In times of crisis, expecting an opposition party to lead the charge is a mistake. Real political movements are initiated by citizens who set the moral terms and take risks. The political party then becomes just one part of a larger coalition that it doesn't necessarily lead.

Protests, like those in Minneapolis, are effective when they generate enough moral outrage to force action from leaders. They have a time limit; their purpose is not sustained demonstration but to create a crisis that people in power must resolve through policy, as seen with LBJ and the Civil Rights Act after Selma.

While national politics can be divisive and disheartening, city-level initiatives offer hope. In a local context, people are neighbors who must collaborate, respect each other's humanity, and work towards a common goal of improving their community. This forced cooperation creates a positive, inspiring model for progress.

Major societal shifts, like universal childcare, don't start with national legislation. They begin when communities model a different way of operating. By creating local support systems and demonstrating their effectiveness, citizens provide a blueprint that can be scaled into state and national policy.

The perception of a deeply divided society is largely an artifact of a political system built on competition and elections, which forces people into two opposing camps. A system based on deliberation would reveal that most people's views are not so rigidly coherent, and it would encourage finding common ground rather than winning at all costs.

While seemingly a threat to established power, Ireland's use of citizen assemblies actually reconciled the public with the political system. By integrating lot-based democracy for contentious issues like same-sex marriage, politicians gained legitimacy, making it an ironic case where the reform strengthened the very system it was meant to supplement or replace.

Effective activism doesn't try to persuade politicians or stage a revolution. Instead, it should 'inject a retrovirus': build and run privately-funded alternative institutions (like citizens' assemblies) that operate on a different logic. By demonstrating a better way of doing things, this strategy creates demand and allows new institutional 'DNA' to spread organically.

Expecting top-down change from political party leadership is a flawed strategy. True societal transformation starts with grassroots movements and shifts in public sentiment. Political parties are reactive entities that eventually adopt agendas forced upon them by the people they seek to represent, making them followers, not initiators, of change.

Effective citizen assemblies require experts, but not in their traditional, top-down authoritative role. Experts must learn to be "on tap, not on top"—simplifying their language and responding to citizens' needs rather than dictating solutions. This creates a difficult but necessary learning curve, shifting the expert's role from a leader to a service provider.