Dare for Democracy: Three Essential Steps - BY FRANCES MOORE LAPPÉ AND ADAM EICHEN

Found here. My comments in bold.

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This is a long article filled with leftist tropes and unsupported assertions.

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Many Americans remain in shock and outrage, unable to grasp how a man who told bald-faced lies, who ridiculed and defamed others, and who boasted of sexual assault could yet ascend to the presidency of the United States. (Oh. I thought they were talking about Hillary.)

Despair isn’t an option; it’s our greatest enemy. (Yes, of course. This hysterical emoting is quite unseemly and frankly, unexplainable. It's an election, and they lost., nothing more, nothing less. But I suppose when your hope is founded upon government, its every ebb and flow is cause for alarm. But for the rest of us in the real world, we live our lives with little regard for the religion of government, except for when it forcibly intrudes into our day to day.)

We know we must act more boldly than ever. (If there is one thing the Left has not lacked, it is boldness. Provocative and offensive to the extreme, the Left's tactics and overwrought invective has never been more on display in this election.)

To save the democracy we thought we had, we must take democracy to where it’s never been. (That sounds ominous. Democracy, which we do not have in the US, is simply the action of majority vote. Where could it possibly be brought where it's never been?)

Most of us find our courage through acting with others. So we at the Small Planet Institute are launching a Field Guide to the Democracy Movement. Together we can create a vibrant, bipartisan, multicultural “movement of movements.” (A few buzzwords here. And I certainly doubt it will be bipartisan, unless bipartisan means forcing people to agree with them.)

This Democracy Movement can mobilize people not just online, but face-to-face, creating personal bonds strong enough to carry out historic civic action. To protect and further our democratic institutions, this movement must have strong grass-roots and national coordination. Most importantly, it must be a movement that turns disillusionment and fear into the courage and resolve needed to tackle the deep, systemic roots of the crisis we now face.

(...)

Success in the Democracy Movement — with human dignity as its foundation — requires addressing three aspects of American society that contributed to Donald Trump’s victory.

1. Rejecting brutal capitalism
Much of Trump’s support, we believe, flows from a sense of betrayal. For example, one-fifth of American men aged 20 to 65 had no paid employment last year. Their vulnerability to big but empty promises is surely easy to understand. (And who has been president for the last eight years? And who has dominated government philosophy for the past 80 years? And why has the plethora of government programs, profligate spending, and ever-increasing intrusion into the private sector yielded these unfortunate results? Do the authors not realize that our present situation is the natural result of what they've already been doing?)

But to grasp and tackle the forces leading to Trump means naming and ending the assault on human dignity itself that’s built into our peculiar form of capitalism.

A magical market … succeeds, we’re made to believe, by reducing everything possible to dollar exchange among consumers. (Who has said this? This is typical for the Left. They simply refuse to understand what capitalism is.)

We refer to it as “brutal capitalism” to bring attention to the harms inexorably generated in an economy driven largely by a single rule: Go for what brings highest return to existing wealth. (There is no such "single rule." And, there is no such thing as "brutal capitalism." Capitalism is nothing more than the voluntary association of people, exchanging things of value as they connect and relate to each other. Capitalism is natural, healthy, and uncoerced. It's human behavior.)

In such a deliberately fostered economy, especially since the 1970s, human agency in shaping the rules to protect basic fairness, healthy communities and our commons — whether oceans, soil or air — is perceived as interference in a magical marketplace (so named by former President Ronald Reagan). (The authors make it seem so innocuous, this human agency. If that was all it was about, we would have little objection. But in fact, the government bludgeon is wielded without restraint, oblivious to the private interest of its citizens. It is a myriad collection rules, laws, restrictions, bureaucracies and requirements that no one can discern, let alone explain. And apparently the authors are not satisfied, they want even more.)

A magical market works on its own without us. It succeeds, we’re made to believe, by reducing everything possible to dollar exchange among consumers.

The “magical market” therefore magnifies whatever sells (An unsupported assertion.)

— and sex and violence sell. (Waaait. Who is it that rails against those who want to have standards of morality? And who is it that gets shouted down every time they object to the egregious coarsening of society? And who gets derided and impugned whenever they suggest that these things are bad for society? It's conservatives.

And who celebrates those who are on the cutting edge of this trend? Who lionizes pornography as free expression, celebrates profanity as free speech, and insists that Christianity is hateful? The Left. So it rings hollow that the authors have suddenly discovered that these influences are less than desirable.)

So it follows that entertainment, advertising, fashion and even newscasts become increasingly violent, shallow and sexualized. (You have yourselves to thank for this...)

