POLICIES FOR UNITY, i.e., FOR LIBERTY, JUSTICE, AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL

What unites all truly patriotic Americans are the promises of our democracy: liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all. These aspirational principles and ideals are what make our democratic republic exceptional. (See my previous post for more detail.) To work toward unity and achieving our democracy’s goals, we and our elected leaders must undertake an honest search for the common good, common ground, and how to best promote the general welfare via government of, by, and for all the people.

Unity requires economic security and equal opportunity for all, so one’s choices in life (i.e., one’s liberty and freedom) are not constrained by economic deprivation or unaffordable necessities of life such as food, shelter, health care, and education. Unity means equal opportunity for all, particularly for every child. This is what valuing families or “family values” should mean to all of us.

We can’t have unity when a million people a week are requesting unemployment benefits and millions are struggling to put food on the table and avoid eviction, while 660 billionaires have added $1.1 trillion (an average of $1.7 billion each) to their wealth since March.

Unity requires adherence to facts and a commitment to seeking and promoting truth. Without this, there is no common ground on which to formulate policies and make decisions. Unity requires acknowledging the results of the 2020 election and stating that they were legitimate and fair. The media must stop promoting false equivalencies – of truth with untruth and alternative “facts” (which aren’t facts, of course) – and either ignore or prominently label false narratives and statements as such. A return to the Fairness Doctrine governing broadcast media (TV and radio), which was repealed in 1987, should be considered to require those using the public airwaves (which requires a public license) to present information on issues of public importance and to do so honestly, equitably, and in a balanced manner. Similar regulation of social and cable media should also be explored.

Unity requires a fair and unbiased application of the rule of law. Everyone must be held accountable to the same set of legal standards or a society cannot function; it would be riven with divisiveness and fighting among factions. Violent protesters of all stripes need to face equal justice and those who aided and abetted violent protests must be held accountable under the law as well. There needs to be acknowledgement of racial bias and harm. Then, there needs to be restorative justice if unity is to be achieved.

Unity requires our elected officials to work together in good faith to promote the general welfare. Certainly, there will be differences of opinion, but they must be resolved through good faith negotiations and compromise. Obstructionism is antithetical to unity.

Hypocrisy is also antithetical to unity. Different standards or principles cannot be applied in the same or similar situations. There are too many examples of this in our politics and society today to do justice to them all, but examples include:

Condemning violence against police that occurs in demonstrations for racial justice but not when it occurs in an insurrection targeted at stopping the democratic transition of power.
Blocking the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice nine months before the end of a Democratic president’s term but confirming a Republican President’s nominee on short notice just three months before the end of his term.
Opposing deficit spending when proposed by Democrats to help working Americans but not when proposed by Republicans to cut taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.

Here are some specific, largely short-term, actions and policies our elected leaders must embrace if they truly wish to strive for unity:

President Biden’s appointees must be approved in a timely fashion, with appropriate oversight of course. This applies to Cabinet members, other executive branch positions, and to judges.
Financial assistance must be provided to working Americans. Over 1 million workers are still applying for unemployment each week. The economy has not rebounded to the point where emergency assistance is no longer needed; millions of families are facing hunger and homelessness. Additional direct financial assistance is needed, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, among many others, has stated. Furthermore, unemployment benefits need to be extended and enhanced and the minimum wage needs to be raised – for those who have jobs and those re-entering the workforce.
For workers doing face-to-face work, their safety must be assured. Strong, enforceable and enforced safety standards are a necessity.
Financial assistance must be provided to small businesses. Thousands of small businesses have gone out of business and thousands more are on the verge of doing so. Financial supports for large corporations through Federal Reserve and Treasury programs that operate largely out of the public eye have been very generous (trillions of dollars) and very successful. This is evidenced by the fact that the stock markets are at all-time highs, believe it or not, despite the struggles of small businesses and working Americans.
Funding is needed for COVID vaccinations. Money is needed for distribution of the vaccines and to help financially strapped states and communities implement vaccination programs. The quicker and more effective the rollout of vaccinations, the greater the number of lives that will be saved and of illnesses that will be prevented. The Federal Reserve and others have also noted the importance of vaccinations to the recovery of the economy.
Financial assistance is needed for state and local governments, as they have seen their revenue fall dramatically and their costs increase with the pandemic. Without this assistance, state and local governments have been laying off tens of thousands of workers which hurts the workers, the economy and its recovery, and the delivery of badly needed government services.
Criminal justice system reform must be undertaken aggressively. Racism needs to be eliminated from all components of the system. Police need strong national standards and oversight on the use of force and racism. The school (and even preschool) to prison pipeline needs to be ended and more appropriate interventions and discipline instituted. Mental health services need to be made available to children, youth, and adults instead of throwing these problems to the criminal justice system. Prosecution and sentencing need to fair and the use of restorative justice needs to be expanded. Rehabilitation and successful re-entry to society need to be the focus of imprisonment, probation, and parole.

