Fred-Rick:

Thanks so much for your well-informed response.

I’m not sure about proportional voting. It might be a good idea, but I wait until I see a little more debate about it. You might be interested in listening to the C-SPAN interview with Lee Drutman. He’s written a book, Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop, about electoral reform and spoke about proportional voting in the interview. He mentions a couple of places in which local elections are proportional. I haven’t read the book, but it’s on my wish list.

I think you are right about the importance of local political action. Thomas Jefferson said something about the politics of the nation beginning at the ward level, and that’s the way it ought to be. Presidential elections are billion-dollar marketing campaigns that cast the president as the National Daddy. All that media attention overshadows local politics, and that’s a shame. I’m not sure how to re-energize local politics, but the governors now pushing back against Trump is a good start.

It seems like every president gets frustrated with his lack of power sooner or later. Notice that Trump was put in his place recently following his statement about being the supreme ruler and demanding loyalty from governors.

Although you didn’t bring it up directly, the constant tension over sovereignty between state and federal governments was created intentionally by the Founders. They wanted to make sure the Executive never gained too much power — it is too far removed from the People, and states expressed the power of the people more accurately. I just re-read American Creation by Joe Ellis, and he goes into some detail about it. It’s a great book, by the way, and I think you would probably enjoy it.

You’ve got some good ideas that need to see the light of day. I hope you are active in your own local politics. Your response to my article might be a good submission to your local news outlet.

Thanks again for sharing your ideas.