Back in my political days, MPs and MLAs used to give one day a month to listen to grievances. Staffers would set up a 15-minute appointment (behind closed doors). The citizen would talk, the politician would listen. With provincial constituencies being 40,000 and federal constituencies being 100,000, the chances of anyone getting on this list were small. I suspect it was mostly a venting session and PR exercise. I don't think the parties are doing these appointments anymore.

"Alienation" is an important concept to deal with. I'll give you a little story of one of my neighbors:

https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=33&id=301

This person had a mental illness. She was engaging with any community. Maybe she voted, I doubt it.

If there was a TDG in place, she would have likely alienated herself anyways. But I think there would have been more community concern about her physical well-being.

I should probably re-write the TDG book. It has been seven years. With Medium, my writing skills have improved and new ideas have come to me.

But in the book, a citizen will have more access to his/her TDG representative than any current politician.

If the citizen is unhappy with the response, the citizen still has access to the civil service. Then there is the advisory board of the TDG. The citizen can turn to the local advisor to verify the elected institution were dealing with whatever issue appropriately. Maybe the advisor will change the outlook of decision makers.

Not in the book is how several citizens can jointly communicate the same issue to the representative. If 10 neighbors out of 200 bring up a certain request, the representative should this issue bring up this issue in meetings of the second tier. If similar concerns are being raised in other districts, then highest tier has a better handle on the aspirations of the citizens.

This is a more friendly approach than protesting. In essence, there are several ways for citizens to bring up their issues. Things are less likely to fester.

Which means less alienation.

Thanks. I just might turn this into a short TDG article. I have been writing one a day since Nov 5. Less traction than before, but this is a worthy experiment.