President Biden’s Executive Orders are beginning to address many of these issues. They are promoting unity (despite claims otherwise by some Republicans) because they are implementing policies that most Americans support, but which haven’t made it through Congress due to partisanship. For example, 83% of Americans support a ban on workplace discrimination based on sexual identification, 77% want the government to promote racial equity, 75% support the government requiring masks on federal property, and 68% support the continued suspension of federal student loan repayments. A majority of Americans support rejoining the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accords. [1]

People calling for unity are hypocrites unless they are committed to honestly working toward the vision of our democracy and our Constitution for liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all or, in other words, for promotion of the general welfare. Without such a commitment, there can be no unity.

My next post will highlight more specific and longer-term policies that will promote unity and our shared vision of liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all.

[1] Richardson, H.C., 1/29/21, Letters from an American blog post,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-29-2021)

UNIFYING AMERICA

We do need to unify America, both among the public and our policy makers, particularly our partisan Members of Congress. However, there are some people whose minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed and permanently set – often based on false information – who cannot be convinced to share in a unified vision of America. We will need to ignore them at times and at other times to counter their destructive messages and acts.

What we have that truly unites us all are the promises of our democracy: its principles and ideals of liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all. As the preamble to Constitution states, the United States of America was formed to create “a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

These principles and ideals are what make our democratic republic exceptional – not what was actually established in 1789, not what it looks like today, and not what it has been at any time in between. The aspiration to achieve this vision is what is exceptional and we have struggled to live up to it to this day.

There is great diversity in America – which can and should be one of our strengths – and significant differences of opinion on how to achieve the promises of our democracy. We need to approach these differences rationally and collegially, with an eye on the overarching vision.

To unify America, we need a unity of purpose, driven by our vision for our democracy, and to be delivered by government of, by, and for all the people. Unifying America requires an honest search for the common good, common ground, and how to best to “promote the general welfare”. Loyal opposition is fine but not destructive opposition, not obstructionism, nor radical revolutionaries trying to tear down our democratic institutions and processes.

In today’s economy and society, we need to reconceptualize the commitments to liberty, freedom, and the promotion of the general welfare. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in his State of the Union Address in 1944 argued that the “political rights” guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had “proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness”. FDR proposed an “economic bill of rights” to guarantee equal opportunity and freedom from want that included the:

Right to a job and a fair income that could support a family,
Right to a decent home,
Right to health care and health,
Right to social security in old age, sickness, unemployment, and injury,
Right to a good education, and
Freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies.

To unify America, we need to work toward liberty and freedom for all built on economic security and equal opportunity so one’s choices (i.e., one’s liberty and freedom) in life are not constrained by poverty, economic deprivation, or unaffordable necessities of life such as food, shelter, health care, and education.

To ensure liberty and freedom for all in our new democratic republic, the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, was adopted in 1791. These rights remain critically important. However, we need to review the implementation of some of them in light of current technology and current politics.

