Unalterable Change
In an essay last week, “It’s Getting Near Christmas”, I proposed that Progressive/Democrats (or, my favorite label, Liberals) follow the example of our right-wing fellow citizens. In the interregnum between the first and second Trump Administrations, those right-wingers were distraught at losing the Presidency. They thought that their “last best chance” to alter America to their own image was lost.
But instead of wallowing in despair, they went to work. Even as Democrats in power led the way towards “normalizing” the United States, the “boys” at the Heritage Foundation (few women involved) were dreaming “big dreams”. Instead of “giving up” and finding ways to accommodate themselves to the new Biden order, they prepared for total revolution. And it worked.
It was a grim happenstance of history. The Trump Assassination plot and Biden’s aging, blended with the nomination of Kamala Harris as the first Black/West Asian and woman candidate of a major party for President. In the end, my foil hat theories to the contrary, it was too much for the American people to deal with. They narrowly re-elected Trump. That opened the door to Project 2025, Stephen Miller and Russell Vought, and a wholesale revamping of American government, and life.
I met some friends last week at a Christmas Party. They read my essays, and feel that I was more than just uncertain about the future of America. They said, I sounded like I was in despair, and that our “last, best chance” was done. Looking back at some of those writings, they’re right. I am concerned about what could happen to America. I am saddened by what I see Americans doing. And I am worried that should we fail to stop the Project 2025 “boys”, they will make unalterable changes to the American “story”.
Visualization
So, I look to a technique I used as a high school track coach. It’s simple: if an athlete can’t envision clearing a bar, or winning a race, or throwing a distance; it’s unlikely they can achieve it. My coaching mentor, John McGowan, often wrote it on his “post-game” reports to the team: “What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve”. Others put it more simply: “If you say you can’t, you won’t. If you say you can, you will!” As a coach, my job was to train the body, instill technique, and provide opportunity. But it was also to convince them that what I was asking wasn’t impossible.
How could a boy clearing 10’6” in the pole vault see themselves growing to clear 15’0”, if they couldn’t imagine even making 11’0”? They had to see a path, the progression towards a goal. We simply had to envision it, step by step. I had them close their eyes and visualize success. Feel the pole shooting their body into the air. Watch the technique of going over the bar. Hear the air rush with the bar cleared and the long fall towards the pit. Stand and see the bar still up. Feel what it is like to have a goal achieved.
Conceive
Today, we must conceive what victory will look like. We must envision what needs to be done to make sure that the United States will never be so degraded again. We must visualize the process, the progression to the America we want it to be. And, for me, that process is hard to do.
It’s taken me a while to figure out why. I’ve done it before. I lived through Nixon, and Reagan and Bush. But, I’m sixty-nine years old. It will take decades to repair the damage done, decades that I don’t necessarily have. So, like the boy who couldn’t envision making 11’ and therefore couldn’t see 15’, I see the ultimate goal as beyond my time. What I resolved, is to see the path, the progression towards the America I believe we can become. And, maybe, help get to 13’6” before my time is done. It’s not 15′, but it’s a start. So let us begin.
Restrain the Presidency
One of the most difficult things to do is to achieve power, then give it up. But that’s exactly what the next Democratic President must do. The Trump Presidencies have proven one thing: that old saw that “The Presidency makes the man” is a myth. The United States depended on norms, precedents, and traditions to restrain our elected leader. But Trump, and the “unitary executive” theory of the Heritage “boys”, proves that self-restraint is not enough. So the first thing the President, and the new Congress must do, is codify the powers of the President. Put them into law, and place boundaries on Presidential power in black and white.
There’s precedence for that. After Watergate and Nixon’s resignation, the Congress instituted a series of laws to prevent his kind of corruption. The Presidents after Nixon did as well, building a legal “wall” between the White House and the Department of Justice. But that Presidential “wall” was built with “norms”; unwritten rules. And clearly the Trump Administration feels no compunction today about breeching all of those norms for their own gain. So now, it needs to be “Black Letter Law”.
Nuclear Threat
We need to renew the laws we already have, ones that were gutted by the Supreme Court. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is now a “paper tiger”, with all of its enforcement mechanisms removed. Somehow, Chief Justice Roberts and his majority have decided that there is no discrimination in America, and therefore no need to remediate electoral discrimination.
That’s exactly the “judicial activism” that the Heritage “boys” have been decrying for years. Congress must step in and make policies to protect minorities in America, a Nation where minorities are in fact, the majority. The same is true with the Affordable Care Act. The provisions that made it “affordable” were gutted by the same Court.
And if the Court determines to not give up its power grab, then Congress has remedies, including the “nuclear option” of adding more Justices. When that was threatened in the 1930’s, the Court was overruling the New Deal legislation to rebuild America’s economy. While “Court Packing ” never became law, oddly, the existing Justices began to find for the New Deal, instead of against it. So change can happen, if the right levers of power are exercised. And there’s always the “nuclear threat”, if need be.
Represent People, Not Parties
We need to guarantee that the Congress actually represents America. Gerrymandering has altered American political life, putting an emphasis on extremism over compromise. While I agree with Gavin Newsom in fighting redistricting “fire with fire” now, ultimately the United States needs to get beyond this naked political power play of slicing neighborhoods and communities for political gain. We need to recognize that we are a government “of the people”, not of political parties or geographic expanses.
And, as far as the Senate of the United States is concerned, it too should be more representative of our Nation. Washington DC should become a state, as should Puerto Rico. If that results in a more permanent Democratic majority in the Senate, so be it. If the opposition party doesn’t like it, then they should adapt to a new American reality, rather than restrict representation. Political parties can change: Republicans used to have liberals, and Democrats used to have conservatives and even segregationists. Republicans had a complete plan to change after their loss in 2012, but abandoned it with their total sellout to right-wing forces. We are all paying the penalty for that now.
Non-Linear Progression
If you need precedent for that, simply look back at our history. In the years before the Civil War, compromises were constantly made to control Senate membership. The Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act; all pivoted around the two more seats in the chamber each statehood created. While they failed to stop a Civil War, they are precedent for change to reflect the Nation.
There are more changes, more proposals to consider. If Project 2025 ran to 900 pages, Project 2029 may take as many. Detail is important; it’s a plan, not a dream. So this is “Part the First”. I promise to return with more. In the meantime, visualize what America is learning, and what we can still become. Our hope for a “more perfect union” isn’t dead. It’s just isn’t the linear a progression we wanted.
