Thesis
We already agree on more than our politics lets us see.
About the book.
Represent: A Return to Common Sense makes a straightforward, well-researched argument: American politics is not failing because citizens disagree, but because the machinery of representation no longer carries — or cares about — what citizens actually want. Written by Votesphere founder Jeffrey Scott Szorik, the book diagnoses how the two-party system, an outdated left-to-right political spectrum, and opinion polling built for monied clients rather than citizens have reduced the richest democracy in history to a binary shouting match — and then proposes something better.
The book's answer begins with a question of geometry: if a single point, a left/right/independent line, or a 2x2 matrix cannot adequately describe what one person believes, then what can? Its conclusion — a sphere, holding each person's priorities in full — becomes the blueprint for a working instrument that creates a continuous, beneficial feedback loop between the governed and the people elected to represent them.
The book presents a way for anyone to state what they want from government, issue by issue; to keep and revise that record; and to see plainly where their community and the country genuinely agree. Drawing on the wisdom-of-crowds research tradition from Madison to Surowiecki, Represent argues that a broader and better-qualified set of inputs from the governed — expert and citizen alike — can break gridlock that elections alone never will.
From the back cover.
In 1776, Thomas Paine published the pamphlet titled Common Sense. He advanced the argument that the only way the colonists could be properly governed was through independence from the British monarchy through the unified action of the American people. Almost 250 years later, Americans are struggling to find a solution to our growing divisions and government dysfunction.
It is time for another “common sense” solution — we must demand that office holders represent us.
How the book is organized.
- Book I
Common Sense
How parties, myths of bipartisanship, and the media machine broke the connection between what we want and what we get.
- Book II
The Wisdom of Crowds
Why diverse, independent citizens — picking policies, not politicians — outperform the political class, and what a crowd needs to be wise.
- Book III
The Instrument
The sphere, Votesphere, and a practical path to representation that answers to the represented.
In the author's words.
Selected passages from Represent, one at a time.
Excerpts from Represent: A Return to Common Sense (Zetetics Press, 2024). © 2024 Jeffrey Scott Szorik. All rights reserved.