On freedom of speech, we need to figure out how to regulate free speech on social media; to figure out what is the social media equivalent of yelling “FIRE” in the middle of a crowded theater. Recent events have made it clear that unbridled free speech on social media has contributed to violence and terrorism (i.e., speech that puts people in fear or psychological distress). In addition, social media have contributed to the dissemination of harmful misinformation. How to appropriately control speech on social media – allowing robust speech and conversations while limiting harm – is something we need to figure out.

Freedom of speech in our democracy, where all people are promised equality, means giving equal volume to every voice in America. Giving a bullhorn to those with money and a muzzle to those without money is antithetical to our vision for American democracy. Current legal interpretations equate spending money with free speech, including spending by corporations (not just spending by human beings). This needs to be reconsidered if we want to unify America.

Freedom of religion was meant to allow each individual to practice his or her own religion without the government dictating what an individual could believe or practice. Today, legal interpretations have gone beyond this and, for example, given employers the right to deny contraceptives and other health care to women because of the employer’s religious beliefs. Legal interpretations have also given health care provider institutions and individuals, who are licensed by the government, the right to deny both services and information to patients based on the provider’s religious beliefs. If we want to unify America, freedom of religion should not impede an individual’s right to make decisions with full information and with all choices available to her or him. Individual’s choices should not be dictated or constrained by others’ religious beliefs.

Justice for all means that everyone’s treatment in our society and justice system should be equal and fair, and that the rule of law should be applied fairly and equally to everyone. Anyone and everyone who violates the law must be held accountable. If some people are allowed to violate the law with impunity and others are prosecuted and punished, there won’t be unity. A dramatic, historical example is that after the Civil War we failed to hold the leaders of the Confederacy accountable. We allowed them to return to power in state and local governments. The result was Jim Crow laws and the re-subjugation of African Americans. This underscores the importance of holding white supremacists and racists accountable for their domestic terrorism and other violations of the law today, 150 years later.

Justice for all also means that if some people have received unfairly harsh treatment from our laws and criminal justice system, there cannot by unity until those wrongs are acknowledged and corrected, including providing just compensation.

Unifying America means providing equal opportunity to everyone, particularly to every child. This is what valuing families or “family values” should mean to all of us. One test for a just society is what ethicist John Rawls called the veil of ignorance. He defined a fair society as one where, if confronted with a veil of ignorance about our position and role in society, we would be willing to accept anyone’s position and role in the society. As an early childhood advocate, I’ve presented this as thinking that you are the baby that the stork is about to deliver and if you are comfortable being delivered to any parent in the society, then it’s a fair society. But if there are some parents (or for the previous description, some positions and roles in society) that you would not want to be delivered to or put in, then the society is unfair and unjust, as it does not provide equal opportunity for everyone.

If people truly want to unify America, they must be committed to honestly working toward the vision of our democracy and our Constitution for liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all or, in other words, for promotion of the general welfare. Without this, there can be no unity.

In my next post, I will discuss these topics more specifically in terms of public policies and actions that are needed to unify America.

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION CAN DO A LOT WITH EXECUTIVE ACTIONS Part 2

There are literally hundreds of important executive actions that the Biden-Harris Administration could take on day one (or shortly thereafter) that are well within its existing authority. The American Prospect magazine and the Biden-Sanders unity taskforce (which was created at the end of the Democratic primaries last summer) have identified 277 executive actions that it could take. All of them are policies that have broad support within the Democratic Party. Many of them simply more fully implement or better enforce current laws. They would take important steps toward addressing important problems. [1] [2]

In summary, the Biden-Harris Administration could, without having to wait for Congress to act:

Revamp many aspects of our immigration system (specific examples were in my previous post),
Address climate change along with energy and environmental issues (see my previous post),
Improve our education system and reduce the burden of student debt (see my previous post),
Make our tax system and economy fairer (see specific examples below),
Make important reforms in the criminal justice system (see below),
Expand access to health care and lower drug prices (see below), and
Strengthen the safety net by expanding unemployment benefits as well as housing and food assistance (see below).

