Forming a government “of the people, by the people, for the people”

Or how to fix our terrible, horrible, no good, very bad government!

Ruby Noir 😈asks: Design an ideal government. I like to end the months with something creative so get fun with this — go into detail and describe what an ideal governmental structure would look like. Would there even be one or should people govern themselves? How do you determine the leaders if there are leaders? How do you determine and enforce the laws if there are laws? Go nuts! Redesign the country. Or keep it but improve it. Make it FUN. Amuse me. That’s your challenge 😎

Ruby, you asked for it — you got it! Here goes —

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address when commemorating a recent victory won by the Union Army, declaring that

the nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Do we have such a government 260 years later? Anyone who’s paying attention knows what the answer is. NO!

Today, we have record inequality and lower social mobility than most developed countries. Inflation is taking a toll on 80% of the population, with rising food, gas, auto and housing costs. Insurance premiums on healthcare, autos and homes are also rising. Not to mention that credit card debt is sky high. At the same time, the ravages of climate change in the form of severe weather are wreaking havoc on Americans in the Midwest, Plains, and the South — while the Northeast is beginning to get a taste of hurricanes, tornadoes, thunder blizzards, and floods. (Hence, rising homeowner’s insurance.) These are the some of the problems I’ve discussed in two earlier articles:

All of this is further complicated by our culture wars. On one hand, we have liberals who are trying to undo the legacies of hatred against people of color, including Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, as well as women, gays, and trans. And on the other, we have the theocratic conservatives who are desperately trying to turn the clock back to the Dark Ages when white men enjoyed power and privilege. Each action on one side provokes a stepped-up reaction on the other that leads nowhere — especially when both sides are eager to raise bogus points: for instance, Democrats complaining that any criticism of Pete Buttigieg is homophobic and Republicans considering any criticism of Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene sexist.

It’s little wonder that we begin find strange pairings between the far left and right in decrying the war in Ukraine, distrusting Wall Street, big pharma, and other corporate entities. This might explain why a number of people who voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary of 2016 wound up voting for Donald Trump. This might also explain why a number of lefties — myself included — refused to vote for Joe Biden in 2020 despite voting for Hillary in 2016 and deploring Donald Trump. (Both men were already at the bottom of my list in 1988 when Biden first ran for president and George H.W. Bush considered Trump as a running mate.)

Why? Because many recognize that our system is broken. That both of our parties only pander to the upper .01%. That’s why, as I explained, there were no investigations or prosecutions of the bankers who caused the crash of 2008:

As I’ve said in a number of places, including my own book, The Routledge Guidebook to Paine’s Rights of Man, we have a political system not unlike that of 18th-century Britain, where there were two parties — one liberal (Whigs), one conservative (Tories) — but neither cared about ordinary Britons.

So what can be done? There are a number of solutions — if we’d only look at other nations! Let’s explore just a few:

Get money out of politics!

This is arguably the worst problem — and one of the main reasons why politicians are pandering to the 1%.

Many of us rightfully blame the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, giving speech rights to corporations. However, the issue of campaign contributions started well before that, beginning with the creation of the “pac” — short for Political Action Committee — in 1943. This allowed trade organizations, unions, and special organizations to political parties and campaigns.

Then in 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in Buckley v. Valeo that, even though political contributions should be limited in order to avoid any unseemliness, the First Amendment does not prohibit spending by individuals, groups, or candidates themselves.

Three years later, as a result of amendments to Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and actions by the Federal Election Committee, national, state and local parties began directly funding “party-building” expenses that weren’t, at first, tied to a particular campaign while unlimited donations from corporations and unions — sources of funding that were otherwise prohibited — began to pour in at the federal level. In 1996, donations from corporations and unions became even more pronounced with Bill Clinton’s re-election. Despite prosecutions and congressional investigations, there was no change in law.

