The Only Sure Way For Democrats To Beat Trump
If the Democrats’ priority is truly to win the 2020 presidential election and get rid of Donald Trump, viewing him as a serious danger to national security and a national disgrace, they must have a practical, enlightened platform which appeals to both Democrats and Republicans. That means a non-controversial platform proposing real, practical solutions for our social and economic problems through effective measures which gain solid political support, on the left, right, and center. That means a platform rejecting “socialism” and finding non-socialist solutions, “enlightened capitalism” solutions. That means a platform reducing political divisiveness, creating real unity, not illusory, superficial unity. Democrats need win-win, rational, effective solutions, not ideologically flammable policies.
That means having a platform where health care affordability and universal coverage does not involve “Medicare for All” which is unworkable and violates Americans’ freedom of choice, a basic principle of our democracy, and which is probably unconstitutional. Millions of Americans are happy with their private medical insurance, taking that away from them is “un-American”, truly socialist-dictatorial. The widely accepted measure would be a combination of financial assistance for low-income citizens, complete price transparency of insurance policies and medical procedures, and unlimited competition between medical insurance companies and medical providers. True competition always leads to better quality and lower prices. Democrats need to explain the causes of the affordability crisis, i.e., the fact that over the past 40 years medical technology had made enormous advances, while the average productivity and earnings of Americans have stagnated due to a low level of public school education. Hence, the long-term sustainable solution for health care affordability is greatly improving the education of all Americans.
That means having a platform which repudiates class warfare, and does not claim to be for the working class or unions. It must be a platform for all Americans. That means a platform which does not raise taxes in general, not even on the wealthy (except for eliminating tax shelters, which are unfair and economically counter-productive). That means no longer demonizing the wealthy and business, instead of applauding their well-earned success which benefits the nation. That means not having a platform of envy. Democrats must stop talking about income inequality as a problem of capitalism which should be addressed by implementing socialism. It’s not income inequality that matters, it’s lowincomes that matter. Since low incomes are due to a low level of education, the sustainable solution is to ensure that every American gets a truly excellent education. The Democrats must focus on improving public school education, not on income inequality, in order to raise incomes.
That means having a platform which supports a free market/free enterprise economy with pro-growth economic policies capable of always avoiding long recessions and high unemployment, using QE financed tax rebates as the standard economic stimulus tool. That means a platform which eliminates long-term capital gains taxes since they are unfair due to inflation (consider the plight of homeowners when they sell their home) and economically counterproductive. Biden, if he wants to win, he must stop advocating an increase in the long-term capital gains tax. If he advocated eliminating it altogether, he would surge in popularity.
That means having a platform which rejects the politics of envy and socialism. That means rejecting wealth taxes, which are unfair (being double-taxation of previously taxed income), unconstitutional in violation of the 5th Amendment’s “no taking of private property” clause (the very reason there are no federal real estate taxes!), and economically counterproductive by reducing investment. That means having QE financing for budget deficits and infrastructure spending whenever appropriate, in order to avoid hiking taxes or increasing real federal debt. (QE financed debt is only “virtual” debt which evaporates in thin air at maturity when the Federal Reserve cancels it; therefore such debt is not passed on to future generations. It is essentially printed money which is not inflationary, as we have seen these past years, when it is not excessive, i.e., does not cause excess aggregate demand.)
That means having a platform which recognizes that poverty is due to an inadequate education, and consequently that eliminating poverty requires a great improvement in public schools, involving an enlightened, ambitious curriculumand individual assistance for students having academic difficulties, in order to prevent them from falling behind and dropping out. That means having a platform which recognizes that income redistribution and “soaking the rich” is not a solution. Ensuring a truly excellent education for all Americans is the solution.
An enlightened platform would recognize that greatly reducing poverty, mental illness, violence of all sorts including gun violence, abuse, addiction, and discrimination of all sorts including racism, requires a vastly improved public school education. That requires the adoption of an enlightened public high school curriculum which would include courses in 1) ethics; 2) logic/critical thinking; 3) 20th Century history in great detail; 4) the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsalong with the history of human rights violations; 5) economics and investing; 6) history of art, architecture, and design; 7) history of music; 8) introductory law; 9) comparative religion; 10) the major mistakes in economic, social, and foreign policy over the past 100 years; and 11) psychology, accompanied by “group therapy” and “good parenting” classes, with individual attention for students in need. An enlightened public high school curriculum is an absolute necessitythough few people seem to realize it. We must admit that all our social problems, even our political divides, are due to a low level of education, hence the solution is greatly improved public school education.
