Dump Trump! Then Reform the System that Made Him Possible

 

We must defeat Trump again. That is obvious. But that will not be enough to preserve America's Democracy. His supporters and enablers will remain. Unless the USA carries out major reforms of its political system, the danger from anti-democratic movements will remain high. 

In the last election, in 2020, if a few thousand votes had gone the other way in several states, Trump would have won the election, even though Biden got almost seven million more votes. How is this possible? Because democracy in the US is not firmly rooted, and never has been. 

The Trump regime built on anti-democratic policies and machinations dating back decades or more, some to the very beginnings of the country. 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 massive grass roots campaigns, Parliament abolished the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in the British colonies in 1833. The US required a bloody civil war to accomplish emancipation.

The Chartist Movement in Britain in the 1830s and 1840s took its name from "The People's Charter." Its goal was to establish a working democracy. The rulers of the day dismissed Chartism as utopian. But of its six demands ("The Peoples' Charter"), all but one is now law. Moreover, this was accomplished without a revolution, and only minor violence. (Image: photo of Chartist Demonstration, London, 1848)

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 People's Charter for the USA: 

• 1.       Abolish the Electoral College, the anti-democratic gift that has empowered American reactionaries since slavery times. Replace it with the National Popular Vote. 
• 
  
• 2.       End gerrymandering in the states. Create an independent, non-partisan commission to draw up boundaries of congressional constituencies. This is done in the UK and 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 or untrue, insulting, and damned annoying. 
• 
  
• 5.       Introduce proportional representation or ranked voting to end the stranglehold of the 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. 
• 
  
• 8.      Fund public education adequately and fairly. Public college and university education should be free or cheap, as it was when I went to college and university in the late 60s and early 70s. Why are we shortchanging our children and dumbing down our voters? 
• 
  
• 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 poorly covered. Health insurance must be 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.
• 
  
• 11.     Reduce the period between the election of the president and the inauguration to two weeks at most. This would have minimized Trump's ability to create havoc. 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.
• 
  
• 12.     Reform the judiciary. Judges should be selected by professional bodies, not by politicians. 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. They should operate according to a code of ethics. The number of justices, currently nine, should be fixed in law.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks!