Taking the Training Wheels off Democracy - Time to Get Rid of Superdelegates

Here we go again. Another close Democratic primary, another bitter intraparty fight over superdelegates. We have Sanders supporters crying foul, and Clinton supporters rolling their eyes. So what is it? Oligarchy or no big deal? To understand today’s debate, it’s necessary to understand the history of how things were before superdelegates, why they were created, and what has happened since.

Here’s the history: Through 1968, party insiders picked nominees in smoke filled rooms. Some states did hold primaries, binding their delegates to vote the way the people of the state voted, but they were the minority. The majority of states used the caucus system, which was far less democratic than it is today, and allowed Party insiders and elites to control the nomination process.

In the 1968 Democratic primary, Hubert Humphrey was the establishment candidate, running against several anti-Vietnam war candidates, including Senator Robert Kennedy, who was tragically assassinated in June of that year. Hubert did not bother to campaign in a single primary state, and won only caucus votes, but was nominated at the convention nonetheless. Anti-war and civil rights activists rioted outside the convention and were brutally attacked by police under orders from the Democratic mayor of Chicago. Humphrey went on to lose the general election to Richard Nixon.

After 1968, the Party did some soul searching, and introduced a number of reforms that made the Democratic primary system much more democratic, removing the excessive power of Party insiders and giving most of the power to regular rank-and-file voters. Many states, in response to the new rules, switched from caucuses to far more democratic primaries to allocate their delegates.

In the 1972 Democratic primary, under the new rules, Senator George McGovern won the nomination. McGovern was a very progressive, anti-war candidate, beloved by the left and especially the youth. But the Party elites were angry at their loss of status under the new rules (partially authored by McGovern). They had preferred Ed Muskie for the nomination, a more establishment politician, and after Muskie’s campaign fizzled, supported Hubert Humphrey despite his previous loss. They refused to give McGovern their support, either in the form of a qualified VP, fundraising, or even positive statements to the press. Some even supported Nixon in the general election. Without backing from the Party establishment, McGovern lost to Nixon by a landslide, dashing the hopes of the anti-war movement.

In the 1976 Democratic primary, an unexpected upstart senator from Georgia, Jimmy Carter, won the nomination. He also was not the Party establishment favorite, but gained more grudging support from them than McGovern had. He won a close victory and led what was, in hindsight, a very progressive Democratic presidency. But Carter made no friends in the Party establishment during his tenure as president, and in the 1980 Democratic primary had a rare challenge against a sitting Democratic president from Senator Ted Kennedy. Carter won the primary, and eventually the nomination, despite an attempt by Ted Kennedy to change the rules at the Convention to undo the will of Democratic voters. But Carter’s image was weakened by the lack of support from Party leaders and the bruising primary, as well as historical circumstance, and he lost badly to Ronald Reagan.

At this point, Party leaders had had enough of democracy. They blamed the last two losses on the new democratic system and sought to install some safeguards against the will of Democratic voters. Enter superdelegates.

Officially known as unpledged delegates, superdelegates are federal elected officials, former major elected officials such as presidents, and leaders of the Democratic Party. They get an automatic vote for the candidate of their choosing at the Democratic National Convention where the presidential nominee is chosen. Their percentage of the total number of delegates has fluctuated, from 14% when the system was implemented, up to 20% in 2008, down to 15% in this election.

Since their adoption, superdelegates have not decided a single nomination, though they become controversial whenever there’s a close race. In 2008, superdelegates were a major topic, with an early lead for Clinton, defections to Obama, and a primary race close enough that superdelegates could have decided it if they exercised their power. No one was very comfortable with that, and there was a concerted effort by Party reformers in 2010 to get rid of superdelegates.

