Reclaim the American Dream

WASHINGTON – Do you sometimes feel as if our democracy is coming apart at the seams? Gridlock, hate speech, dark money, negative ads, political parties at each others throats instead of working together for our common good? It’s almost enough to make you give up on American democracy. But please,don’t go there.  Because I know […]

Washington – They call Missouri the “Show Me State.” Well, this year the people of Missouri need to show us all whether they’re going to let the power brokers in the state legislature kill the election law reforms adopted by a majority of Missouri voters two years ago. Normally, when we talk politics in America, […]

  by Hedrick Smith What struck me when I began reporting on grassroots citizen reform movements in states as varied as Florida, Connecticut, and South Dakota was how creative and ingenious political amateurs were in generating ideas for reform and how gutsy and resourceful they were in mobilizing millions of voters to adopt state-level reforms […]

by Hedrick Smith It’s been a couple of weeks since our film, THE DEMOCRACY REBELLION, began airing on PBS stations across the country, and the response to these stories of grassroots political reforms has been fantastic! “Your brilliant program is the only bright spot in my day. I actually watched it on my cellphone in […]

Washington – Back in the 1960s, when I was covering Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and other civil rights activists for The New York Times, I heard die-hard segregationists try to bait him as an “outside agitator” stirring up trouble. “You’re comin’ into our town,” they would bellow, meaning Birmingham or Albany, Georgia or […]

Washington – The 2018 elections may be a mixed bag for Democrats and Republicans but this has been a boom year for grass roots political reformers, whose jackpot was the powerful WethePeople backlash in seven states against partisan gerrymandering. Citizen rebellions in five states – Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Colorado and Utah – forced referendums and […]

Orcas Island, WA – How about a quickie quiz on this year’s elections? Question – What did states as politically dissimilar as Utah, Michigan, Colorado and Missouri have in common in the 2018 election? Not House or Senate races. Not red or blue. No, the unique similarity is that in those four states, People Power […]

Raleigh, NC – When people decry the perilous state of American Democracy and declare the urgent need for reforms, they often ask plaintively, ”But where are the leaders going to come from? Where is our new Abraham Lincoln? Where is the new Martin Luther King?” People forget that Abe Lincoln and MLK did not suddenly […]

Washington – If like most Americans you’re angry that our democracy feels broken, that elections are being corrupted by billionaire and corporate money, and that politicians are rigging elections through gerrymandering, we’ve got good news for you. Grass Roots America is staging a political comeback. Citizen rebellions against the politicians and the power brokers are […]

Highlights – Ralph Nader Interviews Hedrick Smith : “Certainly Trump didn’t intend to do this, nor did Steve Bannon, his Rasputin in the White House, but you know, accidentally and unintentionally, they have triggered and ignited a fire in the political prairies of this country.” “I don’t think we’ve seen this kind of electricity, this kind of […]