Rebuilding Democracy: Kick-Starting the Pubic Powers and Power-Leverage of Popular Assemblies

The perennially unpopular call to rebuild the structure of American democracy from the bottom up has persisted for decades,1 but it's usually rejected out of hand as a pipe dream. Yet, perhaps now, there is a glimmer of interest in this visionary strategy to empower the grassroots citizenry in response to the deadly threat arrayed against our representative democracy. Previously unimagined horrors of rising authoritarian-ism have begun to be revealed unmistakably in our political culture and institutions. The menace no longer remains theoretical, since its step-by-step implementation has become the legislative and administrative mission of Republican-ruled state legislatures and executives, a sizable caucus of Republican members of Congress, and the politicized agenda of the SCOTUS.