So what if Trumps wins?

If Donald Trump wins the presidency on November 5, it will be the third time this century that a Republican has won with a minority of the vote. This owes to the anti-democratic elements of our 18th Century Constitution (the Electoral College, Senate and Supreme Court). The Republican Party is a minority party riding on every advantage our outdated system gives it. They win – with help from the Russians and arrogant tech lords like Musk – by converting Trump’s clownish authoritarianism into the false consciousness of whites who feel threatened by the increasing diversity of America despite being themselves among the richest 4% of the global population.

What would Trump’s victory mean? One can consider the U.S. domestic implications and the impact on the world in general.

Domestically, Trump will seek political vengeance while using the justice system to avoid prison. (Avoiding prison is his main reason for running.) His cohort of Project-2025ers will seek to undermine the administrative state while using state power to favor those capitalists that see government as hindrance. Together they will probably throw our economy, politics, courts, health & education systems, social safety nets and society in general, into turmoil. Their efforts to govern through authoritarianism and populism – the essence of MAGA – will test our democratic institutions and wreck havoc.

But we are not Weimar Germany. Our institutions will hold, although any Trump effort to use the military for domestic actions – such as dealing with “illegal migration” – could lead to a real crisis. It may well be that in the midterm elections of 2026, the upheaval would be enough to lead to a Democratic resurgence. (It will be interesting to watch a Vice President Vance. He could call the policy shots from the background. As an opportunist par excellence, he may be sensitive to the popular reaction to the various outrages pushed by the P-2025ers and tack accordingly.)

A Trump regime’s impact on the world stage is another matter. He will favor isolationism, economic nationalism, unilateralism, pro-Russian approaches in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, disengagement from the Mideast and who knows what with North Korea. This will fundamentally weaken the global position of the U.S. But let’s consider this from the 35,000 foot level.

The U.S. has held center stage in the world since the end of World War II. The various political and economic institutions of the global order – including the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO etc – were ours by design. We established the contours of the Cold War that divided the world into good guys and bad guys and led to many distortions of the domestic affairs of other countries. After the fall of the USSR, we found other ways to define bad actors by choosing – often unwisely – which regional states to offer favored status and protection. As we began to lose our industrial advantage – with other economies coming online – globalism became our religion and we used the available levers to impose austerity and free trade everywhere we could.

We Americans have always been pretty self-centered, focused on our own navels. We governed the world – to the extent we did – for our own purposes, assuming that what was good for America was good for everyone. Trump’s obsession on making America “great again” is simply a dysfunctional flavor of this.

Our record as the predominant global hegemon has been mixed, to say the least. The world today can be legitimately described as a mess, with violent conflicts of various kinds and sources, terrorism, mass migration, political polarization, continued poverty and inequality, nuclear proliferation, the emerging technological singularity, and widespread and worsening climate disruptions. The U.S. did not cause any of these – at least not by ourselves – but they all happened on our watch. Meanwhile, the world has increasingly begun to just ignore us. (Watch China, India and the other BRICS cozy up to Putin despite his assault on world order.) Our inability to anything about the Mideast has not surprised anyone but ourselves. Maybe it’s better that we do withdraw somewhat from world affairs and let folks get on with finding their own way? If Trump wins in November, however messy it will be, maybe it’ll be what the world needs?  Like a heart attack that scares you into changing your bad habits? 

(Maybe we Americans will finally upgrade our Constitution.)

No Equivalency

In the aftermath of January 6, most Americans have condemned the violence perpetrated by the insurrectionists in our nation’s capital. Some 57% even blame Trump. But many white Americans seem to feel uneasy about taking a stand against seditious violence by white extremists without also throwing in the violence we saw last year in the events surrounding Black Lives Matter protests and during Trump’s 2017 inauguration. So these conflicted whites must add that they oppose all violence to achieve political ends.