Specific executive actions could include:

Change economic and tax policies
- Require federal contractors to pay a $15 minimum wage and not to oppose unionization of their workers, not to move jobs overseas, and not to have violated labor laws
- Enforce antitrust laws and broaden antitrust criteria to include factors other than hypothetical consumer cost savings
- Strengthen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and regulation of the financial industry, especially payday lenders and the vulture capitalists of private equity
- Ensure strong and binding labor, environmental, and human rights standards in every trade agreement
- Direct the National Labor Relations Board to make unionization easier and to penalize companies that don’t bargain in good faith with their workers
- Enforce existing tax laws to reduce tax avoidance and close tax loopholes, including ones created under the 2017 tax cut and especially those for multi-national corporations
- Re-prioritize and expand IRS tax law enforcement with a focus on high-income individuals and large corporations instead of on low-income individuals [3]
- Roll back policies that gutted fair lending and fair housing protections
- Restore the requirement for net neutrality by Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
- Catalyze the creation of public banking by initiating banking and financial services through the U.S. Postal Service
- Ban arbitration clauses in consumer and employment contracts that prohibit aggrieved parties from suing in court
- Direct government procurement of goods and services to prioritize purchasing from small businesses and those owned by people of color, women, and veterans
- Expand job training programs particularly for green and environmental jobs, as well as for formerly incarcerated persons
Reform the criminal justice system
- Rescind the policy directing prosecutors to pursue the harshest criminal penalties possible
- Stop executions of federal prison inmates
- Withhold funds from states that use cash bail
- Reduce criminal penalties for drug possession and increase availability and use of treatment instead of incarceration for drug crimes
- Investigate racial discrimination by police departments, prosecutors, and others in the criminal justice system
- Enforce the requirement that police departments capture and report data on use of force
- Establish national standards on police use of force and create a national police review commission to provide oversight and make recommendations to local departments
- Empower the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to aggressively fight racial discrimination within the federal government and in all federal policies
- Nominate judges with backgrounds as public defenders, legal aid attorneys, and civil rights lawyers
- Prosecute white collar crimes from illegal polluting to money laundering
- Prosecute employers who violate wage and labor laws
- Launch a federal restorative justice program
Improve health and health care
- Re-join the World Health Organization
- Allow new enrollments in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) outside of the normal enrollment period due to COVID-19
- Direct Medicare to reduce excessive prices and price increases for drugs
- Issue and enforce strong workplace safety standards related to infectious diseases
- Commit to study gun violence as a public health issue
- Enforce the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act
Address other issues
- Reestablish the White House’s pandemic response unit
- End the work requirement for receiving food stamps
- Change the definition of poverty and the eligibility for government assistance programs based on it
- Make housing subsidy vouchers an entitlement to all those who qualify
- Direct the Federal Communication Commission to use its Lifeline program to offer subsidies for high-speed internet access to low-income households
- Strengthen enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act

Once President Biden and Vice President Harris have been inaugurated, I urge you to contact them and encourage them to act boldly using executive orders to improve racial and social justice as well as the economic well-being of every working American. Taking these bold policy actions will go a long way toward restoring the public’s faith in government and their belief that government can and is working for their benefit and not just for the benefit of big businesses and the wealthy. This is essential to rebuilding our economy, strengthening our society, and unifying our country by showing that the Biden-Harris Administration and the federal government are actively working to advance the principles and ideals of our democracy, namely liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all.

