How to fix the American political system in four easy steps

Millions of Americans arose on the morning of November 9, 2016 shell shocked. For the second time in less than 20 years the candidate who lost the popular vote was going to be president. Not only was the loser of the election going to be president, his party, the Republicans--who faired no better in the election that the president-elect did--were going to be in control of all three branches of government. America isn't a direct democracy it is a republic. Which means we elect representatives to vote on our behalf in the federal government. It has primarily worked as it was designed (for rich white landing owning men) for the past 240 hundred years. It has also seen great expansion by giving the franchise to women and Black People. Of course those expansions were not without violence. People in power want to hold onto to power. Now, that process has stopped working. What changed? The Republican Party realized a long time ago it was dying out. A party consisting of voters that are 90% white and aging can not hope to survive in a country that is rapidly browning. So through a series of tactically bold moves the GOP went about setting up a Permanent Republican Majority. They brilliantly exploited the flaws of our 200 plus year-old election system to ensure they--as an ever shrinking minority party--will grab and hold onto vast amounts of power while ensuring the majority of us are locked out on every conceivable level. In less than two short decades they have mostly succeeded. The supreme court now has a 5-4 Republican majority that will keep the Liberal wish list in peril for the next generation. What's worse they have weaponized the lower courts by appointing far right-wing judges which will keep American law/ policy outside of the mainstream of the American electorate. As large numbers of people move closer to the left on social and economic issues the courts will keep the country firmly bolted to anti-worker, pro-religious norms. Gilead, here we come.

But things can be fixed. Quite simply. In four easy steps. Here's how:

Eliminate the Electoral College

Without getting into the racist creation of the Electoral College to ensure white, slaveholding southern men get disproportionate power the arcane and antiquated idea just doesn't work in modern America. The demographics and geography of where people actually live has made it obsolete. Many people erroneously argue that without the E.C. presidential candidates will only compete in large populated states and forget everybody else. That may have been true in 1804 but it's certainly not now. The United States is vast with millions of people every where. Even if a candidate won the majority of votes from America's 25 largest cities that would not ensure electoral victory. And the E.C. has replaced candidates going to the most popular states to only campaigning in "battlegrounds" states. So every four years millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of campaigning, winner speculation and cable news time is spent hanging on the opinions of Americans who live in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Colorado and North Carolina. This ends up being unfair to the millions of voters outside of those 15 or so battlegrounds whose votes literally don't count. It also has a suppressive effect. Voter turnout in New York and Oklahoma are lower than the national average. Why? Because those are "safe" states so presidential candidates never bother to show up to campaign in them. So folks in those states don't vote at the same rate as people in Pennsylvania or Iowa. The popular vote/ E.C. mismatch is part of the reason so many liberals are enraged. In spite of receiving more votes than any of her male counterparts (or any man in history save Barack Obama) Hillary Clinton, who won the election by 3 million votes, holds no office.

Make all partisan gerrymandering illegal

This should go without saying. Gerrymandering has been a problem for centuries in this country. It has become horrendous in the age of the Republican desire to consolidate power. In 2016 Republicans only received about 49.1% of the total vote (Democrats got about 48%) for seats in the House of Representatives yet Republicans control 55% of the seats. This means half the country is basically barred from having a voice in a government that controls 320 million people. No other state has been gown zero of voter suppression and gerrymandering than North Carolina. The Republicans took control of the state general assembly in 2010. Being that it was a census year the GOP legislatures got to redraw the new congressional districts after the census was compiled. North Carolina went from a purple state to deeply red. Even though Democrats have gotten tens of thousands more votes in statewide elections the Republicans have a super majority in both chambers of the legislature and the NC congressional delegation. If you went by actually votes cast Democrats would have 7 seats and Republicans would have 6 seats. Instead Republicans have 10 seats which means they have 60% more seats than they should. Unfortunately for the residents of NC those badly gerrymandered maps will be in use in the 2018 midterms. Gerrymandering cools voting and creates a malaise in the electorate. It drives down voter turnout which in turn helps the Republican Party stay in control. Think about how all of those North Carolinians who voted for Democrats feel knowing they are the majority of the state and a few politicians in Raleigh are doing things that are an anathema to them.

