We must remove Trump from power. That is obvious. But that will not be enough to preserve America's Democracy. Unless the USA carries out major reforms of its political system, the danger from anti-democratic forces will remain high.
WHY? Democracy in the US is not firmly rooted, and never has been. Trump has built on anti-democratic policies and machinations dating back decades or more, some to the very beginnings of the USA. Many of them exist at the state rather than federal level. A root and branch strategy is needed to eliminate these dangers.
Many people will say the changes I suggest are impossible. And it will be a huge struggle to achieve any of them. But many people said that all men, and later all women, could never get the vote. Many people said slavery could never be eliminated.
Britain was the greatest slave trading nation in history, but after grass roots campaigns, Parliament abolished slavery in the British colonies in 1833. The US required a bloody civil war in the 1860s to accomplish emancipation. The dust has never settled on that conflict or the racism that continues to motivate a large part of the population.
I would like to see the people of the US engage in something like the Chartist Movement which emerged in Britain in the 1830s and 1840s. It took its name from "The People's Charter."
Its aim was to establish a working democracy. Of its six demands, five became law by the early 20th century. The sixth, for annual elections to Parliament, is unlikely to ever be achieved because of its impracticality. Politics is constant enough.
The Chartists did not include women in their vision of democracy but that demand surfaced almost immediately, and women got the vote in two stages, in 1918 and 1928.
I have drawn up a badly needed People's Charter for the USA. Instead of six points it has twelve:
- 1. Abolish the Electoral College, an anti-democratic institution that has empowered American reactionaries since 1789. Replace it with the National Popular Vote. People in other countries find the Electoral College bewildering and idiotic, because it is.
- 2. Prohibit gerrymandering. Create an independent, non-partisan commission to draw up boundaries of congressional constituencies. This is done in other countries.
- 3. Overturn the obscene Citizens United decision of SCOTUS. It is responsible for hugely increasing the influence of big money in elections. Nothing like this exists in other democracies.
- 4. Prohibit political ads. They are virtually useless as information, misleading, insulting, and damned annoying. Prohibited in most democratic countries.
- 5. Introduce proportional representation or ranked voting to end the stranglehold of the corrupt two-party system. Some people will argue that this would make efficient government impossible. Ask yourself, is what have now efficient?
- 6. Make the Senate representative of the country. It gives the less populated states collectively far more power than the most populated. California with 40 million people and Wyoming with only half a million have the same number of senators. This is both absurd and grossly undemocratic.
- 7. Make voting simple, safe, and convenient. Voting is an obligation. It should not be a survival test, torture, or a danger. Eliminate voter suppression of all kinds. Other countries do not do things this perverse way.
- 8. Fund public education adequately and fairly. Public college and university education should be free or cheap, as it was when I went to state universities in the late 60s and early 70s. Why are we short-changing our children and dumbing down our voters? You know why.
- 9. Establish a national, affordable health care plan that covers everyone. The present for profit system is a disgrace and an international laughingstock. The system costs the US twice as much as in other developed nations, and the results are worse in terms of mortality and morbidity. Scores of millions are uncovered or inadequately covered. Health insurance must be universal and separated from employment, which turns workers into virtual serfs.
- 10. Require the payment of a living (not minimum) wage for all adult workers. This should vary according to local living costs. It costs a lot more to live in California than in North Dakota. Why should workers have to have two or even three jobs to make ends meet?
- 11. Reduce the period between the election of the president and the inauguration to two or three weeks, preferably less. This would have minimized Trump's ability to create havoc after the "stolen election" of 2020. In the UK and many countries, a new government generally takes over immediately after the election. This can be done because the parties have already selected the members of the cabinet and other ministers. In the US the cabinet is not selected until after the election, and often contains unpleasant surprises.
- 12. Reform the judiciary. Judges should be selected by professional bodies, not by presidents and Congress. This includes the Supreme Court, whose bias towards Trump is flagrant and dangerous. Justices of the SCOTUS and all judges should serve fixed terms, not for life. Ten years max. They should operate according to a code of ethics established by an independent board of legal and political scholars. The number of justices, currently nine, should be fixed in law at nine, or another number. They should not be the president's lapdogs.
No comments:
Post a Comment