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The Need for Teacher Leaders [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-16
Biden has been receiving some post-election reanalysis in various forums, with many blaming his lack of communication and cloistered presidency. However, even so-called "good" communicators and "constitutional scholars" like Obama failed to educate us on why the U.S. is in mortal danger and to prepare us. In fact, his parting words in office were naive to the nth degree — assuring us that "we’ll be fine" regarding democracy.
Bernie Sanders, despite identifying derivative injustices like income disparity, doesn’t hammer home what makes the system itself so dysfunctional. Most of our representatives are merely reactive to a broken system of checks and balances — and so are most of us — operating under the assumption that our institutions will somehow save us. Clinging to the status quo with a temporary Democratic win only prolongs the misery, as it fails to address the deeper structural flaws undermining our democracy.
Here lies the heart of our problem: we have allowed constitutionally unaccountable powers — Party and Corporation — to usurp the traditional checks and balances between the Branches, Religion, the Electorate, and the States. Moreover, we’ve allowed the right wing to exploit the “states’ rights” argument to advance their undemocratic agenda while failing to challenge the unchecked power of parties at the state level. We lack a leader who drives these points home, and we refuse to confront the urgent need to specify the principles that bind us — what exactly we stand for and why. Not in vague platitudes that serve no one, but through actionable statements leading to concrete political goals that push us toward a broader definition of checks and balances, one that includes Party and Corporation.
Party agents should not control the mechanisms of elections or judicial nominations. Corporations and their agents should not be able to finance elections, appoint regulators, or dismantle regulatory agencies altogether.
Compounding these issues is our inability to confront a fundamental flaw in the First Amendment and the rules of participation in politics: they permit the rise of movements aimed at dismantling democratic-republicanism and tolerate undemocratic parties. We act as though we’ve reached the pinnacle of democratic-republican political theory, but we haven’t. Across the globe, societies face the same problem — tolerating intolerance.
Yet, truth can be measured. It is evidence-based, expresses uncertainty, and self-corrects. Bias can also be measured. It provokes strong emotions, triggers tribal instincts, and seeks to blame and punish. These dynamics can be encouraged or discouraged through legislation and constitutional amendment.
How do we know when we’ve gotten checks and balances right? The derivative justice of a balanced system is a growing middle class. That’s it. Simple, huh?
But first, we need genuine leaders who understand how to communicate these ideas and build the broader consensus necessary for change. Without such teacher-leaders, we’re headed toward techno-feudalism, where national borders cease to represent political culture and international corporations — loyal only to their profits — make decisions that affect us all.
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