I like the forward thinking approach. We need leadership to coalesce and work together on it so that the plan forward is clear and transparent. There is supposedly a big chunk of Project 2025 that is secret — we should make it clear that we are not operating in darkness where corruption flourishes. No secret plan. Just common sense and improved democracy that takes care of its people.
I don’t know, however, if it is possible to counteract the belief systems that are part of this administration’s voting base, much of which makes it possible for millions in America to accept what is happening as protection (false); but while millions may be unmoved from their support of the current president, there are more people who deserve and will support honest leadership who can lead us out of this dark and dangerous wasteland. Speak to the choir. There’s a lot of us who will help. And when America sees there is a way forward, more people will join on their own. The younger generation especially.
Re no secret plan - yes! To this end, I would like to see public events in local Congressional districts to involve the voters in the planning. That would undo a lot of the mistrust and nihilism, which IMO, is the foundation of the mess we are in as a nation that enabled Trump to exploit it for his own gain.
Each week the egregious actions of the Trump administration brings us closer to a place we truly don’t want to be, an autocracy. Last week moved us precipitously into a direction that has again brought out comparisons to the Nazi takeover of Europe, or should we be compared to Vichy France, with the exception that the invasion we are having is homegrown. We a a very divided nation, as was France, Hitler and Petain had supporters, as does Trump, but ultimately democracy prevailed, as I believe it will here. The political violence that we were promised though, by the authors and proponents of Project 2025 is on its way. This is not hyperbole, as President Biden might say, this is directly coming from everyone in Trump’s orbit. It’s already here.
The extrajudicial murders in international waters, without any repercussions in America, is reminiscent of the scandal at Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib happened in the shadows, the killing Venezuelans in their boats, in international waters, three times, while Trump is brazenly bragging about how he authorized it. The suspending of the application of due process, the fair and equitable treatment, the minimum standards under international law, are heinous crimes and demands a response.
The Trump administration’s attempt to institute their Reichstag Fire moment now, as many have made this comparison, to Trump’s reactions to the assassination of Mr. Kirk, is to further suspend civil liberties from not only immigrants and Hispanics but by extending that withholding to everyone, mainly Democrats, whose words he condemns. That, again, is a crime. Speech, no matter how much he disapproves of it, is still protected by the 1st Amendment. This too, demands a response.
There are no good faith negotiations possible with a regime that glorifies it’s own criminal activities, reinvents the truth to conform to it’s lies and holds the rule of law in contempt.
Every Republican member of Congress who has a law license should be asked every time a reporter approaches them if they are going to turn in their license to their state bar. It is obvious that they do not support the Constitution. It is up to their constituents to hold them accountable for their lack of adherence to the oath they took to uphold the Constitution.
How do I get my representatives to actually answer my concerns, or show how they're different than following the same old system? All I ever get is a canned response, even when I specifically ask for details.
It's a great question. Personally, i've tried to start from the bottom. Get to know local electeds first, not just national ones. But it's hard. Most really don't engage. Some ideas in here: https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/how-you-can-protect-democracy
Finally, I think this is a great reason why we should expand the house! Congressional districts are just too big, they don't have enough time to really engage with constituents: https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/where-will-they-all-sit
Great article. There was a time when the anti-corruption frame may have promoted too much distrust of government, but that time has long past. Right now, the anti-corruption frame is exactly right because Trump and his administration are so obviously corrupt. Just take care not to extend that frame to the judicial branch, which I think is still largely operating honorably. See https://www.activevoice.us/p/stand-up-for-judges
And now, it seems like this is just the way business is done in DC: the president, his cabinet, Congress. The president has made it all OK and created a culture of corruption and scandal.
Here in New Zealand, we may not have the blatant corruption now evident in the USA, but I suspect that is only because we don’t yet have a politician as brazen as Donald Trump! One thing I am sure about is that our MMP system of proportional representation does not make us inherently more immune to corruption. In my view it does not matter how you structure them, governments based on any grouping of political parties funded by wealth will always hold potential for corruption. Whether you have two political parties, or six of them as we have in New Zealand, the potential for corruption remains. This is because wealthy donors can simply spread their influence across a somewhat-aligned grouping of parties. The end result is still government decision making biased towards the wishes of the wealthy.
