I’m actually quite surprised at your comments. I find Medium quite a bit more intellectual than all the other internet forums I have participated in. There are some really smart people here. There is no need to dumb anything down.

I am working on another project where I need to take my writing to a Grade 10 level. This means turning the longer sentences into subject/predicate/ONLY one modifier (well maybe two). But that is a different audience.

I stay out of the liberal vs. conservative/socialist vs. capitalist/left vs. right discussions. These usually end up in silly talk. There is not much use in trying to appeal to fixed mindsets. Simpler sentences won’t help.

I have interacted with at least 1000 people in the past three years. I would say that their solution to improving democracy lies in:

1. There is no solution. Civilization is collapsing — and we sure like writing about the collapse.
2. There is a political messiah out there who can fix things, so we don’t need Dave’s TDG.
3. We need only some minor repairs to current democratic institutions. For example, I have encountered a half dozen people on Medium who make arguments for getting rid of the Electoral College, which won’t really fix things.
4. A general feeling of apathy and powerlessness, which I believe western democracy inculcates into average citizens.

There is a Medium writer by the name of Umair Haque. He posts about three articles a week on the “collapsing USA”. He has a big fan base and gets about 2000 claps for each article. I suspect he is making more than $100 a month on his Medium royalties. If people like hearing about the collapse, Umair is their writer. If people want to hear about how to avoid the collapse, well, I don’t think those people are out there to read my ideas. In essense, I am trying to sell something that nobody really wants. Remember, I’ve been at this for 22 years.

And I would say that Umair writes at a fairly high level. He appeals to intellectuals (misguided in my opinion).