That effort was scuttled by the DNC Rules Committee, which decided that it would never pass through the larger DNC organization, since everyone in the DNC is a superdelegate, and wouldn’t vote against their own interests. One DNC Rules Committee member, James Roosevelt, Jr.,  turned logic on its head by stating that, “Clearly, the people at the grassroots level should be the predominant voice. But if you don’t give elected officials a real voice, they are basically second-class citizens.” As a compromise, the DNC Rules Committee simply increased the total number of delegates to decrease the percentage of superdelegates from 20% to 15%.

And now here we are in 2016. The difference is that in 2008, both candidates were fairly establishment. While Clinton held an early lead in commitments from superdelegates, her advantage was 169 to 63 (3 to 1), not 359 to 8 (45 to 1) as it is in this election. As Obama gained momentum, it was not difficult for superdelegates to start defecting his way, adding to his momentum until he beat Clinton on both fronts. This time around, the superdelegate opposition to Sanders, a true outsider, is staunch and unwavering. But the basic arguments for and against superdelegates remain the same.

The main argument against superdelegates is pretty straightforward: democracy. It is an uncomfortable fact that the Party that purports to be the champion of democracy, the Party with the word “democracy” as its root, would give a group of powerful, generally wealthier and more privileged people a much more powerful vote than rank and file voters.

In 2008, over 35 million voters voted in the Democratic primary to elect 3,434 national delegates, meaning each of these delegates represented over 10,000 votes. Therefore, each of the 823 superdelegate votes, which carried equal weight as elected delegates, was worth about 10,000 regular votes. Since we won’t know overall voter participation until this primary is over, the math for 2016 isn’t yet available, but should be right in that neighborhood or worse. Think about that: Every superdelegate vote carries the same weight as 10,000 regular votes. So much for one person, one vote.

But in practice, the major harm of superdelegates takes place long before the bigwigs start filing into the National Convention. Superdelegates sway the results of primary elections by publicly “pledging” their votes to a particular candidate before the regular voters have made their choice. This can certainly bias voters who are highly engaged and educated about Party rules, if they weigh approval by Party elites heavily in their decision. But the most insidious consequence is the reporting of the superdelegate pledges in the press, and how that influences voters less familiar with Party rules.

Most of the time the press either doesn’t understand or doesn’t bother to fully explain the difference between pledged delegates and superdelegates. The fact that superdelegates can and do switch allegiance, or that they have always voted with the winner of pledged delegates often goes unmentioned. So when a voter who doesn’t understand the arcane rules of the Democratic convention reads that so-and-so has a huge lead in total delegates, or superdelegates, that voter is apt to be misled into thinking the race is all but decided, and may not bother to go vote at their local caucus or primary.

On the other side of the superdelegates debate, people defending the system often point to ensuring electability of the eventual nominee. They hold up the losses of McGovern and Carter as proof that superdelegates are necessary. But these candidates may have fared better if Party elites had gotten fully behind them, or if historical circumstance had been a little kinder.

Putting all that aside, here is the record: While the no-superdelegate-system was in place, Democrats won one out of three elections. Since the superdelegate system has been in place, Democrats have won four out of eight. One third (of a very small sample) to one half, hardly conclusive. Further, in the time since we’ve had superdelegates, they have always voted for the choice of regular Democratic voters. So apparently rank-and-file voters aren’t all that bad at picking electable candidates after all.

Which brings me to my next point. Regular rank-and-file Democrats also want to win elections, and consider electability as a major factor in supporting a nominee. It is certainly plausible to suggest that we may not weigh insider status as heavily as superdelegates, but that is not necessarily a problem, as long as Party insiders are willing to follow our lead and get behind our democratically chosen candidates.

Supporters of the superdelegate system also point to a scenario in which a nominee who is far ahead in delegates has a scandal late in the campaign. In this scenario, it certainly would be useful to be able to reconsider our choice. But superdelegates are not a good way to do this. How and by whom would it be decided that the scandal was big enough to warrant overturning the democratic will of the voters? We aren’t able to take back our choices in other campaigns, and a primary campaign should be no different. It is an inherent risk of elections, and means that we must carefully vet our candidates, but is not a good excuse for propping up an undemocratic system.