For government decision making to be more focused on improving the future prospects of the bulk of society, I think we need to make the following changes to all democracies:
1. Remove the influence of wealth from the election of politicians
2. Make it clear to politicians that the public expects them to cooperate in their decision-making, not compete
3. Remove the upheaval and financial waste associated with election cycles
4. Require greater consensus for government decisions
Possible ways of achieving these improvements are:
a) Encourage independent political candidates and enfeeble political parties by limiting all political donations to a small amount, say $50/year maximum from any one individual or organization. Simultaneously, establish government funded IDENTICAL marketing channels for all candidates for political office. I suggest these marketing channels be limited to a separate website for every electorate with an identical format (and fact-checked) page for every candidate to express their views, along with equal speaking opportunities at venues throughout the electorate (say at community halls). Candidates for political office and elected representatives should be prohibited from using social media, as this medium clearly leads to inflammatory and superficial communications. The objective should be to provide all candidates and elected representatives with an equal opportunity to carefully express and permanently record their opinions while limiting the effects of wealth and marketing hype.
b) To keep all politicians (even if nominated by a political party) focused on working for their electorate, make them responsible to a citizen advisory group (CAG) randomly selected from their electorate AND allow the CAG to fire their elected representative if at least 80% of CAG members consider that the elected representative is not meeting the local community’s expectations.
c) To minimize the disruptive effect of nationwide elections, it should easily be feasible to “roll” small and localized elections through a country on a monthly basis. These ongoing small elections could potentially renew a small proportion of elected Representatives every month. As an example, imagine the USA to be served by a government of 432 Representatives serving 432 electorates for a 4 year term (the present 2 year term may be a little short?). For this example, 9 geographically diverse electorates would hold an election in a particular month. The following month, another 9 electorates would hold their election and so on through the country over a 4-year cycle. After 4 years, the first group of electorates would hold their next election. Potentially, 2% (9/432) of the Representatives could be refreshed monthly. Although affecting just a small percentage of the House of Representatives, the monthly election outcomes should provide a clear indication of the public’s rating of the Government’s recent performance while avoiding the 4 yearly cycle of country-wide hype and costly broken promises.
d) Require a consensus for the passing of votes through Congress to be 80% or more. (When I suggest this in New Zealand, the usual response is that “But nothing would get decided!” To which my response is “A good decision made slowly must surely be much better for humanity than bad decisions made fast. Just look at how quickly countries go to war and how slowly peace is restored – if ever!”
For better democracies everywhere, I believe we have to dramatically reduce the impact of wealth on decision making and we have to give local communities the power to quickly cut big egos down to size …
I am completely on board with an anti-corruption movement. Jonathan Rauch proposed this effort a few months ago. He said, what Trump is doing is not autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. It's patrimonialism - running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business.
"Corruption is patrimonialism’s Achilles’ heel" he says, "because the public understands it and doesn’t like it. It is not an abstraction like 'democracy' or 'Constitution' or 'rule of law.' It conveys that the government is being run for them, not for you. The most dire threat that Putin faced was Alexei Navalny’s 'ceaseless crusade' against corruption, which might have brought down the regime had Putin not arranged for Navalny’s death in prison. In Poland, the liberal opposition booted the patrimonialist Law and Justice Party from power in 2023 with an anti-corruption narrative" (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/).
My suggestion for messaging: "A government of the oligarchs, by the oligarchs and for the oligarchs." They can also co-opt the very effective Trump ad against Harris: "She's for they/them (the transgendered), he's for you": "He's for himself and his buddies. Not you."
I like the forward thinking approach. We need leadership to coalesce and work together on it so that the plan forward is clear and transparent. There is supposedly a big chunk of Project 2025 that is secret — we should make it clear that we are not operating in darkness where corruption flourishes. No secret plan. Just common sense and improved democracy that takes care of its people.
