The authoritative base

For a system of popular authority to work, the citizen's authority needs to be supplemented by the means to exercise that authority. 

For that reason, every citizen in the constitutional state has the right to counsel. The Miranda warning memorializes that authority, that ability to wield power within the judicial system. 

We should build other systems of broadly distributed power-wielding. Campaign finance laws that give every voter money to support candidates, carbon credits, medical and educational credits – these are all authority enhancements that fortify the authoritative base on which the ordinary American citizen rests his political identity.