[1] Moran, M., 7/28/20, “The 277 policies for which Biden need not ask permission,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/277-policies-biden-need-not-ask-permission/)

[2] Dayen, D., Fall 2019, “The day one agenda” and related articles, The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda)

[3] Wamhoff, S. & Gardner, M., 12/16/20, “The day one agenda for corporate taxes,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/day-one-agenda-for-corporate-taxes/)

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION CAN DO A LOT WITH EXECUTIVE ACTIONS

The Biden-Harris Administration can make needed policy changes through executive actions or legislation. These two approaches are complementary and should both be used. Getting progressive legislation passed by Congress will be difficult but possible with narrow control of both the Senate and the House. However, there are literally hundreds of important executive actions that the Biden-Harris Administration could take on day one (or shortly thereafter) that are well within its existing authority.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) issued 99 executive orders in his first 100 days and 3,721 over the course of his presidency. Some of them were monumental, such as the creation of the Rural Electrification Administration, which addressed a major infrastructure issue, and the Civil Works Administration, which created millions of jobs to address the unemployment of the Great Depression. These times call for the Biden-Harris Administration to be bold and to aggressively use executive orders to address the serious problems facing our country. Similar to FDR’s situation, Biden and Harris are facing a country in need of relief from a serious recession and high unemployment coupled with a need for major infrastructure investments. They also, of course, have to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and its effects.

The American Prospect magazine and the Biden-Sanders unity taskforce (which was created at the end of the Democratic primaries last summer) have identified 277 executive actions that the Biden-Harris Administration could take immediately. All of them are policies that have broad support within the Democratic Party. Many of them simply more fully implement or better enforce current laws. They would take important steps toward addressing important problems. [1] [2]

In summary, the Biden-Harris Administration could, without having to wait for Congress:

Revamp many aspects of our immigration system (see specific examples below),
Address climate change along with energy and environmental issues (see specific examples below),
Improve our education system and reduce the burden of student debt (see specific examples below),
Make our tax system and economy fairer (specific examples will be in my next post),
Make important reforms in the criminal justice system (specific examples will be in my next post),
Expand access to health care and lower drug prices (specific examples will be in my next post), and
Strengthen the safety net by expanding unemployment benefits as well as housing and food assistance (specific examples will be in my next post).

Specific executive actions could include:

Change immigration policies
- Enact a 100-day ban on deportations while reviewing current immigration and border practices
- Rescind the “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy, which is effectively a family separation policy
- Rescind policies limiting admissions of refugees and asylees
- End the freeze on issuing new green cards, which allow non-citizens to permanently live and work in the U.S.
- Rescind the declaration of an emergency for the purpose of funding a Mexico border wall
Address climate change, energy, and environmental issues
- Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
- Re-protect federal land including reinstituting bans on mining and drilling
- Reinstate the Clean Power rule limiting carbon emissions from power plants
- Re-institute and then strengthen auto and truck emissions standards
- Reinstate the Cabinet-level Interagency Council on Environmental Justice
- Tighten regulations on the release of methane, sulfur dioxide, ozone, mercury, and coal ash
- Make all 3 million government vehicles at all levels of government zero-emission vehicles
- Buy clean energy and require federal contractors to do so as well
- Make home energy efficiency programs accessible for low-income households
- Establish a task force for planning the transition to clean energy including supports for displaced workers
Improve our education system
- Reduce student debt through various loan forgiveness programs and suspend debt payments during the pandemic
- Reinstate the program to eliminate racial disparities in school discipline
- End federal contracts with student loan servicers who have a history of misleading clients
- Encourage states to develop and adopt a “multiple measures” approach to assessment
- Appoint a federal task force to study charter schools’ impact on public education and make recommendations to strengthen public schools
- Aggressively enforce the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
- Facilitate pathways for early childhood educators to obtain higher education degrees
- Require for-profit colleges to demonstrate their return on investment before allowing their students to be eligible for federal student loans

My next post will present examples of executive actions the Biden-Harris Administration could take on economic, criminal justice, health and health care, and other issues.

