There is growing resistance to democratic compromise in America, anchored in an “uncompromising mindset” driven by increasing polarization, minority over majority rule, permanent campaigning and the immense influence of money in politics. An “uncompromising mindset” is a cluster of attitudes and arguments that encourage standing on principle and mistrusting opponents. Although conducive to campaigning, the mindset doesn’t…

Do Americans want our politicians to compromise and build consensus to get things done? The answer depends… on the study, on the topic and on the Americans surveyed. While Americans are likely to favor compromise hypothetically, those same people will prefer politicians stick to their principles when asked about a specific issue important to them….

A regional approach to American political divides yields another interesting political spectrum. Colin Woodard, author of “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America”, contends that the divides in our politics are less rural vs. urban, and more rival European colonial cultures. He effectively argues that the cultures handed down…

How would our politics change if every American was a registered voter? What if the 60% of us that typically don’t vote in primaries could politically engage to select different candidates? Maybe the most active (view politics as a hobby), affluent extremes on the left (8% of the population) and the right (6% of the…

Americans are generally forced to come down on the side of either Democrats or Republicans when voting. However, a large number of us don’t strongly identify with either party and have a more complex relationship with politics and government. Most of our identities are not tied to politics; but, increasingly, politics is lurking behind the…

The Hidden Agreement Within America’s Political Chasm Our deep dive on polarization last month showed how America’s politicians are more divided than voters. While division in Congress is at the highest level since Reconstruction, the ideological balance of Americans shows little change during the last forty years. The majority of us favor a middle ground…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_(politics) While today’s polarization feels more extreme and threatening than ever, political polarization is not new. Consider the more fundamental and more threatening partisanship between Adam’s Federalists and Jefferson’s Republicans in the 1790’s. These two coalitions came close to killing the republic in its infancy.  They disagreed on as fundamental a question as whether the…

https://news.gallup.com/poll/223403/americans-hold-dim-view-healthcare-system.aspx   This is the third and final part of our three-part series on where research, polls and surveys show a supermajority of Americans agree, including a majority of each political party and Independents. We’ve ranked these from low to high percentage of agreement, so this third part shows the top three issues that Americans…

https://news.gallup.com/poll/235793/record-high-americans-say-immigration-good-thing.aspx This is the second part of our three-part series on where research, polls and surveys show a supermajority of Americans agree, including a majority of each political party and Independents. We’ve ranked these from low to high percentage of agreement, so this second part shows the middle four issues that Americans agree on. 7….

We’re Not Polarized on These 3 Issues Only 32% of Americans support oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – Congress voted to open the Refuge to drilling anyway   https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/01/climate/climate-policy-maps.html   Although our elected officials are consistently polarized, Americans across the political spectrum agree on plenty of issues. While politicians would like us to…

The Brookings Institute reports that Congress is more polarized than it was a generation ago – the overlap between the parties has all but disappeared. “Safe” districts with partisan supermajorities have helped to push politicians away from the center. The widening ideological gap between party activists in recent decades has also made our politicians more polarized. Most…

When asked, “What is a special interest group?,” most people are quick to respond with answers similar to, “It’s a group funded by a company or industry to advocate for their interests”. So when I’m trying to explain the mission of our newly formed, non-profit organization, Wethepeople.org, I let them try to tell me. “If…

Martin Luther King’s quote, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now” is a remarkably poignant metaphor for America in 2018. As a people, we appear hopelessly adrift in a world that within recent memory had defined us a beacon of freedom and prosperity but has now seemingly…

We The People is about finding a slate of issues that liberals, moderates, and conservatives can all agree on and advancing those issues in Washington. It’s easy to be skeptical that common ground really exists between us when we see so many headlines that reinforce the idea that we are a divided nation. The solution…

We The People seeks to harness the collective wisdom and financial resources of a large crowd of 1 million or more Americans from across the political and social spectrum. We want those who share the common goal to release the grip that special interests have on our political system. We believe that biased news sources…