Now, there was violence during the Trump inaugural, in the aftermath of police killings of unarmed Blacks and during the events prompted by Trump’s waving a bible in front of St. John's Episcopal Church on June 1, 2020. Some of the worst was committed by white anti-fascists. The violence during the mostly peaceful protests of police behavior – especially burning down a Minneapolis police station – served no useful purpose and hurt communities that still deserve security. (Two of the four indicted in August for the Minneapolis incident are white.) But the rage expressed by the Black Lives Matter protests must be understood as the pent up reaction to white violence directed at Blacks going back to the days of lynching and often perpetrated or condoned by public officials and police. One can say violence out of even righteous rage is wrong. But it is not in the same category as what happened last week.

There is no equivalency – moral or legal – between any recent past incidents of protest violence and that carried out at the request of the President of the United States against the US Congress. Just saying this should make it clear. After railing against “criminals” including members of Congress, other Republicans, the press and social media that block his dog-whistle tweets – and threatening the Vice President to “do the right thing” – the President of the United States sent white thugs, extremists and fanatics to intimidate the US Congress through what Rudy Giuliani had just called a “trial by combat.”  And the white crowd that invaded the Capital targeted the very government that provides them, more than others, their race privilege and economic support.  

Yes, political violence in a democracy is always wrong. But there is no way that what happened on January 6 is anything less than treason and the attempted overthrow of the US Constitution. That is in a class by itself and needs to be understood as such without the white caveats.

Repeal the 2nd Amendment

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

There are more guns than people in the United States today. Every time there is a mass killing, some will argue for gun control and others – led by the NRA – will push back by using the opportunity to loosen guns laws even further. Mass killings get the news but many more people are killed by guns in suicides and criminal homicides.

The victims of gun death from homicide tend to be young black men. Gun crime follows the social and economic inequality of America's inner cities where our police must protect their communities while facing the possibility of being out-gunned themselves. The police are in the front lines of a society still plagued by this race-based inequality and the fact that there are too many guns too easily had.

The advocates of unrestrained “gun rights” base their case on the 2nd amendment to the US constitution. That amendment might be read to suggest that given that a state has the right of self-defense, people must be allowed to have guns so that when they come together in that state's army (militia) they know how to use them. Or it could be read to mean that people have a right to have guns in order for them to be able to protect themselves from the state. This second reading is the implicit – if not always explicit – argument of the NRA-led gun lobby. They may also seize upon the word “militia” to suggest the right to come together in bands to resist government encroachment.

The pro-gun readings of the 2nd amendment highlight the fact that the amendment itself is outdated. In 21st Century America, the notion of a citizen uprising to defend us from a central government dictatorship is simply the realm of fantasy. Indeed it has been repeatedly enacted as such in movies about citizen uprisings against foreign or alien invaders. In reality, we have a government of and by the people. When it over-reaches, there are checks and balances. (Someday, a Supreme Court may correct the notion that money is speech.) It is difficult to credit the founding fathers with the belief that they were providing the right to bear arms in order to empower the citizens of the United States to overthrow the government they themselves had established. The language of the 2nd amendment seems to make clear that the right of self-protection belonged to the state and not to individuals.

But even the first reading of the amendment – indeed any reading – must confront the clear language that for whatever the reason, the right to have guns shall not be infringed. It does appear absolute. So that should lead to the obvious conclusion that the 2nd amendment is obsolescent and injurious to the nation's health. We all – people in their homes and on the streets, police and young black men – would be safer in a country where there were no guns beyond those modest ones used by hunters and sportsmen under reasonable regulation. The 2nd amendment should be repealed.

Changing the US Constitution: Some Suggestions

Wrote late last year about the Articles of Confederation and the possibility of working through the states to call a constitutional convention according to Article 5. This would mean seeking and supporting candidates for state legislatures whose sole purpose would be to have their state call on Congress to call such a convention – an “Occupy the Constitution” movement to allow us to assemble, debate and decide on draft amendments while enjoying our Tea. It's only fair, therefore, for me to outline a few of the ways I think we might use the amendment process to change the way our government works and make it more responsive to the majority.