There is a good argument to be had for giving Party leaders an automatic seat (if not a super vote) in the idea that Party elites should not have to go to caucuses and compete against regular voters to get a seat at the convention. It would certainly be awkward for President Obama to have to go to the D.C. caucus and compete with regular Democrats for a seat at the Convention, and it would also be wrong for him not to be at the Convention. I believe this is what Debbie Wasserman Schultz was trying to say in her much-maligned statement about Party elites not having to compete with grassroots activists.

But there’s an easy solution to that problem that does not involve giving Party leaders super votes. We can reserve delegate seats for Party leaders (assuming a reasonable definition of “party leader” that is a good deal more restrictive than it is today), but make them go as pledged delegates from their respective states. Party leaders get their place at the Convention, while still respecting the basic democratic principle of one person one vote.

Finally, while superdelegates have historically always ended up voting as the rank-and-file voters voted, doesn’t mean they always will. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, has predicted that in a primary race where an establishment favored candidate loses the pledged delegate race by less than 5% to an establishment unfavored candidate, it is possible that superdelegates would in fact swing the vote in favor of the loser of the pledged delegate race. It would be hard to overstate how damaging and divisive to the Party that would be.

The superdelegate system is an unnecessary time bomb that predictably causes friction and division every time there’s a close Democratic primary. It causes far more problems than it solves, and weakens the position of Democrats when we advocate for greater democracy in other areas. How can we claim the moral high ground with this undemocratic system enshrined in our own nomination process? It’s time for the Democratic Party to take the training wheels off democracy and get rid of superdelegates.

Clinton supporters, your candidate just bragged about the approval of Henry Kissinger, can we talk about this?

Last night towards the end of the Democratic debate, Clinton trotted out the approval of Henry Kissinger to bolster her foreign policy credentials. I almost fell off my chair. Kissinger was - and probably still is - a peddler of the most murderous, human-rights-violating foreign policy doctrine the world has ever seen. The fact that he is being accepted, by progressives no less, as some kind of influential elder statesman is outrageous. He should be tried for crimes against humanity, not bragged about as an endorsement. Furthermore, the embrace of Kissinger’s approach to foreign policy by Clinton speaks volumes about her progressive moral compass in general.

A little primer on what Kissinger actually did is in order, since apparently progressives have forgotten. Kissinger was the United States National Security Advisor and Secretary of State between the years of 1969 and 1977, under Nixon and Ford. You might recall this was a divisive time in American history with Republicans embarking on foreign policy adventures around the world to slaughter communists with brown skin, using poor and brown Americans as cannon fodder, and American youth basically freaking out over it. You can thank Henry Kissinger.  

Kissinger was essentially a right winger who narrowly defined American interests as capitalist corporate interests, and used the full force of the American military to pursue those interests, international law and human rights be damned. He supported violent dictators, overthrew democratically elected leaders too far left for his taste, probably had something to do with a few assassinations, and is definitely culpable for millions of innocent civilian deaths. Here is a list of nations where his policy decisions led directly to massive genocide: Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, East Timor and Chile. And that is not an exhaustive list. The catchy name for this in foreign policy circles is “Realpolitik” because “crimes against humanity” would be too honest.

My heart literally sank when I heard Clinton mention his name. I did not think this was an issue of debate within the Democratic Party. I thought Democrats supported human rights and the rule of law. What have we come to?

What say you, Clinton supporters? You admire her for her hard-nosed foreign policy decisions? She has to be a hawk because she’s a woman? Okay, you asked for it. This embrace of Realpolitik foreign policy is itself part of a larger Democratic Realpolitik approach to politics in general. The essence of Realpolitik is the abandonment of principles in pursuit of raw self-interest. Democrats in general, and Clinton in particular, have a habit of supporting progressive principles when it’s beneficial and abandoning them when it’s not. Democrats, including Clinton, have a habit of ceding moral and linguistic ground to Republicans and basically failing to fight fiercely for progressive principles and those they protect, out of fear of electoral defeat. Hence “socialism” - the basis of progressive morality - became a dirty word. Until Sanders brought it back.

