Political Objectives of the Midwest Populist Party and the Populist Party of America

The Midwest Populist Party works with the Populist Party of America – as a regional affiliation – to institute democratic reforms to the American political structure. We advocate a direct democracy, where the final decisions pertaining to public policy are in the hands of the populace. By this, what is meant, essentially, is the current representational forms of polity must be supplemented in order to provide citizens with the ability to affect their polity through direct means not beholden to the representatives themselves. The party structures along with the various corporate entities can influence the formation and adoption of public policy through means that are extra-democratic. In other words, through mechanisms, such as campaign donations as well as the coercive impact that party-line voting can have upon representatives in government, the officials we elect to polity – in the current state of affairs – have their capacities to represent their constituents adversely affected by these extra-democratic dynamics.

We want to reign in the government. Such a task will involve transforming government so it is serviceable to the interests of the people. We believe that the government must be extricated from the current socio-political dialogical condition: a state of politics that consists of public pronouncements by politicos, whose expressions appear to be felicitous declarations of intent; only to have the projects promised by the politicians circumvented by elitist interests, who disproportionately impact polity through their resources and quid pro quo cronyism.

We, the Populist Party of America, propose provisioning democratic reforms by creating institutions in government that allow citizens to directly affect their political establishments through the devices: initiative, referendum, and recall, which will be provisioned at all levels of our federated system of government. It is our position that such direct democratic institutions will make government accountable to the people by placing the ultimate source of power in the hands of the people without subjecting the will of the people to any contravening forces – such as party-line voting and special interests.

We also realize that the shear size of America, along with its vast population, creates a condition, where – even if the direct democratic reforms were to be implemented – the influence of the individual and his or her ability to impact government is so greatly diluted that a single individual’s political will only has an infinitesimal influence upon the formation of public policy. Therefore, we further propose restructuring the distribution of power throughout our federated system of polity, entrusting larger shares of the decision-making power to local communities. This refitting of our federated system of government will amplify the abilities of individuals to affect the conditions in which they live through participation in local political structures.

This position of ours - localized democracy - is not radically new by any means. In fact, the reforms we advocate bare resemblance to the republicanism articulated by James Madison, who realized that the only protections against hegemonic control of government by any single faction in a republican form of polity involved the dispersement of power across diverse regions and populations; thus, no single interest or social identity could come to monopolize political power.

Although we call for the decentralization of political powers, we continue to believe that some juridical-politico institutions that exist within the federal tier of American political structures need to persist. Most significantly, we believe that the Bill of Rights must act as a foundation from which individual rights will be preserved and protected from abuse no matter where such infringements upon liberties take place within a system of federated government.

For more readings on the Populist Party of America’s platform, please visit the following link:

http://www.populistamerica.com/the_populist_papers

R Cole

June 2007

russellcole@populistamerica.com