Much of my working life has been dedicated to trying to transform what’s politically possible in the United States. The stakes for my country at this precise moment in time couldn’t be higher.

As I write this from my hotel room in Sydney, much of the world is transfixed by the quasi-cinematic suspense of our upcoming presidential election. So, why have I decided to take weeks out of my schedule to fly halfway around the world to meet with dozens of Australian volunteers?

For the past fortnight, I’ve embarked on a listening and learning tour with some of the people who power Australia’s community independents movement.

Some of these people were veterans, rolling up their sleeves for the next election, while others were just getting started on their journey as change-makers. They hailed from the inner city, coastal towns and regional communities. A few were professional organisers, but the overwhelming majority were unpaid volunteers, many of whom had no previous political experience.

Fed up with major parties

But everyone I met with had two things in common: They were fed up with Australia’s major parties and they were already hard at work in their communities, inspiring their friends and neighbours to believe better representation is possible.

Worldwide, voters are walking away from establishment politics. I believe people everywhere, including the US, are hungry for a new way of doing politics. But, as far as I know, Australia is the only country where communities are rallying behind independents and successfully winning elections.

And that is precisely the reason I wanted to come and see Australia’s community independents movement in action. Because people-powered movements here are achieving something I’ve never seen before.

Organiser and political strategist Zack Exley. Photo: Supplied/X

In 2016, Bernie Sanders mobilised ordinary Americans in unprecedented numbers with his populist message. We ran our campaign with a new, high-tech model of decentralised power that saw hundreds of thousands of volunteers entrusted with real responsibility and autonomy.

It was this model that also drove the Justice Democrats’ Brand New Congress initiative, which I helped start. It elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She was, at the time, just 28-years-old and a bartender. She ran on a platform of economic, environmental, gender, and racial justice that spoke to the hopes of real New Yorkers and toppled the second most powerful Democrat in Congress.

Change is too slow

But, ultimately, Bernie didn’t win the Democratic nomination. And, despite a new wave of young Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, the party’s political priorities are not transforming anywhere near quickly enough to meet the challenges of climate change and endemic political disillusionment.

Which is why what is happening in Australia is so exciting to me.

Nowhere else in the world are independent community movements winning so much ground so quickly. And, if this trend continues, the influence of community independents on your parliament will be extraordinary.

Australia is an organiser’s paradise of hundreds of eager volunteers in neat, independently mapped electorates of approximately 100,000 voters, and an elegant preferential voting system. This makes it possible for good ideas, supported by smart field organising, to gain ground.

In my time here, I’ve learned many things, including how to correctly pronounce “Indi”, the seat won by independent Cathy McGowan in 2013. The community campaign to elect McGowan imported the model of community organising at digital scale that was pioneered during the Obama campaign. It was the first of many in Australia.

That same model has since won eight more seats in your federal parliament, including those of two former prime ministers and the federal treasurer. Seven of those eight additional seats were won at the last federal election, and at least four other communities came very close to victory. Now, there are more than 20 community groups around the country looking to walk the same path.

It has been a privilege to see some of this movement in action and meet the everyday people who are, in my humble opinion, pioneering the most exciting electoral impact anywhere in the world.

In November, my countrymen will go to the ballot box. It has no right to be a nail-biter, and yet the world will be forced to watch with bated breath. There are many, many factors that have played into the dismal state of American politics, but perhaps the most obvious one is that our two-party system has failed so miserably in championing the interests of the people it supposedly represents.

In this, the Australian and American political establishment find common ground. Republicans, Democrats, the Labor Party and the Coalition alike are failing to urgently mitigate the consequences of climate change, or to rectify the dangers of income and wealth inequality.

But while the American system has seen the inevitable disenfranchisement this breeds fester into something that threatens us all, Australian people are on track to transform it into true grassroots organising and real political change.

To the people from the community independents movement who so generously shared their experiences with me these past few weeks – thank you. On the day of your next federal election, I’ll wake up at an ungodly hour on the other side of the world, cross my fingers, and eagerly watch your results roll in – regardless of my own President.

Zack Exley is an internationally renowned organiser and political strategist who has worked on Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaigns. He currently leads an economic policy think tank called New Consensus and has been involved in launching and shaping the Green New Deal. He is in Australia on his own account and on his own initiative. He observed the success of the community independent phenomenon from afar and wants to see what lessons he can take back to the US to give the community the representatives they want.