Sanders’ appeal lies in his principled approach to politics. He fights for progressive values and those they protect no matter what. He’s said the same thing for 50 years, in times of electoral victory and defeat, when it made him deeply unpopular, and now, when it’s finally working out in his favor. And he's a true progressive on foreign policy, a supporter of human rights and international law, not a Kissinger fan. I support Sanders over Clinton because, among other things, she just legitimized the biggest war criminal and violator of progressive principles of the 20th century in the interest of her own electoral success. Oh, and she also supports the death penalty, putting her in good company with the Saudi royal family. Not cool.

I'm With Him

Some women who support Hillary Clinton feel deeply, personally, betrayed that a big chunk of progressives prefer Bernie Sanders. They think she is having a harder time than is fair because of her gender. This post is written in response to this article: 

An All Caps Explosion of Feelings Regarding the Liberal Backlash Against Hillary Clinton

I agree that gender plays a role in Hillary Clinton’s popularity and her unpopularity. I think probably many or most of her right wing detractors consider her gender a point against her. Probably some of the independents too. I’m not so sure about progressives. Probably some progressives harbor unconscious dislike of her based on her gender. But I think, for the vast majority of progressives, her gender counts in her favor, especially amongst female progressives.

I know it counts in her favor for me, but I still prefer Bernie Sanders. Gender is just one point amongst many. And Sanders’ many points in his favor include strong, consistent progressive principles. Standing up for his principles even when they made him deeply unpopular, a joke, an outcast. For decades he has been the lone socialist in Congress. Yes, Hillary Clinton has been attacked and ridiculed, but so has Bernie Sanders. And - what’s more - he’s been ignored.

What makes Sanders’ likeable is precisely the fact that he has never tried to be likeable. He’s spent his entire life being mocked and ignored while he stood up for his principles, stood up for us, even when we weren’t watching and didn’t care. And now, suddenly, people see him for what he is and yes, we LIKE him. We like him for his bravery, consistency, and strong progressive moral compass that has had him cast extremely unpopular and politically risky votes without concern for his own reputation and likeability.

The above article claims it would be impossible for a woman to act like Sanders’ and get anywhere, and excuse her wavering on progressive principles based on that. I don’t agree. I strongly disagree. And to explain and excuse a woman’s decisions based on her gender does a disservice to us all. We are big girls and we can take responsibility for our own decisions, and hold other women responsible for theirs. No free passes.

This discussion has also led me to examine why I am, admittedly, so much more emotionally drawn to Sanders, just as Clinton supporters are emotionally drawn to her. I think it has to do with which injustice we feel most hurt by. I am a woman, but I have always felt the weight of class much more keenly. I am a lower, or working class female, so perhaps that is why. I’d wager, in fact I know from the polls, that a lot of the women who so passionately support Hillary are not poor, and therefore of course gender is going to be the injustice they feel most keenly.

Yes, I’ve been disrespected, talked down to, probably paid less over my gender. But for me that is nothing compared to the feeling of poverty, which I’ve moved into and out of a few times in my life. I grew up in a working class household and I remember the panics over money, the discussions and fights about what we could afford. I am still enraged when I think about it. This during Bill Clinton’s presidency. I remember the social weight of class, the middle class friends and the shame of working class clothes, working class cars, working class homes. I remember how different I felt from other students at the private college I started out at, how far ahead of me they were with their private and elite public school educations, how much more at home I felt at a state college. I remember the lack of confidence in elite places, schools, employment situations. The set of unspoken things that made higher class people feel at ease. I know working class single mothers who cannot get a god damned break. I know how student debt has stunted and twisted my life path. Class is a reality, and it sucks. I remember losing a job at a bad time in rural Maine and the chronic feeling of panic that set in, just a constant underlying anxiety that made it hard to function. The idea that I might not make rent, might lose my apartment, the shame, have to move in with my parents...It’s a feeling of a wolf at the door, and I simply do not believe that Clinton gets that in the way the Sanders does. She does not know what it’s like to be poor, and her priorities and policy positions have shown that. I think a lot of her supporters, as shown in the polls, also do not know what it’s like to be poor, and therefore they are enraged that progressives would dare to turn their back on the injustice of gender by preferring a male candidate.

