The Forgotten Interview

This book is about the oldest argument in American politics: the struggle between self and service, pride and virtue, faction and family. From the first acts of the Founders, that struggle shaped the nation. They saw the danger only after it appeared: a single oversight in the Declaration and the Constitution allowed factions, born of ambition, to one day erode the unity they had built.
They created a republic grounded in character but missed a basic truth of any organization: honest service requires a funded process for choosing servants. Congress paid for the work of governing but never for the interviews that decide who governs. In the small colonies this oversight mattered little, because everyone knew one another. As populations grew, candidates needed resources to reach the people. Congress never provided them, so candidates turned to strangers who would — and those strangers demanded influence. From that influence rose the parties and the machinery that now directs Congress.
The system we live with is not the product of their malice but of our structure. Congress has tried to restrain money’s power, yet we still require candidates to seek money simply to meet us. Our requirement created their dependency. The answer is not outrage but responsibility. If we expect loyalty, we must pay for the process that earns it.
The remedy is a citizen-funded platform that performs the work political parties now control, where candidates meet their employers directly. It restores the bond between citizen and representative and revives the family lessons every republic depends on: humility, honesty, duty. By reclaiming the interview process, the people reclaim the government built in their name.