There is a solution. First of all, curtail the campaign period that allows the money to flow: the US campaign periods are among the longest in the developed world. Secondly, curtail the amounts of campaign funding — or better yet, eliminate it completely in favor of federal funding. As Bernie Sanders has mentioned, it is ludicrous that a campaign for the Senate in a midsize state like Illinois necessarily requires a $10 million dollars — which also necessitates great wealth on the part of the candidate: no wonder Congress is flooded with millionaires and billionaires who don’t understand the challenges of ordinary Americans.

Get rid of the Electoral College

A whopping 65% of Americans say the Electoral College should be dumped so that the winner of the popular vote wins the presidency. At present, our current electoral system allows cases where the winner of the popular vote does not win enough Electoral College votes to win the presidency: we witnessed this in 2000 and 2016 when George W. Bush and Donald Trump won, respectively. (No wonder Republicans are more hesitant to dump the EC!)

This, I believe, is the only fair and democratic way. Now, some may quibble and argue that the US is a republic rather than a democracy. Yet, our ideas about the relative advantages and disadvantages have changed considerably since the earliest days of the American republic when only certain propertied whites were allowed to vote — never mind women and Blacks. And when the founders also assumed that wealthier people were more honest — which we are increasingly seeing is not the case — and that the “rabble” are unfit to make any reasoned political decisions.

Adopt a quasi-parliamentary system with more than two parties

Like I said earlier, our two parties have become virtually indistinguishable. I call them Tweedledee and TweedleDUMB. (I’ll let you guess who’s who.) If Republicans are taking more and more control of our culture, that’s also because Democrats have not been pushing back hard enough. For instance, take Bill Clinton and John Kerry trying to reject the “liberal” moniker. Or Chuck Schumer fast tracking all of Trump’s judges in 2017. And unlike the Republicans who paid attention to their most radical base — the Tea Party (or what’s left of it) — the Democrats have mocked progressives, calling them the R-word at one point (that was Rahm Emanuel). Is it any wonder that former die-hard Dems like me are pushing away?

And honestly, being caught in a rematch between Biden and Trump in 2024 is like being caught in between Scylla and Charybdis: two senile 80-year-olds who have tanked our nation these last eight years. Now, that’s an odyssey to be avoided!

Who’s smarter than a 17-year-old?

First, let’s start by having some intelligent and informed folks running for political office. Accept no one who rejects evolution or climate change. No one who considers art featuring nudes “obscene.” No one who confuses communism with socialism. No one who denies the Holocaust or downplays the horrors of slavery. No one who confuses a fetus with an infant. All of which just about disqualifies everyone in the Republican Party — or the trickle-down GOPee as I call it.

That means putting each and every candidate literally to the test. Since the number of GRE subject tests has been sharply reduced to eliminate history, let’s make the candidates take the following AP tests in history and the social sciences: Comparative Government and Politics, European History, World History, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, US History, US Government and Politics. Why so many tests? Because these tests are designed for reasonably bright 17-year-olds. Any would-be politician with undergraduate and graduate/professional degrees should be able to pull them off with a minimum score of a 4 (5 is the highest).

I also recommend a standardized speaking and writing test so that we won’t have anyone embarrass their state or the nation. We can’t have presidents who say things like “Is our children learning?” or “Make the pie higher!” And what does “bigly” mean, anyway? (Credits here go to Yale- and Harvard-educated Bush 2 and Wharton-educated Trump.)

No criminals, crooks, or creeps

Secondly, no one with a criminal record or anything vaguely off-color (excluding traffic tickets or parking fees): that means no bribery, no corruption, no fraud, no underreporting or cheating on taxes. And nothing unsavory that has an impact on others.

That would easily have eliminated not only the likes of “grab ‘em by the pussy” Trump, but many others as well. How he got away with ongoing lawsuits, legal actions against him in the thousands, along with a civil lawsuit against his university in 2016 is still a puzzle to many.

