Question 1

What do you believe?

Accepted Answer

We believe in science and representation for everyone. In politics, these are the same belief. Science is a method for making reality prove you right or wrong empirically. Likewise, democracy is how the people tell their government whether what it is doing is right or wrong. Both good science and good democratic representation are reliant on the quality of the methods used. Bad systems lead to bad information which leads to bad results.
We believe that most of what’s going wrong in America – stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, a lack of real opportunities, a country that no longer builds or makes anything – is downstream of one problem. It isn’t bad leaders, bad policy, or the other party. The real problem is the whole system in its entirety: a Constitution written for 18th-century farmers, the two parties gatekeeping us from doing anything better, the agencies and donor networks behind them, and the class profiting from it all. That is what we call the Regime.The Regime doesn’t malfunction. Our problems are its successes. It rewards rent extraction over honest work. The federal system represents land, not people, asking one official to speak on behalf of millions of people with nothing in common but a zip code. The result is that ordinary voices get drowned out and nobody is heard except those with money and power. America needs a new revolution.We want two things: a modernized government that can actually deliver what the people have already been voting for, and a new system of democracy that gives the people a stronger voice. Our proposal is called Functional Representation.
Nobody has to lose for this to work. Science treats everyone equally, and so should democracy. Equal voices and honest results is how we achieve a stronger country.

Question 2

What do you mean by revolution?

Accepted Answer

We mean it the same way the country was founded: a change in the form of government, not just a change in who’s shouting loudest. Every four years there’s a transfer of office without a transfer of power.The Regime isn’t going to fix itself. Every fix is a patch on a patch on a patch and we’ve built up a mountain of technical debt that isn’t going away without revolution. Our goal is to tear it all down and build something that doesn’t suck.We intend to use every lawful means available to achieve this goal. That means we will need to win enough elections to amend the Constitution through Article V.

Question 3

What is Functional Representation, exactly?

Accepted Answer

Functional Representation is our theory of democracy. In short, it’s the idea that you should be represented for what you do, and not just where you happen to live. If you work in healthcare, you elect a healthcare representative. If you work in food service, you elect a food service representative. Everyone voting together in these elections shares real interests, so their votes collectively mean something instead of cancelling each other out. That's the difference between a clean signal and just noise. It also changes incentives. A geographic representative can profit from offshoring, but a representative elected by manufacturing laborers would destroy himself if he tried.We mainly want to change how representatives are elected and how representation is distributed. We want to keep a proportional house of representatives where all people are equally represented. The primary difference is that each representative is tasked with representing a social-economic function rather than a geographic area.

Question 4

Why not work within the two parties?

Accepted Answer

Because you don’t capture the party. The party captures you. Being a good Republican or a good Democrat means being a subpar public servant. People have tried to reform both from the inside for decades, in good faith, and the Regime chews them up, swallows, and digests them. The incentive structures work against the reformer. Join the Regime and your success now depends on its survival. We’re building the one institution where being a partisan and serving the public good are the same job. We’re not getting a better country or a better world in any meaningful sense until we kill the old Regime and replace it with something better.

Question 5

Third parties don’t work. Why are you different, and what’s the plan?

Accepted Answer

The Republicans were a third party. It’s been done before; it can be done again. What can’t be done is what the other third parties do: run for president as a principled protest, build nothing, and pray. Our current third parties work by applying electoral pressure to the major parties (threatening them with losing votes in closely contested elections) in order to bring attention to specific policy changes. They’re not actually interested in winning. The Libertarians are Republicans who smoke weed. The Greens are Democrats who don’t eat meat. Neither of them are worth taking a risk on. We are. We’re doing the opposite of what every third party in recent history has done: taking a stand against the Regime and building from the ground up locally. The people are so disillusioned with the establishment that voters who don’t support either party are a plurality. We don’t even need to flip a single Democrat or Republican vote to win a landslide. We just need to give the people who have given up on politics a reason to believe they can make a difference.Our win condition is getting enough seats to amend the Constitution. It’s a long shot, but the math checks out and we believe it’s far more doable than anyone thinks.

Question 6

So do you want to replace the Constitution? Do you believe in democracy?

Accepted Answer

Yes and we want more democracy than we have today. We want to rewrite the Constitution through the amendment process with modern problems in mind. We want a government that can effectively deliver all the things people keep voting for and never getting. Healthcare. Housing. Jobs. Infrastructure. We think America today outwardly performs the appearance of democracy without actually delivering it. We want to change that and deliver a better democracy for all Americans.

Question 7

What’s your position on [my issue]?

