The structure and dynamics of returning to Democracy
Antidote model picture
The current U.S. President, Donald Trump, has turned our 250-year old representative democracy upside down. We are now ruled by executive actions invented by Trump and his believers, rather than by legislation enacted by Congress, as our Constitution dictates in its first Article. Many of us are thinking about how to turn us back to a well-structured government with legislative, executive, and judicial branches balanced by a wise system of checks and balances.
The structure sketched in the paper on this website, titled ‘Can Systems Thinking be an Antidote to Extensive Evil?’,may be a good starting place. There is the question of whether Trump and his followers are, or will become, an “extensive evil” — we are a divided nation on that question. To avoid getting sidetracked into what’s evil and what’s not, let’s refer to that paper as ‘Antidote’, and note that the structure it develops and the early stages it traces (e.g., up to Figure 3 or 4) are much like our current U.S. dynamic situation.
‘Antidote’ has a section on counter-revolutionary structure and behavior. Could we use the ‘Antidote’ structure and these potential leverage points to study how the U.S. could return to Democracy?
Refusal to be open to the rhetoric of the new order
Refusal to accept the goals and traditions of the new order
Refusal to accept the new goals, customs, and habits of speech
Refusal to accept the new regulations, manners, and mores
Refusal to accept the belief that the new order is inevitable
Willingness, even headstrong choice, to be left behind
Unwillingness to downplay or ignore signs of danger
Refusal to succumb to coercion
Note that ‘Antidote’ has not been quantified — it’s a map, not a model. That would be our first step, and we could turn the map into a model using quantities that make sense in the current U.S. situation. Or better: we could follow Forrester’s wise choice in Urban Dynamics and set it to start before Trump’s first term, e.g., 1980, the election of Ronald Reagan. That’s where a variety of trends and forces began to move in the Trump direction. We could watch it transition into the Trump era, as Forrester watched his city grow, stagnate and decline. And then we could explore how to turn us back into a Democracy.
It’s a good thing to think about.