Midterm Pandemonium!

The Founders failed to create a true Democracy. Let’s win, then demand one.

You can have all the 250th birthday parties you want for America — that great Democracy! But none of your cake and candles or champagne can obscure the fact that we have never been a true democracy. No matter how many times you say it, it just ain’t so, and never has been.

With the midterms roughly 37 days away, I say we pick up where the Founders left off and grab the ball that they dropped.

Every single day, I must hear this at least five dozen times:

“We must save our Democracy!” Or, “Trump has crushed our Democracy!”

For a nation whose economy thrived on enslaved human beings and the free labor of women who had no say, I’ve never really been sure exactly what those white male property owners were smoking when they went on about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That’s not the system they created. They did a lot of great things, but a DEMOCRACY they did not invent, at least not here.

Let’s start by all of us agreeing on what the word “Democracy” actually means. How’s this:

DEMOCRACY: A system of government based on these THREE Principles:

— One Person, One Vote.

— Total equality amongst all of its citizens. No exceptions.

— All representatives of the people are freely and fairly elected by all of its adult citizens on an easy, convenient and regular timetable. (And according to the 14th Amendment, anyone who participates in an uprising to overthrow those duly elected officials are prohibited from running for office themselves.)

Everybody OK with That?

So, on this November 3rd, should “we the people” succeed in flipping both the House and the Senate from the bigots and supporters of the attempted coup of January 6, 2021, can we then immediately start to finish the job that was started some 250 years ago?

Let me suggest a few simple things the new Congress could get started on this January 3rd in turning the U.S. into a real Democracy:

1. Neutering the Electoral College so that whoever gets the most votes is the one actually inaugurated as the new President of the United States.

2. Eliminating the Filibuster. One Senator can kill a bill that will make the lives of millions better?! Insane! No Democracy in the world lets a single man (other than a dictator) block what the other 99% of elected representatives are there to vote on. One person, one vote.

3. Making the Senate truly representative. It’s currently not one person, one vote. In a Democracy, a state like Wyoming with only 500,000 people must NOT get the same number of votes in the Senate (2) as a massive state (California) with 40 MILLION people gets the same amount as tiny Wyoming?!

4. Stop Letting Politicians Re-draw Electoral Maps so they can deny representation to racial, ethnic and religious minorities whom bigots just don’t like. Make Gerrymandering a crime as Michigan did in 2018. This happened after ONE WOMAN decided she’d had enough, and started a voter initiative.

5. There must be five political parties and their candidates on every ballot. There is no way in a nation of a whopping 350 million people that just TWO (!) political parties can truly represent the whole wide swath and diversity of American political thought, opinion, beliefs and policy positions. Not possible! We should, like Canada, have five political parties listed on all ballots:

• The MAGA PARTY
(current Republicans)

• The REPUBLICAN-DEMOCRATS
(centrists, moderates)

• The FDR PARTY
(Progressives)

FDR stands for Freedom, Democracy, Redemption

• Democratic Socialists
(it’s happening as we speak!)

• Libertarians
(whatever)

6. Make Voting Easy and Real. Election Day needs to be declared an official holiday and/or shifted to a weekend. Period. Then, we need to make it as much of a ritualized “day of no work” as other federal holidays.

7. Adopt “Ranked Choice Voting.” Known as RCV, this is already in use in major cities and some states. “The vote” more accurately represents the true direction where people are leaning politically and relies less on traditional parties. This often leads to less negative campaigning; candidates need to say why they should win, not just why the other person should lose!

There. That’s a start. It’s not just “getting rid of Trump” as if that’ll fix everything. Let’s get smart and create the kind of Democracy that the next Trump won’t be able to mess with. That means electing reps on November 3rd who’ll do just that!