Meet the New Boss: You

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When activists surrender the role of righteous savior to collaborate with the cops and the oppressed, they sometimes have to set aside their pet issues. When a community organization in the blighted neighborhood of Delray Beach, Florida, embarked on a series of small-group meetings, for example, the group hoped to rally the neighborhood to protest rising rents, increased crime, and rampant unemployment, writes Leighninger. When recent arrivals from Haiti showed up, they spoke of their struggles, including run-ins with the police and social workers who didn't understand Haitian culture. Through the meetings, residents began taking steps to solve their problems, including the creation of an outreach program between the immigrant community and local police.

While the ideas outlined in The Next Form of Democracy have had their greatest success locally, they also can work at the state and national levels. In the mid-1990s, Oklahoma's League of Women Voters hosted small-group discussions where citizens, legislators, and law enforcement officials talked about criminal justice reform, in a state with the country's third-highest incarceration rate and a bloated budget for prisons. At the local level, these meetings mobilized a force of newly coined citizen-activists who got involved in projects like church outreach programs and job partnerships with prisoners. In the statehouse, the discussions broke a long stalemate over a reform bill.

The most promising aspect of Leighninger's vision for the future of American democracy is that it brings us closer to the ideals of true democracy: government by and for the people. The profound disconnect between leaders and citizens has never been more apparent -- and while the sitting president makes a stunning example of that detachment, neither he nor his party has a monopoly on imperialism. 'What's happening at the local level is a sign of what's to come,' Leighninger says, and that provides a whiff of hope for liberty and self-rule.

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