I don’t know, however, if it is possible to counteract the belief systems that are part of this administration’s voting base, much of which makes it possible for millions in America to accept what is happening as protection (false); but while millions may be unmoved from their support of the current president, there are more people who deserve and will support honest leadership who can lead us out of this dark and dangerous wasteland. Speak to the choir. There’s a lot of us who will help. And when America sees there is a way forward, more people will join on their own. The younger generation especially.
Love this
Re no secret plan - yes! To this end, I would like to see public events in local Congressional districts to involve the voters in the planning. That would undo a lot of the mistrust and nihilism, which IMO, is the foundation of the mess we are in as a nation that enabled Trump to exploit it for his own gain.
Each week the egregious actions of the Trump administration brings us closer to a place we truly don’t want to be, an autocracy. Last week moved us precipitously into a direction that has again brought out comparisons to the Nazi takeover of Europe, or should we be compared to Vichy France, with the exception that the invasion we are having is homegrown. We a a very divided nation, as was France, Hitler and Petain had supporters, as does Trump, but ultimately democracy prevailed, as I believe it will here. The political violence that we were promised though, by the authors and proponents of Project 2025 is on its way. This is not hyperbole, as President Biden might say, this is directly coming from everyone in Trump’s orbit. It’s already here.
The extrajudicial murders in international waters, without any repercussions in America, is reminiscent of the scandal at Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib happened in the shadows, the killing Venezuelans in their boats, in international waters, three times, while Trump is brazenly bragging about how he authorized it. The suspending of the application of due process, the fair and equitable treatment, the minimum standards under international law, are heinous crimes and demands a response.
The Trump administration’s attempt to institute their Reichstag Fire moment now, as many have made this comparison, to Trump’s reactions to the assassination of Mr. Kirk, is to further suspend civil liberties from not only immigrants and Hispanics but by extending that withholding to everyone, mainly Democrats, whose words he condemns. That, again, is a crime. Speech, no matter how much he disapproves of it, is still protected by the 1st Amendment. This too, demands a response.
There are no good faith negotiations possible with a regime that glorifies it’s own criminal activities, reinvents the truth to conform to it’s lies and holds the rule of law in contempt.
Every Republican member of Congress who has a law license should be asked every time a reporter approaches them if they are going to turn in their license to their state bar. It is obvious that they do not support the Constitution. It is up to their constituents to hold them accountable for their lack of adherence to the oath they took to uphold the Constitution.
How do I get my representatives to actually answer my concerns, or show how they're different than following the same old system? All I ever get is a canned response, even when I specifically ask for details.
It's a great question. Personally, i've tried to start from the bottom. Get to know local electeds first, not just national ones. But it's hard. Most really don't engage. Some ideas in here: https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/how-you-can-protect-democracy
I also candidly wonder how much of it is just about our electoral system? The lack of competitive elections does mean that most of our representatives don't really have to engage that much: https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/three-stories-that-are-actually-the
Finally, I think this is a great reason why we should expand the house! Congressional districts are just too big, they don't have enough time to really engage with constituents: https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/where-will-they-all-sit
Charity starts at home, dipshit
Yeah. So does domestic abuse.
There should be an anti-corruption reform party. But not the Dems. We need a new centrist third party devoted to reform.
Great article. There was a time when the anti-corruption frame may have promoted too much distrust of government, but that time has long past. Right now, the anti-corruption frame is exactly right because Trump and his administration are so obviously corrupt. Just take care not to extend that frame to the judicial branch, which I think is still largely operating honorably. See https://www.activevoice.us/p/stand-up-for-judges
And now, it seems like this is just the way business is done in DC: the president, his cabinet, Congress. The president has made it all OK and created a culture of corruption and scandal.
