Extremism is rattling the foundations of American society. Factual truth is under attack from the right. Core liberal values of free speech and tolerance are under attack from the left. Each side points to the other's extremism as justification for its own. Resolving these escalating culture wars is impossible as long as the battle is waged over abstractions such as reinterpreting history.

What brings people together is making things work — vaccines that are effective, schools that prepare students to make the most of themselves, police that are trusted, agencies that focus on public goals not mindless red tape, and modernizing infrastructure. Making things work is its own validation of truth, available for all to see and, in a democracy, accountable at the ballot box. Making schools and other social services work also invites the engagement of people on the ground, and brings citizens together in their shared community interest.

But modern government isn't working in most areas. Its failures are not due to inept leadership, but to legal paralysis. Human responsibility on the spot is replaced by thick rulebooks. Accountability is impossible under union collective bargaining agreements. So are practical management choices. Then, any self-interested person can throw a monkey wrench into a public choice — even maintaining classroom order — by threatening a lawsuit.

In the cover essay of The Ripon Forum, Philip Howard argues that democracy has been suffocated by all this bureaucracy. Democracy can't work because elected leaders have been disempowered by rigid rules and expansive rights. Frustrated Americans embrace extremist ideologies because police are unmanageable, schools are factories of failure, self-interested people pound the table for preferential rights, and taxpayer revenues are squandered in ineffective programs.

Howard proposes an aggressive three-prong platform to get government working and accountable:

1. Nonpartisan spring cleaning commissions to clean out unnecessary red tape;

2. A constitutional challenge to public union agreements which disempower democratically-elected officials;

3. Principled limits on lawsuits to prevent self-interested people from paralyzing public choices.

Surveys suggest most Americans are hungry for a practical governing vision. What do you think? The current debate is pouring acid over American culture. It's unwise to sit back and watch. America needs a new movement with a positive governing vision.

• In his introduction to the current issue of The Ripon Forum, Editor Lou Zickar describes the three-prong recommendations as "perhaps some of the most important we have featured in our pages in recent years, and are one of the reasons why we view the focus of Howard’s essay – 'Democracy vs. Bureaucracy' – as being 'the most important battle in Washington over the next four years.'"

• In The Hill, Howard recently argued that the ongoing filibuster debate provides an opportunity for Congress to focus on a neglected aspect of their job — fixing or repealing obsolete laws.

• Dr. Walter Wendler, President of West Texas A&M University, cites The Death of Common Sense in his recent column about diverse viewpoints and outcomes in the Amarillo Globe-News.

• The Progressive Policy Institute's Ben Ritz draws on our work for a recent essay in The Hill on controlling infrastructure costs.