I do think some injustices are more urgent than others, and I believe that class is the most important injustice to address right now. It is the most physically and emotionally abusive, and it is the weapon with which other injustices are expressed. Women suffer economically, minorities suffer economically. In other ways too, but the economic suffering is the worse, and the most concrete thing that we can fix. I am not worried that women are making progress and getting closer and closer to true equality. I see it happening. I see female senators and governors and CEOs. I see the same for race. We’re making progress. I see the same for sexual orientation and gender identity. Sanders is also great on all of these injustices. Clinton's main claim to being better on gender is simply her gender. However, Sanders is far and away the best candidate on class injustice. The class problem is inextricably linked to the wealthy funding our political system, and Sanders is the only candidate NOT funded by the wealthy, and seeking to truly fix that problem.

I do not see the class problem getting better, I see it holding steady and getting worse. I want someone who cares about that, cares about that first, and will help us, instead of abandon us as Democrats have done for the past 30 years. They abandon us because they are funded by the people who want to hold us down, and Clinton looks like more of the same. We are never going to get a candidate who will go to war for the poor as long as they are funded by the rich. So, even though I am a woman, I prefer the male candidate for the Democratic nomination because he is running on a platform of really, truly speaking the truth about the suffering this shitty, “neoliberal,” capitalist economy that the Clintons helped build has unleashed on the poor and working classes of this country and the world. We are so tired of this, and tired of voting for Democratic candidates who betray progressive principles by never speaking of them for fear of their own electability, who betray us by voting against progressive principles to boost their own reputations with funders, and tired of the system, which perpetuates it. We want to flip this table over, and Bernie Sanders is our best chance to do that. I’m with him.

PS - I didn't write this in all caps because I think we should be able to express our passionate opinions without yelling. And I'm not "noping" out of the comments, because I think it's important that progressives talk about this.

Advice to Liberals on Dealing with Donald Trump

Pop quiz: when the big, dumb bully in grade school shouts some asinine insult at you, what do you do? Has it ever been a successful strategy to get huffy? Huffy people look ridiculous, and therefore amusing. Has it ever been an effective strategy to make a reasonable argument about why the asinine insult is way off base? No, you sound like a weakling nerd.

So when liberals start petitions and take out ads in the NY Times and generally get huffy over things Donald Trump says, you’re helping him. He loves that. It makes him look powerful in the eyes of the dummies who listen to him. Can we all just agree that when Donald Trump says some ridiculous, terrible, asinine crap to get liberals riled up, we do the following:

1. Call him an asshat
2. Be cool

Really. I think “asshat” is the solution to the whole Donald Trump problem. Don’t say “America was founded on religious equality” or “He’s not qualified to be president” or really anything. Those are sentences, and sentences are not effective in the kind of primitive power display situations he initiates. It’s not about ideas, it’s about power. Derision and dismissal are good, though. Just say “asshat” and move on. You need to make the bully look ridiculous instead of yourself. This is done through humor. Quick, dismissive humor. 

Science

Science. I find myself surrounded by people who don’t believe in science. Believe isn’t even the right word. Science is the only thing you don’t have to believe in, that’s the beauty of it. It is so fundamental to me, that I find myself at a loss of words to explain it. People think science is just one more thing to believe, that Buddhism or Catholocism or Astrology are all equally valid. How to explain the qualitative difference between science and belief systems?

