There are a few people I trust on that list, a lot I know nothing about and a few I don't trust at all. But I see no reason to applaud the creation of a group that represents existing institutions and groups that have failed to produce meaningful change in decades.
We need new niche groups and cutesy letterheads like we need Trump. We need systemic change. While we may not be able to produce it within DC, we have to start the conversations. We have to find new ways to reach people. We need to create an infrastructure the reaches the UNusual suspects. We have maybe 60-65% of the voting age adult citizens in this country that 1. don't register, and if registered, 2. don't vote. We have thousands of square miles all across the country in which our fellow citizens hear little more than the rantings of Rush, Sean, Savage, Medved, etc. We have millions of our fellow citizens of all political persuasions who live within informational bubbles, silos each with its own preacher and choir and no one else.
This has to change. We have to change it. We have to engage in genuine conversations. We have to ask questions of one another. We have to listen and then ask more questions and then listen again. We have to share our stories. We will never get anywhere with graphs and tables. We need to be able to tell morality tales as we did during the civil rights and anti-war campaigns, as we did during the environmental campaign.
Pronouncements from on high, from "experts" with letters after their names, have not replaced person to person contact out here in the real world. The 19th century Populists did it well. We could learn a lot from them.
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