talk frequently over the years with Doug
Ross about education on this program but
a different topic with him this morning
Tip O'Neill famously said that all
politics is local and yet we seem to
forget that all the time well Doug Ross
is among three men who've written a new
book called healing democracy and they
believe the prescription is going local
my recent conversation with Doug is he
and I sat down at this table Doug good
to have you back on this really
fascinating an important topic before we
get into the book and and what you're
prescribing though why'd you do it white
woods why'd you want to write it well
more and more polling showing that over
the last 20 years almost a third of
Americans say they would prefer either a
strong leader who doesn't have to deal
with Congress or elections or army rule
to our Constitution democracy well
that's a lot of folks so for those of us
who make the freedom to live the way we
want and to be free of government that
can be too intrusive we ought to listen
to what's going on here and figure out
how to respond so we thought we needed
to revisit this because when I look at
what we want to pass on to our kids our
grandkids it's a healthy democracy and
right now it's under some strain it's
under an awful lot of strain in fact the
the healing part of it is because we we
appear wounded in so many different ways
and I have wondered how we get past
these this very bitter divide that we
have the idea behind this though is that
we need to get back to a local feeling
like things are more under our control a
local approach explain why that's the
prescription you know people have looked
at Washington obviously as representing
democratic government and for 20 years
we can't do anything on a bipartisan
basis yeah and we think the reason is
not because you know Congress people are
less able than they were 30 years ago
it's because we've become such a diverse
group of people I mean in terms of where
we want to live and how we want to raise
our kids and what we watch on TV and
even what we like to eat so putting
together majorities in Washington around
anything has become almost impossible
and in a way it's the result of
something good all this choice we have
all the freedom we have we want to live
in a lot of different ways so we think
now after years because of a depression
in World War two and the Cold War made
sense to move power to the to Washington
to centralize yeah we think now it's
time to move it back to the local level
it's been though my experience of
covering governments and politics for
over 30 years that power is relinquished
very very rarely it's real once it's in
place it's really difficult to get it
back and what you're talking about is
really a shift of power how do you make
that happen given the laws of political
power well I think you know the mayors
are going to have to take the lead and I
think voters are gonna have to say look
you're not dealing with healthcare
you're not dealing with immigration
you're not dealing with stagnant wages
give us a more direct shot at it it's
gonna have to be a fight yeah but I
think that I think it's winnable I mean
you look at Detroit you know when Mayor
Duggan who's a Democrat is trying to
work with Dan Gilbert who's a Republican
to do something about downtown Detroit
you don't hear anything partisan either
them saying I can't really work with
those other guys from a different part
because the thing on an acutely local
issue right they're both they're both
participating to solve a problem
interesting you also have a lot of
interesting things say about social
media and the internet which has of
course helped to drive this enormous
wedge but you also believe that it can
be part of the answer it's I mean the
difference is we were such a homogenous
nation before you know when the New Deal
came into being we were 90 percent white
Christian nation we had the same
percentage of immigrants but 90% of them
were European descent now about 10
percent are European descent and you had
three networks that had to kind of deal
with everybody yeah now you get all of
this and there's no one sort of in
between us and other people
the problem with of course is you get so
much disinformation yet
and it gets so heated and crazy the good
news is though as you if you look at
movements to get things done often
locally it's a great way to organize
people
a great way to pull people together
without government in many cases look at
the way that things like GoFundMe
projects or exactly you know raising
what was the what was the whole campaign
around raising money for Alzheimer's
were you sort of dumped cold water on
you all right right right well I mean we
can do that for political things too we
can do that around school we need an ice
bucket challenge' fixing fixing whatever
so it gives us power and so I think now
the idea is it's time to go bottom up
rather than top-down and that means
people have to step up I mean you know
democracy is a yeah it's a participatory
sport so how do you start I think you
start by taking some issues for example
right now Congress is talking about
shifting control over Career and
Technical Education from the federal
government to the states I think now we
have to step in and say stop it states
have a lot of the same problems that
Washington does get it down here Detroit
knows what it would do with that it
knows what kinds of skill needs in half
there again though we're asking
I guess federal politically elected
representatives to concede some power
yeah which is as I said I really tall
asked if some reason right it's it
requires politics it's getting into the
arena and fighting to make the change
but if people I'll give you a quick
example take immigration which get
nowhere yeah yeah we think it would be
feasible to say alright federal
government still decides you know the
criteria for getting in and numbers but
then require everybody in the immigrant
pool to have a community sponsor well
Detroit would say don't go and say we
want immigrants we want that energy we
need people some part of rural Alabama
may say for cultural reasons or we don't
have enough jobs we don't let us decide
that way we have some control over
whether we want more people coming in or
we don't there is no one-size-fits-all
answer that's why we don't get anywhere
is the danger though then that we become
to localized and we don't really
understand each other we're not
connected as much anymore
we there's the concern that we be tribal
eyes that we exacerbate it well I think
two things one what we propose is called
constitutional localism it has to be
within this hobby within the law right
and you can't say gee we don't like gay
marriage here we're not going to do it
sorry that yeah yes that's the
constitutional law the other is we still
have to go back to the only thing that
can really bring us together as one
nation and that is commitment to the
rules of the game and the rules are
again and the beliefs are we're all
created equal
have right you can't take away from us
we want democracy we want a voice and
what happens to us and what the
government can do and can't do we need
to buy into tolerance because we're a
place with lots of difference and that
we think once people get a little more
confidence again that democracy can work
will buy back into that yeah again the
title of the book is healing American
democracy going local it is available at
Amazon and all of the usual suspects in
fact we'll put a link to it on the
flashpoint page and on our Facebook page
as well