[1] Moran, M., 7/28/20, “The 277 policies for which Biden need not ask permission,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/277-policies-biden-need-not-ask-permission/)

[2] Dayen, D., Fall 2019, “The day one agenda” and related articles, The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda)

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR INSURRECTION AND DOMESTIC TERRORISM

Now that we’ve all had a bit of time to get more information and to reflect on the insurrection and domestic terrorism that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, I wanted to share two information sources that I found valuable in helping me understand that event, as well as to share some reflections on it. I use the terms insurrection and domestic terrorism purposefully because they are accurate terminology for what happened – as are sedition [1] and treason [2]. I believe it’s important to call the events and the behavior what they are. The significance of what occurred is demeaned by simply referring to it as a protest or a violent mob. I believe it is also important to call out the racism, as well as the white and male supremacy, that were central to and at the root of the chain of misinformation, brain washing, and other events that led to what occurred on January 6.

I strongly urge you to listen to Bill Moyers (one of my long-time heroes) on his Moyers on Democracy podcast interviewing Heather Cox Richardson (rapidly becoming one of my heroes) as they discuss the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol and the current political situation in the U.S. Richardson’s historical perspective (she’s a history professor at Boston College) is valuable for putting the attack in perspective. The podcast is 40 minutes and is well worth listening to. Or you can read the transcript. https://billmoyers.com/story/podcast-bill-moyers-and-heather-cox-richardson/

I also found Rachel Maddow’s show on January 7 valuable. First, she reviews the events of the 6th with videos and interviews that provide additional information on how violent and threatening the insurrection was and how close Members of Congress came to being personally confronted or captured by the terrorists. Then, she highlights passages from the book On Tyranny and interviews its author (at 21 minutes into the show). She follows this with a video of the arrest in the Capitol Rotunda in 2017 of five non-white ministers, including Raphael Warnock (who was just elected to the U.S. Senate in Georgia), for a peaceful protest of praying and singing (at 36 minutes into the show). This is followed by an interview with Sherrilyn Ifill, President of the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP. These latter portions of the broadcast are the ones I found most valuable for gaining perspective on the seriousness of the January 6 events and the importance of holding perpetrators and enablers accountable. https://www.nbc.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/video/rachel-maddow-1721/4282029

The information and perspectives from these sources and others have left me even more convinced that everyone who participated in and enabled these acts of sedition, treason, insurrection, and terrorism needs to be held accountable. The people who stormed the Capitol should be arrested and tried. Thank God D.C.’s strict gun laws discouraged them from bringing guns or I bet there would have been more bloodshed.

Those who contributed to building the false story that the election was stolen are complicit and need to be held accountable. Many of those who stormed the Capitol were motivated by their belief that the election had been stolen and there are many more people across the country who hold this dangerous belief as well. Those who are responsible include Republican Members of Congress, the media and especially the social media platforms, lawyers involved in claiming non-existent election fraud, and others who through silence or action gave credence to the false narrative of a stolen election. This includes the wealthy Americans, corporate leaders, and corporations who have supported politicians who promoted the stolen election story with campaign donations and otherwise, including the President and Members of Congress. There are various ways to hold these co-conspirators accountable, but they all should be held accountable in one way or another.

Some people are now referring to the Republican Party as the Insurrection Party, a name it deserves unless it takes active, very public steps to eliminate the Trump cult and its seditious behavior from its leadership and membership. It would also need to repudiate or reform many policies it supports that undermine democracy, including voter suppression and gerrymandering. Its leaders, many of them Members of Congress, must stop putting their personal political ambitions ahead of their oath of office, i.e., their pledge to uphold the Constitution and our democracy.

The goal of my blog is to promote democracy – government of, by, and for the people – through polices that move us toward the principles and ideals of our democracy, such as social and economic justice. I try to avoid taking sides politically. I have strongly criticized Democrats for their very significant role in our growing economic inequality and their failure to address some social justice issues, such as our criminal justice system. However, the dominant attack on democracy and social and economic justice of the last four years has come from President Trump, his administration, and his Republican enablers in Congress. Therefore, I feel I must, at this time, single out the Republican Party for its undemocratic, to say the least, behavior.

