American People Not Ready to Seize Power

The American people do have the power to change the political process and affect real change. Yet, it seems they are not quite ready to seize that power. For the past four years, I have been helping to form America's Third Party. We have been using social media to spread our message. Every week night, we host a video chat show at blogtv.

Recently, I volunteered for Americans Elect, an organization that wanted to move beyond the two party system and put America's choice for President on the ballot. People had the opportunity to draft anyone they wanted, including the current President and people running under the Republican party. The only caveat was that the person must choose a VP that was different than themselves ideologically in order to "balance the ticket."

Unfortunately, people did not show enough interest in Americans Elect for any candidate to advance into the primary round. Perhaps, the American people just aren't ready for this kind of power.

The American people are content commenting on social media sites, REACTING to what is in the news, but they are not comfortable actually steering and guiding the conversation. Plus, a key factor is their desire to stay anonymous on the internet. Americans Elect asked people to verify their real identities and they were registered voters before they could support candidates on the site. This is primarily where efforts broke down. People prefer to remain anonymous as much as possible in this digital age, including many of the donors to Americans Elect.