What’s Our Opposition; What Are We Up Against?

Power Groups

Powerful forces, working in their own self-interests (not necessarily “enlightened self-interest”) often work at cross-purposes to the well-being of the American people.

• Political parties and many PACs are motivated by self-interests, and are deliberately designed and organized to serve special interests, while easily circumventing regulations intended to safeguard the well-being of the wider population. They are powerful sources of funding and influence. They are deeply entrenched into the American way of governing, and accepted by all as normal parts of our political process.
• Corporations, motivated by profits and also by fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, seek to gain competitive advantage and profit by funding legislation and supporting political candidates who agree, explicitly or tacitly, to quid pro quo biases in their legislation and their public remarks. The law allows this, and in many cases supports it as fiduciary responsibility toward shareholders.
• Special interest groups (trade unions, religious organizations, social justice organizations, trade alliances, industry associations, and more) also band together with large numbers of voters and significant funding, seeking to influence our governance in their favor.
• Lobbyists, including many former legislators, exert powerful influence, often on behalf of interested parties, again, to gain advantage in the legislative process.
• Foreign nations and corporations seek to influence our legislators for their benefit, to influence global alliances, and to gain trade advantages.

Politicians

Candidates for office and incumbent office holders are powerfully motivated to compromise ethics, bias the legislative process, and gain political advantage, often to the detriment of the American voter, all the while misleading the voters with biased communications, and false or exaggerated reports of “contributions” to the well being of America.

• Winning elections is more important than service to the people.
• Party loyalty is more important than loyalty to the people, or representing their interests.
• Quid pro quo deals with lobbyists, party hacks, and special interest groups (such as trade unions and Political Action Committees) dominate decision-making and legislative processes.
• Looking good is more important than doing the right things for the people.
• Dishonesty becomes the norm. The convincing lie becomes the preferred way to deal with questions from the public or the press. Words like integrity, character, and honor become hollow public relations bargaining chips, not standards of behavior.

Voters

Voters are smart, concerned, and willing to make good decisions about the candidates they select for public office. But the voting public is notoriously lacking in information or understanding about candidates and about complex issues such as education, health care, global warming, energy policy, social justice, the economy, military confrontations, and global diplomacy, competition here and abroad, the national budget, deficit management, and much more.

• Voters rely on the media for their information, and the media have become commercial entertainers, not the journalists we used to depend on for objective information.
• The media are also subject to biases introduced by owners, advertisers, and large viewer/listener/reader groups, again, to the detriment of objective journalism—to the detriment of truth.
• Voters tend to lack in-depth interest in the workings of our government and our elected leaders…they jump to conclusions based on the superficial information, emotional “feelings,” and the dishonest manipulations of politicians and their operatives. Having jumped to those superficial, and often erroneous conclusions, voters defend them with energy, emotion, and irrational arguments.

These statements about voters apply to voters of all political parties…republicans, democrats, libertarians, greens, and even independents. They all display the same dysfunctional voting behavior, through no fault of their own.

In truth, one of our most persistent opponents is human nature itself. People don’t have the time or inclination to learn about politics, the legislative process, and the critical issues of our time. They react to superficial information because that’s what’s readily available to them.

Politicians understand this and take advantage of it.

People First may be the first of a new breed who understand the “human nature” aspect of politics and, rather than taking advantage of it, seek to serve it. We do that by stripping away all political biases, selecting and supporting candidates of unimpeachable character and integrity, and distilling the issues down to the level of information that people want, while preserving the integrity of the information. We don’t “dumb it down.” We don’t distort it. We distill the truth of each issue and make that available to the voters. People First gives the voters the simple truths they need and will pay attention to, without perverting information to political ends.

How can you rely on this claim? After all, all political operatives claim to be truthful and to operate out of integrity and concern for the American people. Our claims sound much like theirs, don’t they?

The difference is performance. People First leaders will deliver the goods…legislation that serves the people, not themselves, and solves the nation’s critical problems. People First leaders will communicate all sides of issues, and tell us how they reached their decisions. People First leaders will separate themselves from the party pressures and quid pro quo dealings that corrupt other politicians.