Now in development: PRESIDENT-ELECT, our Competition Show for Presidential Candidates. Find out more!
Press
High-stakes election spending, guns at the polls and a Twitter exodus. Is this crowd-sourced app what voters want instead?
Given the record amount of money spent this midterm election season, mostly by political heavyweights, and with very real fears that any outcome of Tuesday’s tally could be protested, even with violence, is it any wonder many would-be voters feel left out entirely?
That’s a pain point that tech-minded entrepreneurs, and a board with members from both political parties and independents, think they might solve by crowdsourcing ideas for issues and candidates.
How Business Can Help Combat Polarization
It is chilling to see how numb we’ve become to the increasing threat we face — to our national security, economic stability, public health, and the integrity of our democracy — from political polarization.
There is an urgent choice we need to make as Americans: to be immobilized by the depth and enormity of our differences, both real and imagined, or to seize the opportunities presented by each new crisis to reverse this vicious cycle. We can use many of the same forces that brought us here to get ourselves out, but first we must wake up and confront the facts.
The evidence for the severity of this problem is all around us. As if all the shouting on social media isn’t enough, consider the studies of congressional voting activity that show our government to be more polarized than it was in the period just after the Civil War.
Can We Really Know if Our Presidents are Fit for Office?
After the tragic end of the 20 year war in Afghanistan, news articles discussing the mental fitness of the president of the United States have emerged. Questioning whether or not someone is competent enough to function as president seems almost passé at this point. Former President George W. Bush was often criticized for not being intelligent enough while former President Barack Obama was viewed as an inexperienced candidate.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former President Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden have all been accused of being too old to hold office. Additionally, the trend of inexperienced celebrities converting their fan bases to voter bases increases the likelihood that suspicions of presidential fitness will continue to be a common topic of political conversation.
What if TV programs united Americans rather than divided us? Here's how we plan to try.
Few would disagree that our nation is suffering from political and cultural divisions that threaten its very existence. Most of us agree the insular and siloed ways we are currently getting our information is creating and making this division exponentially worse.
We recently launched our socially responsible company with a mission to give Americans the vision and tools to turn this trend around. MainStream Nation is developing entertainment for national television that focuses on political and social solutions with direction from users of our companion mobile app. By producing interactive shows on topics like racial equality and presidential politics, we strive to create an “arena of ideas” that allows people from all sides of the ideological spectrum to listen to each other and find solutions together.