What makes America so special? And how has it become the oldest democracy in history? Seen from beyond its border, it is readily identifiable as a country of great diversity. Its heritage may be born of Europeans fleeing less inviting circumstances, but its population and culture have evolved with the influx of immigrants from every corner of the globe. In addition, the combination of our public school system, diverse employment opportunities, interstate mobility, and advanced education institutions has made for a robust economy that breeds productivity gains even during blips in our GDP. For many around the world, America is still seen as both a melting pot and the “land of opportunity.” But for those who chose not to live here and see America from afar, we also appear to be a land of great chaos: we are armed to the teeth and kill each other at alarming rates for a developed country; our politics swing wildly between extremes of the left and right over issues like civil rights, gun control, or abortion; and we tend to conduct foreign policy like evangelists converting the world to our principles of free enterprise and democracy without regard for other cultures or history. We may indeed be a melting pot. But, if so, we are constantly brewing, bubbling, and even boiling over. The rest of the world both admires our ingenuity and enthusiasm and is wary of our ambition and excesses.

Seen from within its borders, our apparent chaos is just the working out of our nation’s founding principles. One of the wonders of America, besides the goals expressed in our Constitution, is the system of government founded on that text. The checks and balances prescribed therein give voice to every segment of the population—from congressional districts and states of all sizes to the general populace vote for the presidency as represented in the Electoral College. And that founding document has also given us an independent judiciary to settle our disputes, interpret the application of law, and arbitrate justice for all. However wonderful this system of government may be—Churchill seemed to think it was the best amongst the dregs of human history—it appears to rest upon a few assumptions about human nature. Two of those assumptions are my subject matter today. First, as John Adams so clearly identified, our system of government depends upon an informed electorate. Second, although it is designed to give voice to minorities, it presumes that the majority’s decisions will rule. In other words, if we self-govern the way our founding fathers intended, we would be constantly engaged in informed debate where all affected parties are heard and where resolution of the debate is decided by a majority vote. The pot may be brewing, but it needs to be deliberately stirred into a peaceful mixture, where the hard lumps are melted down into a balanced suspension. Our history has witnessed various minorities—ethnic, racial, LGBT, and women’s groups—who have helped to stir the pot and have demanded change that the majority deliberated and eventually voted into law.

The problem we are currently facing is a contemporary anomaly: there is no informed majority participating in the decision making process of our democracy. Whether through apathy or ignorance, the majority seems to have left the public forum to the special interests and issue driven concerns of minorities. Lobbyists of different special interests fight for their respective minorities’ causes or positions. Far right or far left minority groups petition and win not only the legislature’s agenda, but its concurrence on issues the majority would never support. Do the majority of Americans really support the closing of clinics dedicated to women’s health, the lack of universal background checks for the purchase of firearms, the manipulation of voting districts so that a national party can control the legislature without winning a majority of the votes (referring to the Republicans now, but equally to the Democrats previously), the evolution of a tax structure that favors the wealth accumulation of a minority over the wage earning majority, the imposition by a specific minority of religious rights over civil rights where both religious and civil freedoms of the majority may be violated, and the fire-breathing, outspoken minority who consistently preach a foreign policy governed by military options rather than diplomatic engagement? The question I am posing is not whether you agree or disagree with the various positions I just enumerated. I am highlighting the fact that there appears to be a majority of opinion on all of these issues that seems unaccounted in the decision making process. Most of us would like to see our roads and bridges repaired where needed, our future social security funds protected, a fairer tax system, affordable higher education for our children, an electoral system more dependent on our vote than the amount of campaign money raised, and (yes) affordable AND effective healthcare for our families. Even when these universally popular concepts are voiced by our politicians, they are immediately overwhelmed by the issues of well-organized minorities. Our governance is no longer in our hands, even though we are the majority. And yet our Constitution clearly gives us the power to govern ourselves. All we need to do is be informed and vote. So who do we blame for the apparent dysfunction in Washington?

At both the State and Federal level, too much legislative priority is given to minority issues—most often well-funded special interests—at the expense of the general welfare. How does a florist issue with servicing a gay wedding or a single woman’s decision to seek an abortion or the political statement of a faux “repeal” vote of established law deserve more priority than the high cost of college education, the growing student debt crisis, a decaying infrastructure, tax law inequities that both negate fair business competition and middle class wealth creation, the excesses of campaign fund raising, and so many other concerns that affect the majority of American families. If we want our vote to count more than the almighty dollar, then we have to wield the power we already have. Otherwise, the serious issues of our time remain unaddressed while we become mere spectators to the clash of minorities.