Peaceful Political Revolution in America
"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government."
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, James Wilson, Thomas Paine, and many other American patriots and revolutionaries completely agreed with this simple but compelling statement made by President Washington. Yet today, very few Americans know what the basis of our form of government is, let alone understand what it means.
This Podcast will dive into the most important and most censored story in America. We will uncover the myths behind our constitutional history and reveal some of the startling facts about our founding as a nation. Hang on tight! If you haven't honed up on your American history, if you think you understand our American political system, you may be in for a shock.
Peaceful political revolution is your unique American heritage. It is what makes our democracy so special and what makes your role in American politics so important. Are you ready for a peaceful political revolution? Where does it come from? How does it happen? What can you do to change our political system for the better?
We will address these questions and many more in the upcoming Podcasts, so hang on. If you think our politics are bad and only getting worse, you may find that a peaceful political revolution is the antidote.
Peaceful Political Revolution in America
S3 E7 SYSTEM CORRUPTION with Camila Vergara_Part 2
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Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast.
Today I will share part two of my conversation with Camila Vergara, political theorist and author of Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic. Camila is one of the leading theorists working today on what real, structural democratic renewal actually looks like.
In part one, we explored the theoretical backdrop, what she means when she says our democracies aren't merely corrupted by bad actors, but by genuine systemic corruption. In her view, most liberal democracies are built, structurally designed to protect the elites and a spreading international oligarchy. In this half, we get into the details of what real democratic resistance looks like and how Chileans took up the cause for democratic renewal.
Camila walks us through the ground-level story of Chile's 2019 uprising — how a few cents added to a subway fare and one tone-deaf comment from a government minister advising the people to just, "wake up an hour earlier to save money" lit a fuse that had been smoldering for decades. She describes the students jumping turnstiles in solidarity with their parents, transit stations burning under circumstances that were never fully investigated, curfews meant to prevent dissent, and the first government troops in the streets since Pinochet. If that sounds all too familiar, keep listening. She explains how out of that chaos came something genuinely rare: a network of citizen assemblies sharing one goal, to write the world's most progressive constitution. This movement came from the ground up, and in her view, even though it was ultimately defeated by a structural push that undermined the popular will of the people, the example set by the Chilean people remains a hugely significant one, one for all nations suffering from a decline in democratic norms and system corruption.
From there we go further back, to the Marquis de Condorcet's 1793 constitution for revolutionary France, and his model of interlinked primary assemblies — a vision of direct democracy that never made it into what we now think of as the liberal democratic tradition. We'll discuss why the framers' fear of the "tyranny of the majority" doesn't actually hold up historically, and why energy cooperatives and neighborhood assemblies might matter more right now than at any other time in our history as a nation. That question, how close we are to a tipping point from oligarchy into outright tyranny, and what it would take to organize our way back out, is where Camila believes the United States stands today, and it should interest every American concerned about our future as a democracy.
It's a wide-ranging, sometimes sobering, but ultimately hopeful conversation about power — who holds it, and how ordinary people can actually take it back. Here's part two of my conversation with Camila Vergara. I begin by asking her how this movement began.