Democracy is simpler than it’s made out to be; it’s about people and the communities they form in order to identify shared problems and implement mutually beneficial solutions.
The strength and scope of that democratic community is the sum of millions of decisions made by you and me on a daily basis—who we talk to, who we get to know, and who we collaborate with at work and in our neighborhoods. Those small decisions can build a powerful democratic community.
But throughout our history we’ve squandered much of that power by letting other individuals and entities dictate who joins our democratic community—in fact, we’ve given social media companies, political parties and special interests the authority to confine us within democratic bubbles. These bubbles are hard to burst—the public spaces and institutions that used to break us free of narrowly defined communities no longer serve that function. For instance, higher education institutions cater to a very small set of society and neighborhoods that previously allowed folks across the socioeconomic spectrum to run into one another have now priced out certain folks. Income inequality, housing unaffordability, and disparate educational and economic opportunities are all indicative of a larger, troubling trend: Americans have fewer friends from fewer places with fewer differences in their backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives.