That means having a platform which focuses on prevention of unwanted pregnancies, not on abortion. Since practically all unwanted pregnancies involve high school dropouts, the real sustainable solution is making sure that all our youth get a truly excellent education and don’t drop out. That means individual tutors for students having academic difficulties, along with extra study hall and homework. That’s the way to reach an effective bipartisan solution and finesse the ideological divide. To win, Democrats must drop their defense of late-term abortions. You don’t have to be religious to find abortion a sad event. You don’t have to be religious to find aborting a six-month old fetus very disturbing. Why not put the emphasis on preventing the need for abortion, on preventing unwanted pregnancies? And on promoting adoptions? In addition, if all public schools had very well organized after-school activities in the arts, sports, and vocational training, during all weekends and vacations, all our youth would be constructively occupied and involved in healthy pursuits, instead of not knowing what to do with their free time or engaging in irresponsible behavior. Where to find the money? QE financing if necessary.
That means having a platform which solves the illegal immigrants/migrant crisis in a rational, humane way. Solving the illegal immigration crisis simply requires enforcing our asylum law which clearly applies only to people persecuted by their own governments, not to people fleeing poverty and crime. Consequently, that means rescinding bureaucratic regulations which effectively violate our asylum law while stimulating illegal immigration. At the same time, we should help our neighboring southern countries to develop economically and socially through a major Peace Corps effort. Meanwhile, all the illegal migrant detention centers at our border with Mexico must be closed and the migrants immediately returned to their country of origin. All those migrants clearly do not qualify for asylum since there is no known persecution in Central America. They therefore do not qualify for an asylum hearing. What most people ignore is that the asylum law of the United States (similar to the one of the United Nations) was inspired and informed by the Holocaust, the most notorious, cruel, evil, barbarous, insane, psychotic government persecution in history. Asylum law has nothing to do with economic migrants, or migrants fleeing crime and bad government. Democrats, to win, cannot be for an irrational, unrealistic, and politically divisive open door policy. All nations have immigration quotas, which have never been criticized as being immoral or unreasonable per se.
Democrats must make the point that when all Americans are well-educated and psychologically well-adjusted, there will be no more poverty and violence, and taxation will be greatly reduced. Therefore, greatly improving public school education should be the logical priority for all Americans. And since greatly improving public school education is in the national interest, it should be financed in large part by the federal government. Furthermore, to guarantee a uniformly excellent public school education throughout the country, we need to have an ambitious core national curriculum along with a demanding national high school graduation test. That will greatly raise the average education level, a necessity for prosperity.
Truly unifying the nation can only be achieved through a universally high level of education (the great equalizer), along with mandatory civilian or military service right after college for two years. A socially valuable and productive civilian service funded by the federal government would consist of 1) tutoring public school students having academic difficulty; 2) running after-school programs in the arts, sports, and vocational training in public schools; 3) assisting with elderly and invalid home care; 4) serving in a Peace Corps program to help poor nations (especially in Central America) develop through schools and infrastructure; 5) staffing an urban, rural, and highway beautification corps.
Poverty has not been reduced ever since Lyndon Johnson proclaimed the “War on Poverty” in 1965, in spite of large income transfers and other social assistance. The reason is that our social programs have been gravely defective. Apart from providing a universally excellent public school education, Democrats should promote effective welfare reform providing strong guidance, training, closely supervised housing, and productive public sector employment when private sector employment is unavailable.
The Democrats, to win, must declare that they will not be a party of tribalists and “spinners”. They must insist on honesty, complete transparency, open-mindedness, and objectivity from everyone. Democrats must affirm that they will not tolerate any of their politicians lying, spinning, obstructing justice, not honoring subpoenas, and that character and honesty are just as important as policies. To prove that, the Democrats must state they were mistaken not to remove Bill Clinton from office, because he lied to the American people and gravely misbehaved by taking advantage of a young intern, a terrible example for the nation.
Democrats, to win over Republicans, should focus on eliminating pollution without making a highly contentious connection to climate change. We’ve had 5 ice ages and 5 great warmings all caused by natural forces. So, it’s illogical to assert that the current warming is not due to nature. Most probably it is simply a continuation of the latest great warming cycle. To achieve goals, Democrats must avoid politically divisive arguments whenever possible!
Finally, Democrats should set the bar high for what it means to be a truly qualified political candidate: at a minimum, being able to list and explain all the major mistakes in economic, social, and foreign policy over the past one hundred years, and what would have been the correct policies. When our presidents, senators, and representatives are truly qualified, we will quickly solve all our problems and have sustainable economic and social prosperity, with very low taxes and with an enlightened, successful foreign policy.
©Edward Sonnino 2020
February 1, 2020