Simplicity in representative government may be best – a one-house Congress elected for four years choosing a Prime Minister with a ceremonial President. Whatever party wins the majority gets to implement the policies it was democratically chosen to enact. But the USA may be too big and complex to give so much power to any one institution. The Founding Fathers may have been on to something when they provided for checks-and-balances. For checks and balances, I would not touch the Supreme Court much. But it might also do to re-invigorate the role of the states both to decentralize power and to provide some degree of check-and-balance at the federal level. Here's my suggestions:

• Increase the size of the House of Representatives to allow for greater and more diverse membership and points of view. Article One, Section 2 says the number of representatives “shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.” Congress changed this by law in the 1920s to fix the number at 435. One for every 30,000 would now mean some 10,000 representatives. That seems much. But why not 1000?
• Elect the House for four year terms so its members can do something other than campaign all the time.
• Allow the House to choose the Prime Minister. He/she would be head of government, commander-in-chief and choose the cabinet and senior government officials (including ambassadors), assuming the powers contained in Section 2 of Article 2 without the need to seek advice and consent.
• The House would originate all bills and approve all treaties, assuming all the functions and limitations contained in Sections 7, 8 and 9 of Article 1.
• No commitment of US troops abroad for any time and any purpose would be possible without a majority vote in the House specifying the duration and terms.
• Repeal the 17^th Amendment on popular election of the Senate. Make senators appointed by state legislatures to two year terms. Senators would represent the States at the federal level.
• The Senate would have the authority by majority vote to reject laws and treaties passed by the House. The House could overcome the veto by a 60% vote. (We want to have checks and balances without completely tying the hands of the majority.)
• Members of the Supreme Court would be nominated by the Prime Minister and approved by majority vote of the Senate to serve single terms of 15 or 20 years.
• The President would be chosen by the House and be confined to being the ceremonial head of state. (Or we could abolish the office altogether.)
• Congressional campaign funding would be limited to public sources – money collected by the national treasury and doled out equally to candidates gaining sufficient support through local petitions – and individual contributions limited to some modest amount, say $200.

It might be good as well to take a hard look at the proliferation of government departments. We might grandfather State, Treasury and War – the first created – as well as Justice. But some of the others may be doing things better left to the states or society?

The Case for a Constitutional Convention

I wrote several days ago on the usefulness of rediscovering the Articles of Confederation. But it is clear that the crisis – economic, political and moral – facing the United States today cannot be resolved by simply returning to the past. For years now, things seem to have been getting worse. Income disparity has been increasing, wars proliferating, politicians squabbling. Government has become overbearing, inefficient and too beholding to money. The American people's growing sense that things need to be fixed has energized both the Tea Party and Occupy movement.

Change is necessary but we the people cannot trust others to do it for us. Our politicians seek nothing more than power. Once elected, they spend most of their time and energy raising money in order to get re-elected. Our leaders do not lead because taking necessary actions might lose this or that constituency. So we need to start the change ourselves.

We need to begin pushing for a Constitutional Convention to change the way our government works and to ensure it better serves the 99%. A government lean, more responsive to our needs in the 21st Century and more focused on achieving economic prosperity with justice and liberty.

The Occupy movement has been criticized for not having any overall objective. How about occupying the Constitution?

The Tea Party wants fiscal responsibility, free markets, and constitutionally limited government. Let's do that the right way.

The US Constitution in Article V allows for various ways to amend the constitution:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; 

Leaving constitutional changes to the Congress would be to leave it in the hands of the professional politicians. The most reliable way to ensure real change would be to use the mechanism of a Constitutional Convention. None has been called since the first in 1787. But if the Occupy movement – perhaps alongside the Tea Party – focused now on electing in 2012 state legislatures committed to calling a Convention, a new era of American democracy could begin.

A Constitutional Convention would surely be a hotbed of democracy. Whether Occupy or Tea Party, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, everyone would come into it with different ideas. Reaching agreement on amendments to the constitution would probably be difficult and require equal measures of consensus and compromise. But such a convention would offer a real opportunity for the people to once again assume control of their government. The process of reaching agreement and then ratification by 3/4s of the states would offer further opportunities for democratic participation.

Some are no doubt afraid – whether they say so or not – of such direct democratic participation. They are comfortable with the way things are done today and do not want anyone to mess with that. But we, the great law abiding majority, the 99%, have nothing to fear from coming together to discuss and enact change.