For those reasons, men like Democrat Bob Menendez and the Republican competitor for his seat in New Jersey (assuming Menendez wins the primary), Bob Hugin, should not even be allowed. As some of you probably already know, just last week, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged five people, including Menendez and his wife, with corruption in a new indictment for providing sensitive U.S. Government information and lending assistance to the Egyptian government of Egypt.” The media has made much of the $480,000 in cash and more than $100,000 worth of gold bars found at his home. It should be noted that this is not his first brush with corruption either: there were other instances in 2006 and 2017.

Now, while Hugin is arguably nowhere near as corrupt politically speaking, his actions as the CEO of Celgene leave much to be desired. In fact, it’s deplorable. As CEO, Celgene was taken to task multiple times by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which issued him a warning in 2000 for not disclosing all of the risks associated with their drugs.

Hugin was also criticized for radically inflating the prices of several drugs: for example, charging $6000 for a one-month supply of Revlimid in 2006. Since Celgene was able to actively prevent generic versions of the drug from being sold, the price for the same amount of Revlimid was raised to nearly triple the sum to $16,000. Do you want someone like that legislating on Medicare for All? Or big pharma prices?

Not least, let’s not ignore insider trading for those already in Congress: here’s looking at Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein! Any member thereof who engages in insider trading — or whose family members do so — should be immediately reprimanded and removed from office.

No 1%ers, no graduates of overpriced, overrated universities, and no sharp-dressed men and women

We would then limit the candidate pool further by excluding graduates of overpriced, overrated prep schools and universities — as well as those who send their spawn to such institutions. Let’s face the uncomfortable truth: the vast majority of students who attend such universities not only aspire to the 1% but also learn to hanker after such lifestyles given the overrepresentation of fellow students from the wealthiest .01% families. One has only to look at the likes of the Bushes, Clintons, Hawleys, Obamas, and Trumps.

Not only that, but they become all too apt to protect their fellow Ivy alumni in high places — whether on Wall Street, in corporate boardrooms, or political office. Why else did John Kerry refuse to go after fellow Yale Skull and Bones member, George W. Bush in 2004? Why else did the same Harvard-educated Bush and Barack Obama turn a blind eye to the misdoings of the Ivy-educated Wall Street bankers after the crash of 2008? And lastly, why did Obama also fail to investigate and prosecute Bush himself despite promising it on the campaign trail? Probably for the same reason that he called Jamie Dimon, fellow Harvard grad, “the smartest banker.”

The indisputable fact is that ALL such graduates are gifted at crafting word-salads and lies. Whether it’s DeSantis, Hawley, and Trump launching their various culture wars and egging on the January 6th insurrectionists, Pete Buttigieg making excuses about not visiting Palestine, OH after that devastating train crash, or Obama fulfilling none of his progressive promises (including creating a public health option), it’s time to ignore the voice of the overrated Ivy Leaguer. At the end of the day, their message is truly much ado about nothing!

Finally, never trust a slick-dressed man or woman, or someone married to one. Again, these people align with the 1% — not the average American. There is no reason for ANYONE to spend $8000 on a suit, $10,000 on earrings, $50,000 (not a typo!) on purses. With that rationale in mind, there is no reason for a family of four to live in a 6,000 sq. ft house, let alone a 10,000 or 15,000 sq. ft one. (Think of the carbon footprint too!) Nor is there reason for multiple mansions, yachts, and private jets. The 1%, let alone .01%, simply don’t understand medical or student debt bankruptcies. They don’t understand rising housing costs or the rising price of eggs, cereal, gas, and other basic necessities. How could they — when they are buying $700 shoes on a weekly basis?

If you want that lush life, go work on Wall Street. Become the next Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Become the next Patrick Mahomes. Get on Tiktok. Or write millions of boosted posts on Medium! (Granted the latter will be harder given the shrinking payments.) Don’t pretend you care about the people — because the vast majority of you really don’t.

So there you have it — ways of reforming our government. Mind you, this could easily be a book onto itself but at nearly 1700 words, I am probably already taxing your patience. (Pun entirely intended.) And now, let’s have YOUR ideas in the comments!

© Frances A. Chiu, September 30, 2023. All Rights Reserved.