide vastly improved transparency. Every member of Congress should be required to maintain a standardized, high-tech public dashboard: bills, amendments, votes, correspondence, meeting schedules, hearing schedules, lobbyist interactions, all searchable and open to the public in real time. Modern AI tools could make that information easily accessible and digestible to citizens and news organizations.

The solutions are here now. “We the people” must demand it.

A Different Kind of Presidency

If we want cooperation in Congress, we also need it in the Executive Branch.

A President committed to true bipartisanship should consider selecting a Vice President who is an Independent or from the other major party. Similarly, every Cabinet department should have diverse political interests at the top of the decision chain, supported by balanced professional staff. Policy differences would be debated, and when differences remained, the President would make the final decision, but with a public explanation of the reasoning and principles behind it.

Transparency and compromise would become the governing philosophy, not a slogan.

A Role for the Public

At the Constitutional Convention, George Washington argued that one representative should never speak for more than 30,000 citizens. Today, that number is closer to 765,000. Representation feels distant because it is. Washington also said it was the public duty to hold the government accountable.

But it’s also the government's responsibility to give the public the tools to do its job. We may not be able to expand Congress overnight, but we can close the distance between representation and constituents with new AI communication and information access systems. We can build systems that make legitimate, bipartisan petitions of the government meaningful. We can make constituent surveys accurate, reflective, and impossible to ignore. Enhanced technology can facilitate more beneficial public participation and involvement.

If we reconnect the public and journalists to the process of governing, we breathe new life into the representative democracy.

The Way Forward

The United States does not need one side to win and the other to lose. The United States needs a system in which differences are acknowledged, common ground is found, and decisions reflect widespread public approval, not the dominance of one party.

We need a government that represents all of us, not just whoever won the last election by the smallest of margins.

We are not as divided as our politics suggests. We can restore cooperation. We can restore trust. And we can build a system designed not for victory, but for governance. If we don’t change the way we make decisions, America will fail. We are currently on that path.

It seems we have no choice, but we do. We must focus our protests on changing how we govern and make decisions. We need to expand the numbers to include the millions who cannot attend the rallies (e.g., the “a dollar for democracy” campaign, one per donor). We need coordinated, focused, and publicized electronic petition campaigns from respectable sponsors. Commitments must be received from elected incumbents and candidates in exchange for votes and support.

Enterprising NGOs and universities could lead the way by developing AI-driven information and communication technology (ICT) platforms to maximize interaction and oversight between elected members and their constituents. Several organizations are already pursuing the connection of AI to government involvement. The public could insist that such new technologies and standardized platforms be installed in all Congressional offices and utilized throughout the government.

If we change our decision-making process, we can begin to address the many critical issues and problems that must be addressed. If we choose cooperation over contempt, courage over confrontation, and country over party, we can begin a new chapter worthy of the generations who came before us. The question is not whether change is possible. The question is whether “we the people” will demand it.

Jeff Dauphin, aka J.P. McJefferson, is retired. Blogging on the "Underpinnings of a Broken Government." Founded and ran two environmental information & newsletter businesses for 36 years. Facilitated enactment of major environmental legislation in Michigan in the 70s. Community planning and engineering. BSCE, Michigan Technological University.