Accepted Answer

We mostly don’t take stances on specific hotly contested issues on purpose. Every other party hands you a suite with dozens of political positions, take it or leave it. We think that’s part of the problem. So many people are forced to choose between their personal moral convictions and their functional economic interests. With Functional Representation, your functional interests are being represented by default. A religious laborer doesn’t have to choose between the pro-union candidate who goes against his traditional family values and the anti-union candidate that supports them. A gay small business owner doesn’t have to choose between lower taxes and his rights. That’s what having Functional Representation opens up.So, the Popular Party is a coalition, not a checklist. Our bottom line is three things: Functional Representation and a modernized administrative state, of course, but just as importantly: gaining the power to implement it. So long as you aren’t against our bottom line, you are welcome to participate in our party no matter your background or your beliefs and use the Popular Party to work for you.

Question 8

Where do you sit on the political spectrum?

Accepted Answer

Off it.Inside the Overton Window, arguments between left and right are about what the Regime should do. We’re arguing about whether it should exist at all and our answer is “no.”Radicals outside the spectrum aren’t any better. They come up with this one-size-fits-all solution to everything in advance and go looking for problems to justify it. Wealth inequality doesn’t mean all property must be seized and collectivized, and crime statistics don’t justify white supremacy. Those are non-sequiturs, and most of the people making them are only cosplaying radicalism online instead of doing politics. They’re no threat to the Regime. One of our core principles is applying the scientific method to politics. We start with the problems. If a solution doesn’t work, we drop it and find a better one. We’re not left, we’re not right, and we’re certainly not “third position.” We have a narrow, systems focused platform, and beyond that, you could say we’re “big tent on revolution.” We’re building a coalition. Whether you typically consider yourself left, right, center, or something else, if you want the Regime dead, you’re one of us.

Question 9

What does membership involve and what does the money fund?

Accepted Answer

Membership comes with dues and it tells us you’re serious about being involved. Members gain exclusive access to members only resources and direct contact with leadership.The money goes directly into funding the Popular Party’s operations: paying for the website, printed materials, recruitment, and outreach.Most political resistance in America is moral theater. Best case scenario: people protest, the Regime hands them a symbolic win, and nothing really happens. We’re not doing this to be fashionable and this isn’t debate club. We’re gathering together everyone who wants to smash the Regime to pieces and then we’re doing it.Do you care about an issue you know the two parties will do nothing about? Work with us. We only ask that you pay your dues and give your loyalty to the party’s mission.

Question 10

Is this only in California?

Accepted Answer

No. We’re starting here first and working on running candidates in Northern California where our leadership is located. But we want members everywhere and we are looking to expand our operations to all 50 U.S. states.

Question 11

Are you connected with anyone?

Accepted Answer

No. We’re completely independent. We’re primarily funded out of our own pocket and by membership dues.

Question 12

What about our Constitutional rights?

Accepted Answer

In short, we want to protect and expand your rights. The Regime protects your rights on paper, while violating them in practice. The problem with the Constitution isn’t in the rights it guarantees, but the system underneath those guarantees: how elections are held, how democratic representation is distributed, and how the government is administered.

Question 13

How do I run for office with you, and what support do you provide?

Accepted Answer

It depends on the state. Right now we can give you our endorsement, help provide campaign materials, and help find you volunteers. However, we don’t currently have ballot access for state or federal elections. Local offices in California are nonpartisan, so you can run with our backing today.

Question 14

In your proposed system, what’s stopping the wealthy from deciding everything like they do today?

Accepted Answer

A core part of our proposal is designed around this. One of our major grievances against the Regime is that it essentially allows elections to be bought while simultaneously having plausible deniability that this is what’s going on.Under Functional Representation, a wealthy hedge fund manager is just one voter for the finance function. We propose a blanket ban on owning private property (as distinct from personal property) for elected officials and making elections publicly funded. That means no financial assets, investments, or property beyond personal belongings. It will be nearly impossible for public officials to have private financial conflicts of interest when public officials do not have private financial interests. We believe in representing people, not money. These restrictions we propose apply to people who hold power only.

Question 15

What function am I in?

Accepted Answer

The general idea is wherever your primary economic activity comes from. For most people, that will be your job. We’re working on edge cases (retirees, people with two jobs, etc).

Question 16

How does [this part] of Functional Representation work in detail?

Accepted Answer

We’re not drafting policy right now. We’re at least a couple years away from that. We’re keeping things big-picture and open to feedback on purpose. We’re building the institution that will make it worth writing those policies later.That said, if you have strong opinions on how certain things should be implemented, you are more than welcome to share your proposals with us and help shape future policy.

Question 17

In your proposed system, who is in charge?

Accepted Answer

The people. With Functional Representation, the people who live with the results cast the vote, and every decision must answer to that. That's the opposite of today where nobody can tell you where any decision comes from. Today, candidates make all these promises they will never have the means to keep. Then when they get into office everything is someone else's fault. Financial interests decide everything when nobody does.There's so much money in politics that our republic has been effectively privatized into a corporation. We want an energetic and responsible government again. We want an elected head of state who owns nothing, who is responsible for signing off on every decision the government makes, and who leads in the people's trust.

Read Popular Uprising by Lucas Peters

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Popular Uprising
by Lucas Peters