Want to win elections in 2024? Follow the model of the Founding Fathers who emphasized people and values, not government and programs. The Founders recognized that people have near unlimited capacity for productivity and problem solving, a truth government programs sadly neglect today.
Write platforms that emphasize people as the primary source for solving our cultural problems, especially since the problems are as varied as inflation, health care affordability, budget deficit, drug addiction, obesity, gun violence, sexual matters, and violent crime.
Look at the record of some of the leaders who relied on people instead of government.
• Benjamin Franklin, in debates regarding whether the people or government would be pre-eminent in problem solving argued for “we the people” and laid out this challenge, “You have a democracy if you can keep it.” The Founders chose a representative form of government... He won.
• Abraham Lincoln knew the importance of appealing directly to people. His Gettysburg address was rich in references to individuals: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these ...