Science makes as few assumptions as possible, and acknowledges the ones it does make. It makes only those assumptions necessary to function – the ones that without them we would just never get out of bed. Such as that there is an external and knowable outer reality. Other people exist. That kind of thing. Of course you can question all that, and sometimes science even does, but not to the extent that it paralyzes you. And even while making these base, necessary assumptions, science acknowledges that they are assumptions.

Science is not a set of facts. Science is a process. It is continually humble, continually questioning its own discoveries. Just because science changes, makes new discoveries that replace old ones, does not mean it’s unreliable. It means it’s honest.

There is a prejudice against science in popular thought. Even amongst progressives, strangely. Religious conservatives are of course the enemy of science, as always. But now it seems that there is a deep misunderstanding of what science is, and why it is deeply important…Why it is the ally and a necessary element of progressive change. Somehow science itself has become equated with “the man,” with power, greed, capitalism. Hard to make people see the distinction between science itself – a way of thought, truth seeking over blind belief – and the fruits of capitalist application of science. There is an impatience, maybe, a desire to believe in spiritualism, in things beyond what science has documented, proven. We may intuit, and feel, that there is something greater than what science has already documented. But that’s no reason to reject science. If people would just be patient, science will probably eventually discover things that will far surpass what we’ve made up in our desire to believe in something greater than ourselves. People have forgotten that science is what took us out of the dark ages. What freed our minds. What allowed us to start questioning everything, stop making assumptions, blindly accepting what we are told by authority.

Thoughts on plastic

A material that everything can be made out of. It has largely replaced all other materials. It is made from a non-renewable resource. We are taking a valuable, limited resource –oil - and turning it into temporarily useful (and often not all that useful) objects that quickly become trash. We are wasting something precious. Also, we are damaging the environment by turning something that is within nature's many finely tuned and highly evolved cycles - oil - into something that is outside of most of these cycles, and therefore highly destructive of them - plastic.

Who's responsible for this? Well, no one. There is no one making the decisions on the scale of the world, which is the scale of oil. When there is no one else in charge, the fall back is the free market, the invisible hand. The free market is supposed to be a logical way of distributing resources. But what's logical about this? Plastic, in and of itself, is not bad, but for god sake, save the plastic for what it's really good for. Things that it's really the only good material for. Like...the space program. Greenhouses. Maybe galoshes. And make it recyclable. Make recycling it mandatory. What we need is some form of world government that is able to make logical choices about our resources in the long-term interests of humanity in general. In the mean time…

Here's how I deal with plastic: I try to act like it doesn't exist. First of all, I avoid buying anything plastic or packaged in plastic at all costs. And if I am at the store and want to buy something unpackaged but didn’t bring a container with me, I don’t buy it. If I’m out and about and I want a coffee to go, but I don’t have a container, I don’t have coffee. Or I make the time to sit down and drink it there in a reusable container. I find that if I take advantage of the convenience of plastic and tell myself I’ll remember my container next time, I never do. But if I go without once or twice, I sure do remember then. Also, I try to imagine that there is no dump. On a large scale, that’s true. We’re all living with our trash. But I try to imagine it on a personal scale. What if I couldn’t rid myself of all the things I want to throw away? I would buy a lot less, and be more careful about what I bought – will it last? Will it decompose once I’m done with it? I would be more careful about what I threw away. Can I use this longer? Can I find another use for it? I try to act like that’s the case. I may put it into actual practice once I have my own land. Rather than throwing things away, I’ll have a long-term compost pile.

Waldo County Homesteaders' Community Land Trust

WALDO COUNTY BACK-TO-THE LAND TRUST MANIFESTO:

Here are some thoughts on this land trust thing I've been mulling over...

I want to homestead. By homestead, I mean build a small off-grid cabin and garden. I would need 1-2 acres to do this, plus some wild areas to bang around in and forage.

