The Democrats are dead

wherein shall the void be filled? spitballing

The Democratic ship is going down. Trumpism has replaced the GOP of two decades ago. Wall Street is quietly still at the helm.

What is to be done?

Well, it won’t be done by DSA or the 4th International, and it won’t be the terminally maximalist and sectarian Greens, so we can table that bullshit.

A US Popular Party (or whatever you’d want to call it) would need to do several things very differently than either of the current Parties. First and foremost, it would need to strictly limit its platform to no more than a dozen key national issues with which candidates must agree across the board, and leave all other issues to candidates themselves, so they can tailor their campaigns to respond to their own constituencies. Secondly, it would have to impose a strict code of conduct its own institutional structures and all its candidates/elected officials. Finally, it would need a lean, mean publicity/ground game organization to which virtually all its resources would flow. (In other words, its leadership should have enough integrity to reject unethical temporary advantages in favor of doing the right thing.)

It would take no position (in its platform) on guns, abortion, etc., though its individual candidates would be free to advocate whatever they wanted in that regard. A firewall would be placed between the party’s limited stated objectives (all majoritarian) and other issues, which candidates could then ignore, support, or reject locally.

Such a formation would be clear from the outset, and reiterate as often as a twelve-step group opening its meetings with the Serenity Prayer that the Party’s goal is twofold: to adhere to its twelve (my number) issue-positions and its Code of Conduct, and to win elections without big money and without sectarian squabbling.

Code of Conduct

The personal is the political (not in the original sense). Crackpots, perverts, the sexually incontinent, active addicts, people seeking attention by being as bizarre as possible, narcissists, thieves, and opportunists cannot be leaders, full stop. Leadership requires sobriety, good character, sound judgement, and humility.

Taking corporate (or super-rich individual’s) money is taboo. Money is an exchange medium, not a ticket into the backroom.

No big salaries, period. No exceptions.

Equivocating to tactically avoid difficult questions is anathema. Speak directly and defend your position reasonably.

Never run from a debate.

Never, ever punch down.

Issues

Money and Politics

• Small Donor Public Financing

• End All Foreign Spending

• Strict Spending Limits

• Easily Accessible Public Records of All Campaign Donations/Draconian Prosecution of Shadow Financing

Federal Jobs Guarantee Program (and National Service System)

• Military

• Civilian Conservation

• Disaster Relief Task Force

Water

• Watershed Authorities

• Water Protection

• Potable Water Project

• Aquifer Protection

• Water Democracy

• Water Recreation

Economy

• Abolition of the Federal Reserve Bank/Glass-Steagall Plus (Rentier Repression)

• Banking as Public Utility

• Money Creation Reform (not through loans, but through public employment)

• Minimum Wage ($25/hr)

• Maximum Salary ($250,000/yr)

• Price Controls (no profit beyond 10% of overhead)

• Tax the Rich (50%/$1 million; 10% more for each additional million, up to 90%; 60% capital gains tax)

• Outlaw Derivatives Trade

• Jubilee

  • National Debt Forgiveness Program (all interest forgiven)

  • Abolish Compound Interest

• Administrative Reform (project/result driven nor process driven, “progressive” deregulation)

Single Payer Health Care

• Basic Care

• No Elective Care

• Federal Pharmaceutical Oversight

Housing

• Rent Control

• Price Control (Bubble Control—no Derivatives)

• Repair/Recycle Unused Stock

War and Foreign Policy

• Reform War Powers Act

• Withdrawal/Consolidation

• End Cost-Plus Contracting

• Prohibit Mercenaries

• Index Military Retirement to Current Pay Scales

• Diplomatic Corps Reform

Democracy Agenda

• End the Electoral College

• Comprehensive Biannual Census

• Abolish All Gerrymandering

• Expand and Democratize the Senate (two minimum, with an additional Senator for each two million in population) Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, 2 each; New Mexico, Mississippi, Kansas, Arkansas, Nevada, Iowa, Utah, Connecticut, 3 each; Oklahoma, Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Minnesota, Colorado, Wisconsin, 4 each; Maryland, Missouri, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Arizona, Washington, 5 each; Virginia, New Jersey, 6 each; Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, 6 each; Illinois, Pennsylvania, 7 each; New York, 10; Florida, 11; Texas, 15; California, 19.

• National Holiday for General Elections

• Automatic Voter Registration

• Ballot Access (2% of registered voters to first qualify, 5% of vote to remain)

• Supreme Court Term Limits (10 years)

Agricultural/Environmental Reform

• Subsidize the Transition (with priority to carbon-economy states)

• End Agricultural Dumping

• Incentivize Local Consumption

Federal High Speed Rail Project

Energy Conservation/Transition (in conjunction with Federal Jobs Program)

That’s enough . . . thoughts?