Our country and all of us need to seriously tackle the racism and white privilege, as well as the white and male supremacy, that are at the root of the chain of misinformation, brain washing, and other events that led to what occurred on January 6. Racism and white privilege were not only evident in the explicit messages of the terrorists, but also, as has been widely noted, in the difference between the treatment of these largely white “protesters” and the treatment last summer of the diverse protesters, especially the Black protesters, who were calling for racial and social justice. The arresting and handcuffing of non-white ministers peacefully praying and singing in the Rotunda to protest budget cuts (shown on the Rachel Maddow show) stand in stark contrast to what happened in the Rotunda and the Capitol on January 6.

The big picture for our country is that the insurrection was an attempt to overthrow our democracy by stopping the peaceful transition of power based on a legitimate election. If the insurrection had ultimately been successful, it would have resulted in an authoritarian, fascist [3] government, where the rule of law would be ignored, and where control would rest with a small group of wealthy elites, primarily business executives and owners. I do not use these terms lightly; they are accurate labels for the behavior and rhetoric of Trump and his cult. The trend toward plutocracy [4] and oligarchy [5] has been going on for 40 years in the U.S. as income and wealth inequality have skyrocketed due to federal government policies by and for wealthy individuals and corporations.

I will close by repeating the bottom line of my previous post: Please contact your Members of Congress and ask them to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump for sedition and incitement of domestic terrorism. Please also ask them to contact the Vice President and the Cabinet to encourage them to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from power.

Furthermore, the Members of Congress who have aided or abetted the efforts to overturn a clearly valid election have violated their oath of office and should be investigated by Congress’s Ethics Committee and censured or expelled from Congress.

There must be accountability and consequences for the President and others who fostered this domestic terrorism, otherwise it will happen again, sooner or later, and may well be worse next time.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1] Sedition: conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of the state.

[2] Treason: the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to overthrow the government.

[3] Fascist: far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalistic government characterized by dictatorial power and forcible suppression of opposition.

[4] Plutocracy: government by the wealthy.

[5] Oligarchy: control of a country by a small group of people.

REMOVING TRUMP AND CO-CONSPIRATORS FROM OFFICE

I urge you to contact your Members of Congress and ask them to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump for treason and incitement of domestic terrorism to overthrow the U.S. government. Please also ask them to contact the Vice President and the Cabinet to encourage them to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power.

Trump must be removed NOW by any legal means before he does more harm. He is a clear and present danger to the country, both in terms of domestic matters and because his and his administration’s instability makes our country vulnerable to a foreign military, cyber, or terrorist attack anywhere in the world.

Furthermore, the Members of Congress who have in any way aided or abetted Trump’s efforts to overturn a clearly valid election have violated their oath of office and should be investigated by the Ethics Committee, potentially leading to their expulsion from Congress. This should also apply to any Members of Congress who aided, abetted, or gave encouragement to the domestic terrorist mob that invaded the Capitol.

There must be accountability and consequences for the President and others who fostered this domestic terrorism, otherwise it will happen again, sooner or later, and may well be worse next time.

BIDEN’S OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE ECONOMIC SECURITY WITH PROGRESSIVE POLICIES

Looking ahead to 2021, many challenges face the country and President-elect Biden. Most of them have negatively affected the economic well-being of many Americans, including the pandemic, the lack of racial justice, and the economic recession. All of them and others (e.g., climate change) can and should be addressed in a way that will improve the economic security of working and middle-class Americans. This would also go a long way toward restoring their faith in government and their belief that government can and is working for their benefit and not just for the benefit of big businesses and the wealthy.