Note that in an earlier era, for example, Barbara Walters was forced to don a Playboy bunny outfit (Forced? Who forced her?)

for an investigation she did on NBC News, but she did not have to double as a sex symbol as many contemporary female news anchors do today. (Unsupported assertion.)

Increasingly, the degrading message — one the president-elect made explicit during his campaign — is that a woman is only as worthy as her body is sexy. (Documentation, please. When did this happen? And is Trump's supposed "degrading message" a first example? Or have the authors forgotten about Bill Clinton or JFK, who actually debased the office of the presidency with their sordid affairs?)

Underneath it all is this dangerous logic: In an economy valuing highest rate of return above all, (Undocumented assertion.)

wealth accrues relentlessly to wealth. (A tautology. It seems obvious that people who are good at making money have money.)

Thus, in an extreme expression of this logic, the United States has easily become the most economically unequal nation in the “advanced” world. (Note: Economic inequality correlates (Correlation is not causation.)

with numerous negative social outcomes, ranging from infant mortality to homicide rates, according to social epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett). Such concentrated wealth — with 20 Americans now controlling as much as half of all of us together — translates into political power. (Another outcome of leftist practices for the last 80 years. This bloated, unaccountable government, with its tentacles insinuated into every crevice of society, controls so much money that it is a natual outcome that special interests want some sort of influence on where that money goes. However, a government confined to its constitutional boundaries doesn't have that power.)

Thus, a telling study of policy outcomes during the ‘80s and ‘90s found virtually no correlation between the views of average Americans about what ought to be done and what law- and policymakers actually did. (And the 2000s. Another outcome of unaccountable government. We again lay this squarely at the feet of the Left.)

In a system that’s drowning in campaign contributions by people who can write six- and seven-figure checks, outcomes not surprisingly mirror the views of the elite class. (Again, thanks go to the big government believers.)

Transforming brutal capitalism, (The authors started with brutal capitalism as their identified problem, swerved off into another topic, and now return to it without having discussed it.)

with its multiple assaults on human dignity (Undocumented assertion.)

that contributed to Trump’s election, (Undocumented assertion.)

requires democracy to be accountable not to monopolistic corporations (This is not a description of capitalism.)

but to us, the citizens. Such a democracy could open the door to an economy based on three values around which most Americans could rally: fairness, the protection of the nature of democracy, and the dignity of all. (Again, this sounds so innocuous. It's is a standard technique of the Left, to wrap their extreme agenda in fine sounding words, so as to defuse objections and camouflage their real objectives. Using 1984-esque language, the Left wants the heavy hand of government to tell you what to think, how to act, and what you can and cannot do. The Left are control-freaks with a socialistic agenda disguised as reasonable objectives.)

A truly living democracy — benefiting and accountable to citizens — could, for example, maintain a minimum wage that is a livable wage, (That is, it is fair to take money from someone with "too much" and give it to someone else who "needs" it more, regardless of the merit or productivity of the receiver.)

encourage unions and worker cooperatives giving everyone in a business a real voice, (That is, taking down the bourgeois and giving the proletariat his due.)

and spread corporate “profit-sharing” with workers. (Notice how facile the authors are? Ordinarily, a corporation [a proxy term for private businesses of all sizes, by the way] chooses for itself what it will do with its own money. So these socialist authors want the government to have the power to "spread" the business's money according to its own objectives, rather than according to the objectives of the rightful owner of the money.

And notice the phrase "profit sharing" is in scare quotes. This is because the authors reject the idea that corporations should profit at all. According to marxist theory, a corporation profits by stealing the the results of the productivity of its workers. So that money rightfully belongs to the worker and needs to be restored to him.)

Few Americans know this is precisely the official platform of the Democracy Party, which notes that such change “is linked to higher pay and productivity.” (If a corporation has its profits distributed to the workers, how long will it continue to operate? If you answered "not long," go to the head of the class.

And by the way, what difference would it make if the worker is more productive if that productivity [corporation profit] is simply "spread around" back to the worker?)

Who knows? A real American democracy might even create a US version of Germany’s century-old, successful Works Councils, giving workers a say in their firm’s decisions.

2. Revaluing the role of government and reinstating government service as an honorable calling
A strong democracy requires reversing Republicans’ long and fierce anti-democracy movement — (As if the Republicans have held sway. Our government is dominated by leftists who concieved, implemented, and perpetuate the current system. There is no evidence anywhere in government that it has ever been restrained, scaled back, defunded, or curtailed. No, this government is a leftist offspring.)

highly coordinated since the infamous 1971 Lewis Powell memo, a detailed playbook for delegitimizing government and elevating corporate power. Powell, who later served as a Supreme Court Justice, no doubt helped to inspire Reagan’s swipe at government in his first inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (Reagan has been proved right again and again.)