Restore the judicial filibuster rule in the senate

Mitch McConnell has done more to break and destroy our democracy than any other politician in my lifetime. He's as ruthless as Pompey and as ambitious as Lex Luther. He changed the senate rules that forced the senate to require supreme court justices to get 60 votes to be confirmed. Many people will argue that Harry Reid started it by changing the filibuster rule for lower judicial appointments but he did it because Republicans were gumming up every nominee President Obama put forth. McConnell also stole a supreme court seat from Barack Obama. He has pushed through more right-wing judicial appointments in the first two years of a presidency than any time in our history. Even after his death the affects he has made on the federal judiciary will be felt decades. We must return to the 60 vote rule for both lower court judges and supreme court justices.

Judicial term limits

No president nor political party--no mater how popular or unpopular--should be allowed to appointed judges for a lifetime. Donald will hopefully be a one term president but his judges will be ruling on cases 25-30 years from now. His two SCOTUS picks are 51 and 53 years of age. Imagine Gorsuch and Kavanaugh still ruling on constitutional matters in the year 2043. Let's have term limits of 10-12 years (like the FBI director). This way no political party can have a stranglehold on the courts.

Bonus. Fix the voting rights act.


Now let's rerun the 2016 elections with my changes and see how things would be working out for us.

• Hillary Clinton would be president.
• The Republicans would control the house but would only have 214 seats. A simple majority but not enough seats to pass legislation without some Democrats joining (you need 218 votes to pass a bill in the house). The Democrats would have 209 seats. Bipartisanship would have to come into play. If you want to see what happens with one party rule look no further than North Carolina. The two parties would have to work together to craft meaningful legislation.
• The Republicans would control the senate (51-49). But President Clinton would have to appoint judges that would clear the 60 seat threshold and we would not be stuck with judges who believe desegregation (Brown v Board of Education) was a bad idea. 

Democracy is not about winners or losers. It's about everybody feeling represented. Our present system feels rigged and could lead to dangerous consequences for us all. When people feel left out they turn to strongmen and autocrats. We see what a burgeoning dictatorship feels like now. Let's stop it before it gets worse.

America the Broken

Donald Trump didn't break America. America was already broken. That's how he was able to get elected in the first place.

How did we get to the point where two uniquely and universally disliked candidates ended up vying for the most powerful elected office in the world? The very thought of the 2016 presidential election conjures the notion that on the morning of November 9, 2016 millions of Americans awoke to the horror or the delight of Donald Trump having been elected president. A man so vile, cruel and inept it still to this day defies logic. But Trump wasn't a magician or a pied piper. He didn't trick anybody into voting for him. There was no illusion to his run. No alchemy. Donald Trump was the product of a generation of right-wing racial resentment, fear-mongering and conspiracy theory rolled into a neatly packaged rage bomb. Trump was the culmination of decades of Republicans programming its members to accept the abnormal and untruthful. But if Trump was the ultimate cypher of Republican sophistry then was Hillary Clinton the ultimate vehicle for Democrats' indolence and equivocation? The answer to that question is, YES.