Since the 1990s, the Democratic Party has joined the Republican Party in aligning itself with large corporations and the wealthy elites that run and own them through deregulation, trade deals, and tax policies that work to their benefit. As a result, the middle class has been decimated and blue collar, often unionized, workers have lost their economic security; 90% of Americans have lost ground economically over the last 30 years. Income and wealth inequality have spiraled to levels unseen since the 1920s and the economy of the 1950s and 1960s that lifted all boats has disappeared. [1]

Abandoned by the Democratic Party, which traditionally had stood up for them, white, blue collar workers and their families have been convinced to support demagogues, including Trump, who promote divisive, anti-immigrant, racist, reactionary, and undemocratic policies.

To address mainstream Americans’ loss of economic security, Biden must implement progressive policies that will enhance their economic well-being. The public strongly supports such policies as poll after poll shows. For example, polls find that: [2]

68% believe our tax system should require the wealthy to pay more,
75% support paying higher income taxes to support health care, education, welfare, and infrastructure, and
92% say they would rather live in a country with a low level of income inequality than one with high inequality.

There also was plenty of evidence of support for progressive policies and candidates in the 2020 election results. (See my previous post on this topic for some details.)

A key factor contributing to economic insecurity and inequality, and one Americans clearly understand, is that large corporations and their executives and lobbyists have undue influence on U.S. policies. By margins of more than two-to-one they don’t want President Biden appointing corporate executives or lobbyists to positions in his administration. Roughly 75% of poll respondents say that an administration official overseeing or regulating an industry they have a connection to is a “big problem” and about 90% say it is at least “a little bit of a problem.” The public knows that the so-called “revolving door” between positions in large corporations and ones in government lead to policies that benefit the corporations and their wealthy executives and investors. Sixty-seven percent of respondents, including 60% of Republicans, say that this revolving door is “corrupt and dangerous.” [3]

In government, personnel is policy. In other words, the personnel in key positions in the Biden administration will strongly influence who benefits from policies and their implementation – the working and middle-class or the upper class and big businesses. Therefore, it is important that Biden select people for his administration who are committed to working for the good of the people and not for the economic elites, many of whom are big campaign donors.

President Biden has two main avenues for creating needed policy changes: executive actions and legislation. These two are complementary and should both be used. Getting progressive legislation passed by Congress will be difficult even if Senate control is nominally with the Democrats (i.e., with a 50-50 split among Senators if Democrats win the two Georgia runoffs). But Senator Warren and others have shown that bipartisan legislation is possible even in the current contentious and polarized environment in Congress. Her successes include making hearing aids more affordable, enhancing consumer protection in various financial transactions, strengthening oversight and regulation of the financial industry, expanding access to affordable housing, and reining in abuses in housing financing. (I will write a post about this in the near future.)

There are also literally hundreds of executive actions that a Biden administration could take that are well within its existing authority. As many as 277 such actions have been enumerated by the writers at the American Prospect magazine and the document produced by the Biden-Sanders unity taskforce at the end of the Democratic primary last summer. They include steps to make our tax system fairer, to strengthen the safety net (including unemployment benefits and housing and food assistance), to expand access to health care and lower drug prices, to increase pay and benefits for employees of federal contractors, and to make it easier for workers to bargain collectively for better pay, benefits, and working conditions. (I will write a post about possible executive actions in the near future.)

I encourage you to contact your U.S. Senators and Representative to express your support for issues you would like to see them address in 2021, including policies such as the examples above that would improve the economic security of mainstream Americans. You can find contact information for your US Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

You can get information and sign-up for updates from the Biden-Harris transition at https://buildbackbetter.gov/.

[1] Lemann, N., 10/19/20, “Losing ground: the crisis of the two-party system,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/let-them-eat-tweets-the-system-never-trump/)

[2] Hightower, J., Nov. 2020, “Timeless truths for trying times,” The Hightower Lowdown (https://hightowerlowdown.org/article/timeless-truths-for-trying-times/)

[3] Demand Progress, Dec., 2020, “Americans want a progressive Biden administration,” (https://s3.amazonaws.com/demandprogress/reports/Americans_Want_A_Corporate-Free_Biden_Administration.pdf)