In this provocative and credible vision of middle-class revolt, Kenneth M. Dolbeare and Janette Kay Hubbell issue a clarion call for the economic, social, and political revolution that they predict will revitalize American democracy for the twenty-first century.

The authors propose specific, practical measures for solving the systemic problems they foresee. Among their prescriptions are routine and binding national referendums on all major issues, firmly regulated campaign funding and media access, elections opened to multiple political parties and proportional voting, and a drastically redesigned judicial system.

Figures and Tables
Preface

1. Thomas Jefferson Revisited: The Fourth of July, 2000
The Betrayal of the Middle Class
Acquiescence and Victimization
From Victims to Revolutionaries
A New Declaration of Independence

Part 1. Problems and Prospects

2. The United States at the End of the Twentieth Century
The American Transformation
Defining the Problem

3. Forward to the 1890s: The Basic Scenarios
U.S.A. 2012: The Basic Scenario
The Republican Alternative: A High-Tech 1896
The Democratic Alternative: Mirrors, Followed by Smoke
Forward to the 1890s

Part 2. The Middle-Class Revolution

4. An Economy for Americans—All Americans
The Strategy and Principles of Economic Nationalism
Create Good Jobs for Americans in the United States
Close the Outrageous Income Gap
An Aggressive Trade Policy
A Fiscal Policy in the Long-Term National Interest
Summary: What Have We Done?

5. "Each Generation Has the Right to Choose for Itself":
Making Visions Practical and Realizable
Elections and Policymaking
Amendment 1
Amendment 2
Governance Functions
Amendment 3
Amendment 4
Summary

6. The New American Democracy
The Imminence of the Jeffersonian Transformation
A Politics of Issues through Direct Democracy
The New American Century

Epilogue: David Reynold's Final Paper, 26 November 2012

Appendix: New Technology, New Politics?

Illustrations
Index