Newsletter - April 2025

On social media, at town halls, and in day-to-day discourse, the focus seems to be the same: articulating the problems our country faces. But what about solutions to those problems?

In theory, our political leaders are elected to help us with this. (It's one of my principles of good government.) But there remains broad dissatisfaction among constituents in both our elected leaders' ability and commitment to solving problems. So, what can we do as voters if our congresspeople can't do the job?

Participatory democracy can help "fill the gap" of inaction by our representatives, and it can help counter action taken by our representatives that we do not feel is in our best interests. Civil discourse, as promoted and modeled by Braver Angels and a number of other groups, helps generate constructive engagement. But in order to translate that engagement into constructive solutions, we need to go beyond talking about problems to generating solutions.

The local pilot with Braver Angels and Voice of the People that I spoke about in last month's newsletter provides one potential approach towards elevating civil discourse from talking about problems to generating solutions. Another example of work being done to empower communities to solve problems are the Citizens' Assemblies being organized by Unify America.

I encourage everyone to elevate their actions from complaining about government and the problems around us to engaging in constructive dialog to help drive solutions to problems.

This month's social media posts:

• AllSides Media bias chart

• Maryland Matters article on local solutions to childcare

• Go Vocal article on Participatory Democracy

• Town Hall meetings 101 from goodparty.org

Follow Speak Up for Good Government on Facebook and follow me on LinkedIn and X.

Have a great month!