When Bush's brain, Karl Rove, spoke of creating a "Permanent Republican Majority" he understood that the GOP was a dying party. How could it not be. The very voters Republicans rely on are literally dying out. White people. The Republican party is 90% white. A white political party that resides in a country that is getting more brown every day is doomed unless they do things to ensure they hold power long after their numbers can sway elections. So the Republican strategy has not been to expand the party but to expand the party's power. In order to expand power the GOP needs loyal subjects. Foot soldiers that will go to the polls in significant numbers to keep the party afloat long enough to twist the levers of power in its favor. In 1984 Newt Gingrich did something revolutionary. He started his own conservative talk show on C-SPAN. At the time Newt an uncoothly loud back-bencher from Georgia. He was red-faced angry at everything liberals did. It's didn't matter. Liberals were the enemy of the people. Newt brought the simplicity of Newspeak to politics. Republicans Good! Democrats Bad. His no holds barred vitriol was seen as gauche then but by 1994 his branding worked. Newt and the "Moral Majority" swept into power. Bringing the House of Representatives under Republican control for the first time in almost five decades. Newt begot Rush. Rush begot Fox News. Fox News begot Breitbart. Brietbart begot internet trolls. And here were are.

For over two decades Fox News was not only the Republican party's paramour it was its mouth-piece. The cable channel has become the go to source for GOP's orgasmic rage against all things left. As the Republican Party careened from center-right to completely crazy, Fox was there all the way to stoke racial animus, misogyny and xenophobia. Republican strategists know the GOP is bereft of new ideas. They also knew that keeping people anxious, fearful and angry was the best way to get them to vote. In every election. This is why the Republican party is so unified. A Republican from Arkansas will say the same thing as a Republican from Massachusetts. Trump didn't light a fire under the base's asses. They were already conditioned to attached themselves to an ever angrier, ever whiter idol. The Republican party instilled it's members with sociopathy. That's why they can laugh at a sexual assault survivor and cheer at the death of unarmed Black people at the hands of police or turn a blind eye to immigrant children locked in cages. The Republicans have built a cult army that is ready to destroy America in order to keep their elite in power and there is nothing anybody can say to change their minds.

As the GOP was becoming more militant by weoponizing people's fear, the Democrats were chasing the ghosts of their past constituencies. After the brutal loses of 1980s the left was hungry for a win. Sensing the country had moved to the right, Bill Clinton along with Al From of the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) decided to run for president not as a liberal but as a conservative pro-capital punishment Democrat. With that slim victory in 1992 the Democrats abandoned women (Geraldine Ferraro) and Black voters (Run Jesse Run) to try to woo back the "Blue Dog" Democrats they'd lost to Reagan in 1984. When Newt ascended the speakership in the Republican Revolution of 1994, Clinton doubled down and signed entire swaths of right-wing legislation. I am still nonplussed at the fact that a Democrat (I'm looking at you Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders) signed the Crime Bill, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Defense of Marriage Act, the Freedom of Religion Restoration Act and the Welfare to Work Act. Clinton gave the Republicans everything they wanted in return for a few more white votes.

So the two parties were locked in a viscous cycle. Republicans would act more and more outrageously, the Democrats would crack and acquiesce in the name of decorum. When Barack Obama came to power in 2008 he had both houses of congress firmly in control of Democrats but instead of ramming through every piece of liberal legislation his base was clamoring for he wanted conciliation and compromise. However noble those former norms were President Obama fundamentally misread the landscape by thinking the Republicans were willing to work with him. A few did at first but after seeing the seething contempt of their base for a Black president even the most moderate Republicans turned into snarling maniacs. These moderates were further eroded under Trump--see Senator Lindsay Graham epic meltdown during the Kavanaugh confirmation. Unfortunately Hillary Clinton used the same playbook as Clinton and Obama. Though she was much more forthright and called out the racism on the right, she played it too safe when trying to hold onto some white voters. She tried to thread the needle of not scaring off white moderates while still appealing to Black People and Voters of Color.

Donald Trump didn't break America. Unfortunately the only way to fix it is by fire. Liberals have to understand that there is an asymmetric war going on for the soul of the country. If the country is to be repaired liberals are going to have to fight for it. This is why I have hope with a new crop of Democrats like Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum, Kamala Harris and Stacey Abrams. Fiery. Determined. Not backing down. They are fighting for a country where higher wages and healthcare are considered radical but arming teachers is not. Maybe if they can stop the runaway train that Republicanism has become then maybe there is a hope of at least staring to unshatter our country.