Podcast - How We Save Democracy: the case for Sortition with Terry Bouricius

Hi folks!

We’ve got a really great episode for you this week. Terry Bouricius joins us to discuss some amazing topics such as “rational ignorance”. He explains why low information voters are doing the rational thing by not caring about elections and how that ensures ballot initiatives are just another PR stunt by the rich and powerful.

He points out that elections aren’t the same as democracy - a fact that was well known for thousands of years - and how they were intentionally used as a way to prevent popular rule.

And importantly, he makes the case for a form of democracy called Sortition in which regular citizens are randomly selected to make policy decisions.

It’s a fun and informative discussion we’re excited to share with you.

Next week, I’ll be interviewing David and discussing his history and his vision for the future. I have no doubt it will be a fun and fascinating conversation.

Here is some supporting information Terry provided for us to share with you. Please look more into this fascinating topic:

1. The introduction video about Terry’s book which is going out for free over substack titled: "The Trouble With Elections: Everything We Thought We Knew About Democracy is Wrong"

2. A college textbook chapter he wrote about sortition for long term sustainability (like dealing with climate change)

3. A link to the new quite tiny USA sortition organization "Democracy Without Elections"

4. A much older and better funded sortition organization in Australia, the NewDemocracy Foundation