The upcoming elections are critical and the DNC and Democratic establishment are worthless in this fight. After the passage of the objectively evil HR 1 designed to kill poor people to build a secret police force and make rich people richer the Democrats were huddling to “confer on messaging”. I expect a “strongly worded letter” is forthcoming.
It is not enough to be “not Trump and not Republicans” in the next election. We need a succinct platform that shows vision and we need to find and support Dems that pledge to support it even when — especially when — those votes are hard. We need to stop being hobbled by the Leiberman and Manchins we’re told we need to support despite their constant betrayals of our core values.
Here is my stab at the kinds of things I think we need to openly and loudly stand for to reverse the course away from democracy we are currently on.
Work to improve the lives and economics of everyday Americans and rebuild a strong middle class:
- Repeal the Trump taxes cuts and implement a wealth tax, remove exceptions like carried interest and implement a top tax rate over a million more in-line with historic norms (65%+)
- Implement a Alternative Minimum Tax for Corporate taxes at a minimum rate
- Reinstate the cuts to SNAP, Medicaid and then expand these programs
- Reinstate the Child Tax Credit that paid parents who could not take tax advantage
- Raise the Federal Minimum wage for the first time 2009
- Strengthen consumer and worker protections agencies
- Reform student loans and work towards affordable higher education
- Prosecute companies for price manipulation and work to prevent/break-up monopolies
- Address the high cost of housing with rent support, first time home buyer credits and limiting corporate private home ownership
- Protected Maternity, Paternity and Family care leave
Create Single Payer healthcare:
- Expand Medicare until it covers all Americans as a path to Single Payer Healthcare
- Use the power of single payer healthcare to bring drug prices under control
- Remove the burden of healthcare management from businesses
(We need this not only because the American Healthcare System is deeply broken but also to prove to voters that large, hard issues that clash with entrenched corporate interests can be solved.)
Codify court rulings into Federal law so that rights of all citizens are guaranteed:
- Acknowledge all marriages and the rights of people to marry regardless of race or gender
- Access to birth control and abortion
- Voting rights and standards for poll access, mail-in and voter registration across all states and elections
Reform the Supreme Court:
- Impeach Clarence Thomas for corruption, conduct and failure to recuse
- Impeach Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch for lying to Congress during their nomination hearings
- Create an strict income and conflict of interest code of conduct for all Justices with enforcement mechanisms
- Term limit Supreme Court Justices and create explicit nomination and voting time limits
Reform voting and get money out of politics:
- Create Federal law overturning Citizens United
- Legislation to limit gerrymandering and improve citizen representation
- End the practice of federal candidates taking corporate PAC money
- Ban Foreign Corporate Influence in American Elections
- Close the Loopholes for Single Candidate Super PACs
- Require donor disclosure and end dark money
- Give the FEC real enforcement powers
- Forbid members of Congress from trading stocks
For far too long we’ve allowed court rulings to protect hard won civil rights and not make the hard votes codifying them into Federal Law where they safe from rogue courts. We have allowed ourselves to be “Overton windowed” away from social and economic policy that works to build and support the middle class and these things need to stop. It’s crazy that American Progressives are considered “absolutely crazy” for saying we should have the basic things every other industrialized country has had for decades.
We need to stand up for the things we really believe in not what we’re told is “politically viable right now”. All that has lead us into the wilderness that has allowed this evil to flourish in our lack of clear vision and policy.
Happy July 4th everyone.