Beginning in the 1990s, Republican leaders including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas fostered a take-no-prisoners approach to politics, (Appropriating leftist techniques for themselves...)

captured in 1999 by David Horowitz’s The Art of Political War. In it, compromise is treason and obstructionism is virtue. Most recently, Republicans have filibustered in an unprecedented fashion to bring Congress to a halt, pushing its approval rating to historical lows. (That is, adhering to one's principles and attempting to further one's agenda is unacceptable when that agenda contravenes leftist objectives.)

All the while, Democrats failed to stand for a convincing alternative. (Whaaa? We already have the Democrats' alternative. It is in place and operational. If that is unconvincing, it is only because it is a failure. Naturally the voters rejected the leftist status quo we live under and selected someone who will take us out of this quagmire. Whether or not Trump will be successful remains to be seen, but clearly what we are doing now, at the behest of the Left, has failed. 

The Democrats haven't stood for a convincing alternative because there isn't one. They are simply left to defend the indefensible.)

And it’s all worked like a charm: Republican success in debasing Congress and hamstringing President Barack Obama (That is, pursuing ones' own agenda is unacceptable.)

then became the perfect setup for a bombastic self-promoter who claimed the mantle of outsider to a dysfunctional and rigged system.

3. Reclaiming citizens’ power and pride
Too many — and we’re guilty, too — have failed to grasp the strength of this anti-democracy movement (Unsupported assertion.)

and to fight its assault vigorously enough; for example, the war on voting rights (Unsupported assertion.)

that continued insidiously after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Then in 2013 the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder actually gutted the law, making it possible for 14 states to implement voter-ID laws in time for the 2016 election — including in swing states like Wisconsin and Ohio. (This is not a war on voting rights. According to the Constitution, only citizens may vote. Therefore, it must be documented as to who is a citizen. Voter-ID laws are perfectly proper.)

Too few of us appreciated this danger. Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot, acknowledges that “[w]e’ll never know how many people were kept from the polls by these restrictions.” (Ironic. "We'll never know" who didn't vote, but with voter ID laws we'll know if those who voted are constitutionally eligible.)

But, he notes, we do know that in Wisconsin Donald Trump’s margin of victory was 27,000 votes, while 300,000 registered voters could not cast a ballot because they lacked required IDs, according to a federal court. (Hooray, the law worked. No ID, no vote.)

Turnout in the state hit a 20-year low, falling by 52,000 in Milwaukee, “where 70 percent of the state’s African-American population lives.” (Voter turnout in 2016 is estimated at 59.5%. Previous Presidential elections are as follows: 

You will note that election turnout in 2016 was the highest it's been in 40 years. One might justifiably wonder where the voter suppression is.)

Berman adds that on Election Day, “there were 868 fewer polling places in states with a long history of voting discrimination, like Arizona, Texas and North Carolina.” (Hmmm. With fewer polling places we still had higher turnout?)

On average, blacks in 2012 waited twice as long as whites to vote. (Sounds like a government problem.)

And, of course, the lower one’s income, the greater the time-cost impediment to voting.

And voter suppression is but one example. According to political scientist Michael McDonald, voter turnout plummeted from 62 percent in 2008, (Um. 57.1%.)

the year Obama was first elected, to 42 percent in the following midterm elections. (Off-year elections average 40%.)

The result? Not enough citizens stayed engaged to build pressure for democratic reforms, (Unjustified assumption. The authors assume that every Obama voter was in agreement with the leftist agenda. However, 20% of his voters were conservative.)

and a solidly Republican Congress able to block the president at every turn. (Which is what the opposition party is supposed to do. But in fact the Republicans rolled over far too often, so the authors aren't telling the truth in any case.)

In allowing special interests to block reforms Obama demanded, (Undocumented assertion.)

we failed to protect the very people who later voted for Trump.

So we citizens must hold ourselves accountable, too. We helped to set the stage. (True, but the authors have failed to discern the actual reasons. And this is why they will fail to provide the appropriate remedies.)

But today it’s a different world. Unprecedented shock and horror at steps Trump is now taking can motivate unprecedented action. As never before, the rise of a diverse, rewarding Democracy Movement is not only possible but essential. Whatever our specific issue-passion, it is urgent that we take to heart the essential lessons of the 2016 election and unite under the banner of democracy itself. Let’s dare to act — together. Check out our Field Guide and join the noble — and, yes, exhilarating struggle to save our country.