What can we do?

A recent post on my facebook group asked what my solution to our political problem is. The general attitude in the post was one that I've heard so many times; despair and resignation. The basic opinion among most Americans is one of "yeah I don't like what's going on, but I can't do anything to fix it". And THAT is the biggest problem in our country. The people have forgotten that they are the most important element in our government.
As I previously posted, an uneducated electorate is one of the failings of our democracy. However, I didn't mean that the electorate has not received schooling. What I was referring to is that the electorate, for the most part, does not take it upon themselves to be knowledgeable about the issues. Polls show that many Americans misunderstand the candidates' stances, and only a fraction of Americans watch the debates. When this happens the democratic process breaks down and things become very ugly. Because people aren't looking at the issues, character attacks become extremely important and profitable for campaigns. Candidates can say something repeatedly in television ads, and it will become true. Barack Obama isn't really going to raise taxes for everyone, but if John McCain's ads say it enough it becomes truth to American citizens.
It's statistically been shown that a "dirty" election (one with lots of mud slinging and negative campaigning) leads to low voter turnout. That could explain the fact that such a small percentage of Americans actually show up on election day. When barely fifty percent of eligible voters turn up to vote, that isn't majority rule- that's a flawed system. We need to clean up our politics, and break the generalization that all politicians are crooked.
What can we do to clean up our politics? There's a debate tonight. Go watch it. Look at what the candidates attack each other with. A majority of the time they won't debate each other's policies, they'll go after the voting records of their opponents. This is because of what our legislative process has become: Congressmen don't vote on individual concepts, they vote on mega-bills that contain dozens of topics. So of course you can drag up a voting record on any candidate that shows he voted for abortion, or against tax cuts. But there are probably also bills in which he voted against abortion and for tax cuts. What we need to do is to limit the extensiveness of bills so that Congressmen can vote for what they believe in and represent, and so that the ridiculous attacks on voting records will stop.
We need to remember that we the citizens are the most important part of the United States of America. We need to change the political atmosphere in which we don't hold politicians accountable for their actions and in which we do not become involved with our governing. We need to break out of the mindset that their is nothing we can do. Our founding fathers never believed that, and they would not have wanted us to do so. You have the right, and the responsibility to become an informed and active member of our government. Watch the debate, engage your friends in discussion, or contact your local representative. These are things that we should all be doing, and encouraging our fellow citizens to do.