Don’t Want Another Trump? Fix the System.

Here’s How.

We’re trapped in a vicious cycle. Desperation. Frustration. Cynicism. Disappointment. Anger. Polarization. Accusations. Nothing gets done and the world just feels worse and worse. 

We are in this mess — politically, governmentally, societally — because we have a broken political system that we refuse to fix. When people feel unheard, when they feel like there’s no hope for progress or change, when they feel marginalized and ignored, they turn to populists. When our government seems so broken that basic problems from the cost of living to decent schools to affordable health care to reducing crime all feel unsolvable, we turn to populists. That’s the exact condition throughout history that has given demagogues the opportunity to seize power. It’s how Trump won both elections too. And because power in this country is so concentrated at the extremes, we can see its devastating impact firsthand, right here, right now.

Because just about every GOP Senator is terrified of both a primary from the right with a Trump-backed candidate or just being fodder for Trump’s enmity, wildly unqualified nominees were confirmed for cabinet posts. A HHS Secretary in Bobby Kennedy who doesn’t believe in science. A National Intelligence Director in Tulsi Gabbard who has been an open supporter of Vladimir Putin and Bashar-al Assad. A Defense Secretary in Pete Hegseth who was, until just now, a tv talk show host accused of sexual assault. The list goes on. Because the GOP is controlled by extremes.

Because just about every Congressional Republican is terrified of Trump, when Trump blatantly disrespects a legitimate hero in Volodymyr Zelensky, cuts off aid to Ukraine (which was finally just restored but it’s unclear for how long), praises a vicious dictator in Putin and does his bidding in negotiations, they either sit on their hands or even join in and echo Trump. Ukraine has been valiantly defending itself against Russian invasion for over two years, significantly weakening the Russian military and economy throughout the process. And this is how we treat him. Because the GOP is controlled by extremes.

Because just about every Congressional Republican is controlled by the 10% who vote in their primaries, by the special interests who can move money and votes in low turnout primaries and by their fear of Trump, we have a House that cuts taxes for the rich by over $4 trillion and then pays for it by taking food away from children and health care away from sick people and old people. Literally taking food out of the mouths of children. Because the GOP is controlled by extremes.

Democrats, don’t start feeling yourselves. You’re almost as bad. After a resounding defeat in November, you have learned nothing. Literally nothing. 

Because you are terrified of the far left, terrified of the 10% who vote in your primaries, terrified of the groups, terrified of being criticized on Bluesky or MSNBC, you take positions that are so wildly out of touch with the American people that you just make your predicament even worse. You vocally oppose the Laken Riley Act, which means you are supporting the rights of people who are both here illegally and arrested for crimes. No one else feels that way. This is an 80-10 issue. You pick fringe issues that might seem overwhelmingly important in your tiny ecosystem but totally tone deaf to everyone else. 

You consistently find ways to make everything exponentially more expensive and complicated from building affordable housing to clean energy to mass transit — all to appease a small cohort of activists while alienating large swaths of regular Americans in the process. And as a result, you keep driving people out of the cities and states you run because they see you as incapable of offering them a clean, safe place to live. Why? Because the Democratic Party is controlled by extremes.

We can only take power away from extremists, away from demagogues, if we make it possible for elected officials at every level of government — federal, state and municipal — to start working together, to start compromising, to start being openly bipartisan, to start getting things done. 

They can only do that if they think it won’t cost them their next primary (for example, the reason we have endless school shootings is because the risk to elected officials of losing the next primary is greater than the benefit of saving kids; if turnout in a GOP House race was 36% instead of 12%, that math would flip and members would be punished for not doing something about the problem; the same explains why Democrats let teachers unions force them into making blatantly bad policy and budget choices for kids and schools). We can only do that by making the composition of primary voters more than just the extremes and special interests who currently turn out. We can only materially increase turnout by making voting a lot easier and a lot more convenient. And we can only do that by meeting the voters where they already are — on their phones.

Until we have a functional government again, we will never escape the Trumps of the world. We will always be captives to the extremes on both sides, to policies that are patently absurd, cruel or outright corrupt. We will always feel like shit about our country and our future. We cannot have a functional government without changing the composition of voters, especially in primaries. There is only one way to do that at scale — mobile voting. 

In the coming months, we will release the code that we have been developing for the last four years that will make secure, end to end verifiable, end to end encrypted mobile voting with multi factor authentication, facial recognition, airgapping and open source code available to any government that wants to use it. For free. This is completely philanthropic. 

In the coming months, we will start running legislation in city councils across the nation to start allowing voters to use their phones in municipal elections.

In the coming months, we will be out there in public, aggressively, starting with a TED Talk about mobile voting in early April, accompanied by our new website, the creation of a new, separate mobile voting entity to take the project out of Tusk Philanthropies and turn it into a fully developed effort, along with new donors to the cause, new supporters, new advocates, new allies. 

We see the solution. We’ve even built the solution. It’s here. The only thing standing in the way of a better country, a better government, a better society is our own fear, our own inertia, our own unwillingness to demand something better, even our own secret fear that this is all we deserve. 

But it’s not hopeless. We can still fix this country. We can solve this mess. We can still get hard things done. But only if we join together to overcome the status quo. It’s not going to be easy (no one gives up power without a fight) but it can be done. 

Let’s take the power away from the extremes and move our politics back to the middle. Let’s put our kids and their future ahead of special interests and their money. 

Work with us. Stand with us. We can do this.