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.

White Noise Black Noise

I can't remember a more eventful week. Eight epochal days starting with a terrorist act so heinous; so unfounded, so unbelievably evil that the perpetrator became instantly infamous. A Name that Shall not be Named. A name to frighten children and evoke America's long standing history of killing Black people. Nine souls, martyrs, lambs to the slaughter, innocents. Surely in the future the question "Where were you when the Charleston 9 were killed?" shall join those other seminal questions about the Kennedy Assassination and the Challenger Disaster. As the blood ran on those ancient antebellum bricks of Charleston, calls soon came to remove the Confederate Battle flag. A symbol of white supremacy and black fear that had flown continuously somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon since Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse 150 years ago. Then the flags came down. Like detritus shook from the feet of the future. Like a snake shedding its skin. States and retailers alike had finally agreed that the Civil War was at last over.

But the tectonic plates were only getting started. A social justice tsunami generational in scale was on its way. Our President's signature healthcare reform law; originally derided as, but begrudgingly accepted as, Obamacare was vindicated by the Supreme Court. On the same day the Fair Housing Act was up held ensuring that the feds could go after racial discrimination in housing even when it its not intentional. We learned a new term: disparate impact. Then within 24-hours we were celebrating marriage for all. Now anyone of any gender can marry any one of any gender in any state in this country. It seemed the world was changing right in front of our eyes. A swirling kaleidoscope, tumbling forward, then backward. We were caught in a spinning combine. It was emotional and it was dizzying. It was exhausting.

I have often said the internet democratized us. Anybody with wifi and a laptop can now become a wisdom chamber, filled with eloquent punditry. Or so we think of ourselves as we write our thoughts in the comments section. Each of us a digital blowhard. Usually this noise is something I can pick through; like looking for strawberries on a hot summer day, the cicadas in the background singing. The buzzing of insects is like that of vox populi; it simmers in the back of my mind but it never really disturbs me. I'd read a blog that is to my liking and discard the duds. But with the social cataclysm that occurred in America in the last week the noise became too much. Pundits, professors, TV personalities, social bloggers, Facebook groups, cousins, that guy in the next chair at the barbershop all had varying opinions, each as passionate as the next. Some were spot on, some were convoluted. But the sheer volume of debate coalesced into a brain-shattering chop suey of words; a cacophony of think pieces, status updates, hashtags, comments, memes; epic battles of dim wits with heavy usage of animated gifs to prove their points. We have been buzzfed, Upworhtied, Briebarted and Huff Posted ad nauseam.  Everybody and when I say everybody I mean every-fucking-body had to weigh in on every-fucking-issue!

By the time President Obama finished eulogizing Rev. Clementa Pinkney, singing "Amazing Grace", the heavens opened up in an eruption of judgment and conjecture. Over the last nine days every word anybody has publically spoken on any of these subjects were dissected. Pulled about, gone over with a fine-toothed comb. President Obama went too far on race or he didn't go far enough. He was too soft, he wasn't soft enough. He was bombastic. He used his bully pulpit. He missed this opportunity. Then came the dissenters. Republican presidential candidates made hysterical pronouncements of doom over gays getting married. This was the final hour of man because jiggery pookery was used on something only God can concretize. People spewed invectives. We charged each other with willful ignorance. One screed after another after another. Social media was awash with liberal intellectual outrage. I felt like I had been dropped down into a pit of tigers or vipers. Hissing and growling their displeasure, ready to devour me at any grammatical or logical misstep. It was overwhelming. And this coming from a person who got a U (unsatisfactory) in behavior in the second grade because my teacher told me I liked to debate every word she said.

People have a right to their opinions. Everybody has a right to express them. But can we get off our soapboxes for just a few seconds. The racial/ gender/ sexual orientation carrousel will keep spinning. As the president said in his eulogy "We talk about race all the time." The problem is we don't do anything about it. So instead of writing a blog to let the world know how angry you are over injustice, how about writing a blog on how to cure it. Or better yet finish your latte, close your laptop and go boldly into the world and affect the change you have been complaining about. If the president or your congressman or your pastor or your transgendered-same-gender-loving-non-conformist-evangelical-Southern Pride-Sons-of-Confederate-Veterans-common law spouse ain't doing it the way you want it done then do it yourself.

In the words of Grace Lee Boggs, social activist,

"Rebellions tend to be negative, to denounce and expose the enemy without providing a positive vision of a new future...A revolution is not just for the purpose of correcting past injustices, a revolution involves a projection of man/woman into the future...It begins with projecting the notion of a more human human being, i.e. a human being who is more advanced in the specific qualities which only human beings have - creativity, consciousness and self-consciousness, a sense of political and social responsibility."