Most Americans suspect government listens to the wealthy and well-connected more than to them. The evidence backs the hunch: across nearly 1,800 policy decisions, once you account for what economic elites and organized interest groups want, the average citizen's own preferences have almost no independent effect on what government does. That's the performance problem, measured — and a big part of why trust runs so low. The question underneath is the plainest one: does government work as promised — for the people, or only for the well-connected?

Where people across the spectrum agree is on integrity — a government that lives by the rules it sets for everyone else. Holding Supreme Court justices to the same ethics code as other judges (85%) and term limits for Congress (82%) both draw supermajorities in both parties, because nobody, left or right, thinks the powerful should get a private set of rules.

The worry here is simple: that political power follows money instead of votes. The evidence is stark — across nearly 1,800 policy decisions, what the affluent want closely tracks what becomes law, while the average voter's independent influence is close to zero. Money, not votes, moving outcomes.

Who a fix can target: the donor (individual or corporate), the middleman (PACs, lobbyists), and the candidate or official.

The strongest, least partisan ground is transparency — Republicans back disclosing political money at 74–85%. It's also the most durable, because disclosure laws are written to survive court challenges. A constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United is popular (about two-thirds of those who take a side), but amending the Constitution is a steep hill — and history shows why the fix has to be built to last: Congress did pass campaign-finance reform in 2002 (McCain-Feingold), and the Supreme Court struck it down in 2010. Public financing, by contrast, doesn't yet clear the bar — a real frustration without an agreed fix.

The problem here isn't only cost — it's that we pay more and get less. The U.S. spends nearly twice as much per person as comparable wealthy countries ($14,775 vs. $7,860) and yet lives 3.7 years less (79.0 vs. 82.7). So ask it plainly: does the most expensive health system in the world work as promised? On these numbers, no. Every policy here aims at closing that gap.

The common thread is value — you should get what you pay for. That's why agreement crosses party lines on the concrete fixes: capping drug prices, banning surprise medical bills, protecting people with pre-existing conditions. One genuine wedge sits outside this plank — abortion coverage — so the coverage items here are the ones both sides can actually back.

Immigration is the country's loudest fight and the one with the least apparent agreement. But underneath the identity battles is a question both sides answer the same way: does the system work as promised? Right now it doesn't — the immigration courts are sitting on 3.8 million pending cases, with waits around four years. Start from whether the system works, and the common ground appears.

The surprise is how much agreement appears once the question is simply whether it works. Even hiring more immigration judges and staff to clear the backlog draws 73% of Republicans — because people experience the backlog as broken order, not partisan overreach. And even the status of the undocumented, long treated as untouchable, clears when it's concrete: a path to citizenship for Dreamers draws 76% of Republicans. The one discipline this plank keeps is holding security and order together — drop either half and it reads as coded to one side.

This isn't about fairness or redistribution — that's not where the consensus is — it's about honesty. The problem isn't any one person using a loophole; it's a set of rules that quietly lets the connected out while telling everyone else to play it straight. A tax code full of special escape hatches, hidden fees, wages that go unpaid — the system isn't what it claims to be. The problem, measured: for decades pay rose with productivity, but since the late 1970s they've split — the value produced per hour of work has grown 59.7% while a typical worker's pay grew just 15.8%. Workers helped build those gains and once shared in them; then they stopped getting their share. And the tax code makes the same broken promise: rates are meant to rise with income, yet at the very top — where income is wealth, not wages — the effective rate bends back down, below what a top salaried worker pays.

This is why it works across the aisle: closing a loophole isn't class war — it's making the tax code mean what it says. An honest system, not equal outcomes. The clearest proof is carried interest: the specific loophole draws 70% of Republicans, while the abstract slogan “make the rich pay their fair share” splits the country 41 to 81.

Self-reliance is motivated by seeing a real chance to get ahead — and that chance is shrinking. About 90% of children born in 1940 grew up to out-earn their parents; for those born in the 1980s, only about half did. The American Dream has become a coin flip. This plank invests in people so they can stand on their own — a hand up, not a handout.

The tone is hope, not grievance. Conservatives back these as investments that build self-reliance and reduce dependency — not handouts — which is what keeps them bipartisan. The proof is in the safety-net rows: the same “higher earners pay a bit more” idea draws 79% of Republicans when it's “fund Social Security,” but far fewer when it's “tax the rich.” Same policy, honest framing. (A strong-families theme — the child tax credit, paid family leave — is a natural addition here.)

The agreed-upon problem isn't guns, and it isn't law-abiding owners — it's guns reaching people who are a danger to others or to themselves. 58% of gun deaths are suicides (people in crisis), and most of the rest is interpersonal violence. Every Platform policy aims at that dangerous access. Frame it people, not products — which is why “keep guns from dangerous people” commands supermajorities while “ban this gun” does all the arguing.

People, not products. Republican support holds for keeping guns from dangerous people — background checks 70%, red-flag laws 66% — and only falls off a cliff at banning a whole category of gun (27%). Broad agreement on the specific fixes; a narrow fight on the symbolic ones. The pattern runs through the plank: aim at the dangerous person and their circumstances, not at law-abiding owners or the gun itself — that's where the agreement is. An assault-weapons ban and a national gun registry are where Republican voters draw the line.

Americans have lost confidence in elections — fewer than 6 in 10 now trust that votes are counted accurately, down from about two-thirds a decade ago. Worse, that confidence swings with the result: after 2024, Republican faith in the count jumped once Trump won, while Democrats' slipped — the same election, judged by who came out ahead. When trust depends on winning, no outcome is broadly accepted. The way back is rules both sides trust before they know who wins.

The best way through is the mechanics, not the outcome fight — and that's where agreement already exists: photo ID (95% R / 71% D), paper-ballot backups (87 / 82), time to vote. Those are the rules people accept in advance, before they know who wins. The wedges, notably, aren't all one party's: Republicans balk at no-excuse mail voting and automatic registration; Democrats balk at roll purges, ballot-collection bans, and proof-of-citizenship. On the nuts and bolts, the fight is louder than the disagreement — and honest elections (rules that are what they claim to be, applied to everyone) are the way trust gets rebuilt. (Pew, 2025.)

This plank protects four things Americans depend on and broadly agree are worth having: the air we breathe, the lands and waters we pass on, our resilience to increasingly costly disasters, and our energy security. The stakes are concrete: the Clean Air Act already prevents ~230,000 early deaths a year (at benefits over 30× its cost); the outdoor-recreation economy runs $1.2 trillion and ~5 million jobs; billion-dollar disasters now cost ~$149B a year, about double the long-run average; and the US has been a net energy exporter since 2019. You don't have to agree on climate science to share these goals — and in the national polling, every concrete energy-and-environment policy clears two-thirds of both parties.

Agree on the goals; the fight is over causes and cures. The wedge isn't whether clean air or public lands matter — it's the man-made-climate debate and the mandate cluster (a carbon tax, fossil-fuel bans, EV mandates). But the goal doesn't require settling the cause. And even the remedies clear when they're specific rather than sloganeering: a concrete goal of cutting emissions about 2% a year draws 72% of Republicans, while “prioritize renewables over fossil fuels” — the same aim as a slogan — draws just 28%. One more sign of the pattern: Republicans underestimate their own party's support for clean-energy action by about 40 points.