Politics should not be a career.
Our jobs contribute to our livelihood, our identity, and our sense of self-worth. If we like our careers, we work to keep them. And when elected office is a career, politicians work hard to keep those jobs too.
Sounds fine so far, right? We are the voters, after all. If our politicians are sweating their job security, they will do everything they can to make us happy.
But what if the politicians don't depend on us for their careers? Because today, they don't.
Here's who decides elections today: political bosses and the wealthiest Americans. The bosses gerrymander the districts and decide who their political party will throw their weight behind. The wealthy finance the campaigns.
Congressional campaigns are decided before Election Day, thanks to gerrymandering by party bosses.
Dollars spent on campaigns come from just 300 of the richest Americans.
So, now what happens when someone's livelihood and ego depends on holding elected office? Who do they serve?
The incentives of a political career tilt toward serving the wealthy and powerful.
A career politician will always prioritize keeping the job over doing the job. And until we have actually reformed our election and campaign finance laws — not just talked about it — a career politician will always put their donors and bosses above everyone else.
We can see this dynamic everywhere we look. Consider the following:
A dollar earned on a paycheck is taxed twice as much as a dollar made in the stock market.
No meaningful regulation of Silicon Valley companies has been passed in 25 years.
Political parties instruct their members of Congress to spend at least four hours per day making fundraising calls.
You receive texts from politicians you have never heard of, because a politician you trusted sold your phone number.
Hardly any housing gets built in wealthy neighborhoods, and most new housing gets built on busy, unsafe streets.
The cost of everything — from ending homelessness to building trains — is higher here than anywhere else.
Political parties and politicians have stopped serving everyday voters.
If you wanted to design a political system meant to serve elites and ignore the challenges of people who live in the real world, you would be hard pressed to do better than the system we have today.
- Politicians depend on wealthy patrons and political bosses for their jobs.
- Candidates start running in their 20s or 30s, often before gaining any significant experience outside of politics.
- Once elected, they spend their lives hopping from office to office, accumulating status and benefits that inoculate them from having to live in the real world.
- In an increasing number of cases, they maintain this privilege until death.
The result is a political class that is increasingly divorced from the challenges of people who live in the real world.
On top of that, the parties have not evolved in generations.
- Party rules and decisions are made by opaque committees, where membership is limited to insiders and financial supporters.
- Party gatherings happen in VIP-only conventions, fundraisers, and other exclusive events.
- Everyday voters are never asked to weigh in on matters of substance, even though the parties clearly have our phone numbers.
- Politicians and parties are largely absent from our communities until the next election rolls around, at which time they spam us shamelessly.
This system is never going to reform itself. Everyone who could change it — the politicians, the bosses, the billionaires — is getting too much in return. And nearly every fresh face who arrives promising reform either gets co-opted (because they want a career too) or chewed up (because they are vastly outnumbered by the first group).
There's only one way out: Us.
Three lines. Signed in advance. Every candidate Us supports has signed it.
I will not run for re-election.
I will not run for any other office while serving.
I will never run again after 10 years total in elected office.
We have to remake public service, away from careerism and towards duty.
Us is on a mission to change politics. This is how we're going to do it.
With the right incentives:
Us is built to support aspiring public servants who will take The Pledge: no re-election; no seeking another office while serving; no more elections after a lifetime total of 10 years in public office. These aspiring public servants have not spent their lives preparing their campaigns. They have been starting families, working real jobs, and paying bills. They are exactly the people we want representing us. We help them win, get things done, and pass the torch.
With respect for you:
Us is a political organization based on paid subscriptions. You are the customer, not the product. We will never sell your data, and you will not receive a single spam call, text, or email from us. More than that, our members are actively involved in everything Us does: selecting candidates to endorse, shaping policy priorities, and organizing neighborhoods.
With service guiding everything we do:
Political bosses and wealthy donors will always command more money than we do, but we will win because we have two things they do not: First, we understand that the best candidates are those who put voters first. Second, we will be present in our neighborhoods year-round. We'll prove that we're different, not just talk about it. Come election day, voters will already know who is on their side.