Here in New Zealand, we may not have the blatant corruption now evident in the USA, but I suspect that is only because we don’t yet have a politician as brazen as Donald Trump! One thing I am sure about is that our MMP system of proportional representation does not make us inherently more immune to corruption. In my view it does not matter how you structure them, governments based on any grouping of political parties funded by wealth will always hold potential for corruption. Whether you have two political parties, or six of them as we have in New Zealand, the potential for corruption remains. This is because wealthy donors can simply spread their influence across a somewhat-aligned grouping of parties. The end result is still government decision making biased towards the wishes of the wealthy.
For government decision making to be more focused on improving the future prospects of the bulk of society, I think we need to make the following changes to all democracies:
1. Remove the influence of wealth from the election of politicians
2. Make it clear to politicians that the public expects them to cooperate in their decision-making, not compete
3. Remove the upheaval and financial waste associated with election cycles
4. Require greater consensus for government decisions
Possible ways of achieving these improvements are:
a) Encourage independent political candidates and enfeeble political parties by limiting all political donations to a small amount, say $50/year maximum from any one individual or organization. Simultaneously, establish government funded IDENTICAL marketing channels for all candidates for political office. I suggest these marketing channels be limited to a separate website for every electorate with an identical format (and fact-checked) page for every candidate to express their views, along with equal speaking opportunities at venues throughout the electorate (say at community halls). Candidates for political office and elected representatives should be prohibited from using social media, as this medium clearly leads to inflammatory and superficial communications. The objective should be to provide all candidates and elected representatives with an equal opportunity to carefully express and permanently record their opinions while limiting the effects of wealth and marketing hype.
b) To keep all politicians (even if nominated by a political party) focused on working for their electorate, make them responsible to a citizen advisory group (CAG) randomly selected from their electorate AND allow the CAG to fire their elected representative if at least 80% of CAG members consider that the elected representative is not meeting the local community’s expectations.
c) To minimize the disruptive effect of nationwide elections, it should easily be feasible to “roll” small and localized elections through a country on a monthly basis. These ongoing small elections could potentially renew a small proportion of elected Representatives every month. As an example, imagine the USA to be served by a government of 432 Representatives serving 432 electorates for a 4 year term (the present 2 year term may be a little short?). For this example, 9 geographically diverse electorates would hold an election in a particular month. The following month, another 9 electorates would hold their election and so on through the country over a 4-year cycle. After 4 years, the first group of electorates would hold their next election. Potentially, 2% (9/432) of the Representatives could be refreshed monthly. Although affecting just a small percentage of the House of Representatives, the monthly election outcomes should provide a clear indication of the public’s rating of the Government’s recent performance while avoiding the 4 yearly cycle of country-wide hype and costly broken promises.
d) Require a consensus for the passing of votes through Congress to be 80% or more. (When I suggest this in New Zealand, the usual response is that “But nothing would get decided!” To which my response is “A good decision made slowly must surely be much better for humanity than bad decisions made fast. Just look at how quickly countries go to war and how slowly peace is restored – if ever!”
For better democracies everywhere, I believe we have to dramatically reduce the impact of wealth on decision making and we have to give local communities the power to quickly cut big egos down to size …
I am completely on board with an anti-corruption movement. Jonathan Rauch proposed this effort a few months ago. He said, what Trump is doing is not autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. It's patrimonialism - running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business.
"Corruption is patrimonialism’s Achilles’ heel" he says, "because the public understands it and doesn’t like it. It is not an abstraction like 'democracy' or 'Constitution' or 'rule of law.' It conveys that the government is being run for them, not for you. The most dire threat that Putin faced was Alexei Navalny’s 'ceaseless crusade' against corruption, which might have brought down the regime had Putin not arranged for Navalny’s death in prison. In Poland, the liberal opposition booted the patrimonialist Law and Justice Party from power in 2023 with an anti-corruption narrative" (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/).
My suggestion for messaging: "A government of the oligarchs, by the oligarchs and for the oligarchs." They can also co-opt the very effective Trump ad against Harris: "She's for they/them (the transgendered), he's for you": "He's for himself and his buddies. Not you."
The election of Trump to the presidency is as if the U.S soiled its underpants. And the GOP is pretending there is no odor.