Democracy is not a finished product but an ongoing experiment that demands constant deliberation, refinement, and renewal. The principles I outline here are working principles—I hold them with conviction while recognizing they must evolve through genuine democratic dialogue.

Our constitutional framework in the United States of America was designed to be amended, our institutions to be improved, and our understanding of justice to deepen with experience and wisdom. The greatest threat to democracy is not disagreement about these principles, but the abandonment of our shared commitment to wrestling with them together in good faith.

While these principles require ongoing refinement, I believe the following foundations are essential for our democracy:

Civic Foundations

We the people need to know the truth.

Democracy cannot function without an informed citizenry capable of making reasoned judgments about complex issues. This requires not just access to accurate information, but the development of critical thinking skills that can distinguish fact from fiction, evidence from opinion, and genuine expertise from manufactured authority.

We the people need to want to know the truth, especially when the truth is uncomfortable.

Perhaps more challenging than finding truth is the willingness to accept it when it contradicts our preferences or challenges our assumptions. Democratic citizenship demands intellectual courage—the willingness to follow evidence where it leads, even when it unsettles our worldview or implicates us in problems we would rather ignore.

We the people need to have genuine concern for the welfare of our fellow citizens and our fellow humans, even as we each seek to preserve our own welfare.

Self-interest alone cannot sustain democracy. We must cultivate what the founders called public or civic virtue—a commitment to the common good that transcends narrow personal or tribal interests. This doesn’t require pure selflessness, but it does require enlightened self-interest that recognizes our interdependence.

We need to increase the civic obligations of citizenship.

Rights without responsibilities hollow out democracy from within. Citizens should be expected to serve their communities through jury duty, civic participation, informed voting, and other forms of democratic engagement. A democracy of consumers cannot survive; we need a democracy of active participants.

Taxes are the price of admission to a functional society.

While we can debate the proper level and distribution of taxation, we cannot escape the fundamental truth that collective goods require collective funding. Roads, schools, courts, defense, environmental protection, and countless other public necessities exist only through shared investment in our common life.

Leadership Accountability

Political leaders should be chosen based on their demonstrated virtue, wisdom, and genuine concern for their fellow citizens.

Popularity, charisma, and partisan loyalty are insufficient qualifications for democratic leadership. We must demand evidence of moral character, practical wisdom, and a proven commitment to serving the public interest rather than personal ambition.

Political leaders should be required to demonstrate an understanding of civics and law that exceeds the basic requirements for citizenship.

We expect doctors to understand medicine and teachers to understand education, yet we impose no knowledge requirements on those who would govern us. Leaders should demonstrate competency in constitutional law, economics, history, and the practical arts of democratic governance. As the barest of minimums, they should all be able to pass the naturalization test for citizenship.

Political leaders should fear the people more than they fear the President or party leadership.

Representatives who serve at the pleasure of party bosses rather than their constituents have abandoned the fundamental principle of democratic accountability. The chain of authority must run from citizens to representatives to leaders, not the reverse.

No lifetime appointments for any political leadership position.

While judicial independence requires some insulation from political pressure, no office should be held in perpetuity. Term limits, regular elections, and mandatory retirement ages ensure that power circulates and that institutions remain responsive to changing circumstances and evolving public will.

Political leaders should not be allowed to become radically wealthier than the people they represent.

Public service should not be a path to personal enrichment. Leaders who use their positions to accumulate vast wealth inevitably develop interests that diverge from those of ordinary citizens. Reasonable compensation, yes—but extreme wealth accumulation while in office corrupts democratic representation.

Political leaders should be incentivized, with both carrots and sticks, to seek the common welfare above their own personal gain.

We must restructure the incentives of political life to reward public-spirited behavior and punish corruption. This requires not just legal penalties for wrongdoing, but positive incentives for leaders who demonstrably improve the lives of their constituents.

Political leaders, the military, and the police should be legally obligated to protect and serve the people, not just the wealthy.

Equal protection under law means that public servants serve the public—all of it. When institutions of government become the private security forces of economic elites, democracy dies. Our public servants must be accountable to democratic institutions, not to the highest bidder.

Electoral Integrity

It should be as easy as possible for all citizens to vote.

The fundamental act of democratic participation should be accessible to every eligible citizen. Barriers to voting that serve no compelling public interest are barriers to democracy itself. We should be constantly working to expand access, reduce obstacles, and ensure that every voice can be heard.

Voting days should be federal holidays.

Democracy requires participation, and participation requires time. Making election days national holidays removes a significant barrier to voting for working people and demonstrates our society’s commitment to democratic engagement as a fundamental civic duty.

It should only ever be made more difficult to vote to verify citizenship or if there is clear evidence of widespread voter fraud.

While election integrity matters, restrictions on voting require extraordinary justification. The bar for limiting democratic participation must be high, evidence-based, and focused on genuine threats rather than partisan advantage.

We need ranked-choice voting in all elections.

Our current system forces false choices between two candidates and creates incentives for negative campaigning and political polarization. Ranked-choice voting allows citizens to express their true preferences while ensuring that winners have broader support and that third parties can compete without being “spoilers.”

We need to keep money from having an undue or hidden influence on politics.

This includes our information ecosystem—media and news sources that shape public opinion. When wealthy interests can effectively purchase political outcomes through unlimited spending, democracy becomes plutocracy. We must ensure transparency in political funding and limit the ability of concentrated wealth to distort democratic processes.

Economic Justice

While allowing for plenty of variation in wealth and living standards, the wealthy should pay more taxes than the poor.

Progressive taxation reflects both the principle of ability to pay and the recognition that extreme wealth inequality undermines democratic equality. A billionaire and a minimum-wage worker may each have one vote, but if money translates directly into political power, their democratic equality becomes meaningless.

It is dangerous and impossible to enforce equality of outcomes, but we should enforce equality of opportunity and an acceptable range of outcomes.

We should avoid both abject poverty through a robust social safety net and extreme wealth inequality through a graduated tax system with a functional cap on personal wealth.

A society where some live in luxury while others lack basic necessities is not a democracy but an oligarchy. Similarly, when individuals accumulate wealth so vast that they can effectively purchase political systems, democratic equality becomes impossible.

America’s strength has always come from our ability to integrate diverse peoples into a common democratic project. Immigration policy should reflect both our humanitarian values and our practical need for the energy, skills, and perspectives that newcomers bring.

No one is above the law.

This principle tolerates no exceptions. Wealth, power, position, or political affiliation cannot justify exemption from legal accountability. When leaders believe themselves immune from consequences, the rule of law becomes the rule of power, and democracy dies.

No one is beneath or outside of the law—due process for all.

Equal justice means that every person, regardless of status, deserves fair treatment under our legal system. This includes not only formal legal protections but also practical access to justice through competent representation and impartial courts.

These principles form a coherent vision of democratic renewal, but they are not the final word. Democracy itself demands that we continue to refine, debate, and improve our understanding of what justice and self-governance require. I offer these thoughts not as settled doctrine but as working principles for citizens who believe that democracy is worth defending, worth improving, and worth the hard work of constant democratic dialogue.

The question before us is not whether we will achieve a perfect democracy—we will not. The question is whether we will do the daily work of making democracy more perfect, more just, and more worthy of the sacrifices made to establish and preserve it. That work belongs to all of us, and it begins with the conversations that these principles are meant to start.