The larger struggle
The most direct route to real democracy in the United States would be amending the federal constitution. While the Constitution itself is concerned with defining the powers of government and thus only deals with government’s ability to amend its own power, it is of course the right of the People, who created the government, to change its constitution as they see fit. This is a first principle of republicanism. Unfortunately, the authors of the Constitution neglected to spell out a process, so where their governments are uncooperative, the People must sometimes take matters into their own hands. This has been done repeatedly at the state level, where popular constitutional conventions have assembled without government consent on several occasions to form a new government, despite such a process even being explicitly prohibited. For more on this, check out this gem of a book. Currently, there is an ongoing national vote on amending the federal constitution to provide for direct democracy that we urge you to partake in and share.
Among the states that do not provide for the right of initiative at the state level, six require that the option to change the state’s constitution be placed on the ballot periodically. They are
For residents in these and the remaining 20 states that do not currently recognize their right of initiative, the national initiative represents an alternate route to state reform. For everyone, it, or something very similar, and the civic maturation it will engender, may well be the best hope for pulling the nation and the planet out of their many troubling trajectories, and ushering in a sane future.