I am having trouble finding a place to do that. The most traditional method would be to buy a piece of land. I can afford a down payment for a small parcel and handle the mortgage. But I wouldn’t have much money left to build anything. And I don’t want a small parcel in the midst of a bunch of other small parcels, which might not agree with or develop in a way conducive with my way of life. I also can’t afford to buy anything big enough to own my own wild space.

The problem is this. Back-to-the-landers came to the Belfast area back in the 70s and 80s. Their presence made this area cool. Waldo County is a great place to homestead. MOFGA, Unity College, the Belfast Co-op, Fedco. But this is changing. There is pressure for more corporate development, along the lines of MBNA, the hospital, Job Lots, etc. As these kinds of “amenities” come to this area, land prices will likely escalate. This will price out the young, the artistic, the eccentric, and those who simply are unwilling or unable to do what it takes to make money in our present system. They will be replaced with the old, the well-off, the main stream. And the character of this place will be lost.

We need to take control of what is being done with the land. Without some sort of intervention, the private real estate market dictates our development, in the above way. We can wait around or agitate for government to intervene and do something, though the likelihood of that seems slight. Government occasionally sets aside land for a park, but there is little or no government intervention having to do with how people are able to obtain and live on the land.

The alternative is to organize and do it ourselves. The way that private citizens can obtain land and then dedicate it to a higher purpose is through the mechanism of community land trusts. Community land trusts are non-profit organizations. CLTs obtain land to use for a mission in perpetuity, thereby permanently removing it from the private real estate market. CLTs are well established and wide spread mechanisms for obtaining and using land for higher purposes. For instance, there are a number of CLTs in the area that obtain land for wilderness preservation – Coastal Mountains Land Trust for example. Maine Farmland Trust’s mission is to encourage agriculture as a viable economic pursuit in Maine, and they obtain land for that purpose. It is sold or leased to would-be farmers at below market rates. They remove land from the private market and distribute it in ways that further their mission. In many urban areas CLTs are used to provide affordable housing.

My hope is that there is a place in Waldo County for another kind of land trust, between wilderness preservation and commercial farming. The mission of this trust would be to obtain land and make it affordably available to (low-income?) people for sustainable living. The parcels could be single lots, or big parcels that are split up into separate leaseholds. The basic framework would look like this: People can rent anywhere from 1-5 acres from the trust, for a low, per acre amount ($100 an acre for example). They can have a simple small homestead, or rent more for small scale farming, etc. With large enough parcels, a portion could be set aside as wild space for recreation, foraging, sustainable wood harvesting, etc. There is no down payment, no big up-front cash requirement. The reason for this is that people can then save their capital for setting up their homestead. The leases are long-term and basically permanent (99 year), as long as they live within a set of rules that ensures sustainable development. I imagine the rules to look something like this:

- a square footage limitation on dwelling size (maybe 1 person = 600 square feet, 100 square feet per additional person

- off grid (people can provide their own power through solar, wind, etc.)

- no pesticide use – strictly organic gardening and farming

- no septic systems – gray water and composting toilet systems only

The major hurdling blocks to going back to a simple way of life are the usual requirement in the private market of a big down payment and high overhead, depending on the price of the land and the resulting mortgage. The land trust with long-term lease scenario eliminates both of these. There is no down-payment, and rents are kept as low as possible (how to determine rent is a question – enough to cover taxes/maintenance? What about money for the land trust to acquire more land? Is there a way to determine an amount that allows for some profit to go back towards the mission without defeating the mission?...). People may actually pay more over their lifetime, since there is nothing to “pay off” as with a mortgage, just an ongoing rent. But this a pretty good trade considering the benefit: people are enabled to live a homesteading lifestyle immediately, without a years-long delay to acquire the capital for a down payment and then many more years of full time work to pay off a mortgage.

This trust would basically be a form of “affordable housing” – but instead it’s affordable land for sustainable living.