It would be easy to quit. It’s tempting to turn off the news, stop listening to toxic taunts from the high pulpits of politics, stop voting in a political system hijacked by extremists, stop trusting politicians in both parties who refuse to address existential threats such as climate change and unaffordable health care.
California is burning. Tensions with Iran are smoldering. Kids are being slaughtered in schools. Life in America is hard and getting harder for working-class people, many of whom are forced to choose every month between paying rent or buying prescription drugs. It would be so easy to quit.
Please don’t. Our broken politics can be fixed, and there are signs it’s already happening.
As former members of Congress who found a way to work across the aisle, we are encouraged to see growing momentum across the country for political reforms that put voters first.
From Alaska to New York, citizen-led initiatives are underway or have passed that will critically change the landscape of electoral politics. In Virginia, the new bipartisan Commonwealth Caucus recently launched to find common ground and advance electoral reforms. Most exciting, we have seen up close what polls have shown — that a majority of Americans want a functioning government and elected leaders who put “We, The People” over special interests and their own political parties.