You Say You Want a Revolution. Well, You Know.

Posted by on December 20, 2019 at 5:36 PM

Featured Blog Post: The Danger of American Plutophobia

When I was deciding on the title of this Update, the first thing that came to mind was the Beatles’ song “Revolution.” That song was released in the late 1960’s, during a time of social and political confusion and upheaval. I think we can all agree that we are once again experiencing social and political confusion and upheaval.

For me, all of this confusion naturally leads to the question “How does our nation get to the other side; to a better place than where we are today?" While no one can say what the answer is for sure, I’m seeing reasons to be hopeful.

According to Hedrick Smith of Reclaim, “2018 was the best year for political reform since the 1960s, and reforms are having real impact.” Hedrick explores exactly what this means in his new PBS documentary “The Democracy Rebellion,” which will be aired by over 100 stations starting on January 6th.

Meanwhile, Bridge Alliance members Unite America, RepresentUs, and Leadership Now Project intend to keep the recent momentum going in the new decade by providing critical funding and campaign support to the thirteen winners of the first ever Accelerator Awards, who will use that support to promote electoral reform and civic engagement across 12 states throughout the country. We would specifically like to congratulate BridgeUSA and FairVote’s state affiliates for their victories.

For all of this positive momentum, though, the healthy self-governance movement is still operating on a shoe-string budget. That’s why Nick Penniman of Issue One teamed up with Ian Simmons of Foundation for Civic Leadership to issue a call to action for foundations and philanthropists nationwide to direct 1% of your charitable giving to the movement (up from .1%). With such an infusion of resources, the push for healthy self-governance would be supercharged, resulting in positive change at a much faster pace.

As always, thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Bridge Alliance Education Fund

Think we missed a big news story involving a Bridge Alliance member? Email us at [email protected] and we'll make sure to get the story out on social media.

Bridge Alliance Members in the News:

Generation Citizen - KXAN.com - ‘Their voice matters’: Local students debut advocacy projects during ‘Civics Day’

R Street Institute - The Fulcrum - The broken budget process is a democracy reform issue

Ballotpedia - The Center Square - Just under half of Illinois lawmakers unopposed in 2020