Context
Decades of polarizing and often anti-democratic rhetoric have contributed to declining trust in democratic institutions and processes, especially among Republicans. The radical right MAGA wealth and power movement that is dominated by elites envisions some form of corrupt authoritarianism to replace democracy and the rule of law as they exist now. Government infrastructure to enable that is being built now by MAGA elites in power in the federal executive branch, the courts and congress. The goal is to have in place enduring authoritarian government and law in place once Trump is gone. To attain power, decades of radicalizing demagoguery was necessary for the rise of MAGA to its current position of federal government power.
Upgrading democracy
A Scientific American article, Citizens’ Assemblies Are Upgrading Democracy: Fair Algorithms Are Part of the Program, points to a way that can augment trust in democracy. The article describes a case of a group of 99 Irish citizens who were chosen to be representative of all of the Irish people in terms of age, gender, and where they lived. This citizen's assembly heard from experts, learned about the topic, extensively discussed and debated among themselves, and then made recommendations about legalizing abortion in Ireland. Its recommendation to allow abortions in all circumstances, subject to limits on the length of pregnancy, was supported by a significant majority of the 99. That paved the way to a national referendum that resulted on voters adopting the assembly's recommendations.
The episode was remarkable. Irish politicians would not touch the subject, fearing they would get voted out of office. Since the 99 citizens were not worried about getting voted out of office, they dealt with the issue rationally and reflected that most Irish people, 66%, wanted abortion legalized. The assembly was trusted because the people on it were chosen to represent or be like the Irish people generally.
Citizens’ assemblies bring together ordinary people, selected by lot, to learn about an issue, deliberate, and recommend policies. They often work complex or contentious topics such as climate policy or major reforms. Because participants are not professional politicians, they are insulated from reelection and other pressures such as such as party discipline, campaign incentives, donor blowback, special interests lobbyists, etc. They are free to simply focus on relevant evidence, learning the complexities and deliberation among themselves.
What makes citizen assemblies at least somewhat trusted by the public is selection to make them representative of the rest of the country, state or locality. Some of the people in the assemblies are like many other people in multiple ways. That tends to foster trust to some extent.
Why descriptive representation matters: The article points out that descriptive representation for assemblies should roughly match the population in gender, age, geography, and other characteristics. That boosts public perception that decisions are made by “people like us”. This contrasts with elected legislatures that remain skewed, for example, underrepresentation of women, which undermines perceived legitimacy compared to well-balanced assemblies.
Naive random sampling rarely yields a group that closely resembles the broader population, especially when many demographic and attitudinal criteria are tracked, so practitioners face a trade-off between randomness and representativeness. The piece frames this as an optimization problem: choosing a subset of volunteers that best matches target quotas across multiple dimensions while retaining the core idea of random selection.
The article discusses an algorithm (developed with collaborators and now used by organizations like the Sortition Foundation) that first defines target distributions for demographic categories, then uses computational search to randomly select a panel that satisfies these constraints as closely as possible. This approach allows the “dice” to be loaded in a transparent, rule‑based way to correct for practical biases—such as some groups being less likely to respond to invitations—without letting organizers handpick participants.
By combining sortition with fairness-focused algorithms, citizens’ assemblies can better uncover the will of the people and help build consensus on divisive issues. Assemblies offer a complement to electoral democracy, not a replacement. The article suggests that as citizen assemblies and how they are created become better known, and the underlying algorithms remain open and auditable, they can help counter distrust in institutions and democracy itself. All of this can also show how carefully designed procedures can make democratic representation both more inclusive and more representative, e.g., by eliminating anti-democratic influence by special interests and political parties.
Points for consideration
Would you at least consider recommendations from a citizen assembly if it's makeup and means of selecting people for it are transparent and reasonably representative of "people like you"?
Does this article at least somewhat change the way you view the working of American democracy, which is seriously undermined by corrosive, and often irrational, special interest money, propaganda and influence?
