The Only Way Biden Can Crush Trump or His Replacement: An Enlightened Centrist Platform.

Even though Trump seems to be declining significantly in the polls, and could actually resign before the elections in order to avoid the embarrassment and humiliation of a landslide defeat, to be assured of defeating Trump or his replacement this November, Joe Biden needs to maximize his appeal not just with Democratic voters, but also with independent and centrist Republican voters. That requires an enlightened “practical solutions” platform which Democrats, independents, and centrist Republicans can all approve of enthusiastically. Since the absolute Democratic priority is to defeat Trump and his malicious Republicans in the Senate and the House, Biden must not weaken his and the Democrats’ chances of victory by having a socialistic, anti-capitalist platform, or by having a demagogic leftwing class-warfare running mate, both of which would alienate centrist voters and result in bad policy. An enlightened “practical solutions” platform leads to solving problems without the stamp of ideology, the only way to rally a solid majority of voters and to unify the nation.

First and foremost, such a winning platform means having absolutely no proposals to increase taxes, not even on the wealthy. Any tax hikes would be political suicide, alienating many Republican, independent, and centrist Democrats. Furthermore, increasing taxes would be counterproductive economically by reducing investment and consumption. What’s more and of crucial importance, increased taxes are not at all needed to fund important education, health care, infrastructure and other necessary programs, since we have discovered QE financing by the Federal Reserve and should no longer be slaves to fallacious budget deficit theories.

Biden must explain that the way to eliminate poverty, an absolute priority, is not to raise taxes and “soak the rich”. The only way to eliminate poverty, beyond having enlightened pro-growth fiscal and monetary policies which prevent long recessions and high unemployment, is to provide a truly excellent public school education which prevents dropouts and leads to every single youth obtaining a college degree. No one can object to that, neither left-wingers nor right-wingers. It is self-evident that a universally well-educated citizenry leads to social and economic prosperity, with much lower taxes. That ambitious but easily obtainable goal requires a dramatic upgrade in the public high school curriculum, strict class discipline, lots of homework, individual tutoring and study hall for students with poor grades, individual assistance for students with psychological problems, along with well-organized after-school activities in sports, arts, and vocational-training, on weekends, holidays, and during the entire summer break. Implementing that crucially important public school reform must not be blocked by misguided, small-minded budget deficit concerns, especially since QE financing by the Federal Reserve can obviate the need to raise taxes. Since a very well educated citizenry is in the national interest, public school education and organized after-school activities must be fully funded by the federal government and be of top quality. The same goes for public universities. As for student loan debt, repayment should be made very affordable for those with low incomes, with repayment schedules based on earnings.

Biden also needs to effectively deal with the politically divisive question of climate change. That means not having an ideological approach founded on a particular theory which is not universally shared. Everyone is against pollution, so focus on eliminating pollution for its own sake, not on the Democrats’ theory that pollution is the cause of climate change. Whether greatly reducing pollution will stop global warming is objectively debatable, no matter what many scientists assert, since we have had five ice ages followed by five great warmings dwarfing the warming of the past thirty years, and those truly major climate changes had nothing to do with human activity, only with natural forces. Those same scientists have no explanation for the five ice ages and five great warmings, which should undercut their credibility. As for the current warming, it is probably the continuation of the most recent great warming cycle. It is pure folly not to fully account for that probability and to plan as if humanity can block natural planetary forces. So, avoid politically divisive theories, and focus on universally agreed upon goals, such as eliminating pollution.

Biden also needs to understand how to deal with the politically divisive issue of gun control. The Democrats must be rational and acknowledge that gun violence (and all other forms of violence) is due to mentally disturbed people, and that even if guns are outlawed, there are always black markets and other means of killing. So, the real solution for gun violence is addressing mental health starting at a young age, by having the public high school curriculum include four years of psychology accompanied by “group therapy” and “good parenting” classes. Psychologically well-adjusted citizens do not go on mass shooting sprees, or behave violently in general, and they are happier. So why do Democrats insist on gun control, particularly when drug laws have never been effective? Why would there not be a black market for guns, just as there always has been for illegal drugs? How many billions have been wasted on the totally ineffective “War on Drugs”? Reach your goal not ideologically, but practically, with an effective program embraced by everyone.

Biden also needs to understand how to deal with the politically divisive issue of abortion. Democrats must stop being ideologically stubborn and finesse religious objections to abortion by focusing on what should be the real goal, i.e., preventing undesired pregnancies. The great majority of unwanted pregnancies involve high school dropouts. How many unwanted pregnancies involve college graduates? So, eliminating the dropout phenomenon is the way to go, along with encouraging adoption. We’ve wasted all these years under Democrats and Republicans and done absolutely nothing to solve the real problem, all due to ideological stubbornness and limited thinking. By embracing the enlightened solution, Biden will get the approval of most Democrats and Republicans.

Biden also needs to understand how to deal with illegal drugs and addiction. For how much longer will we stubbornly cling to the failed policy of making drugs illegal, ignoring that black markets always exist, and that mental health is the reason for addiction? Biden should insist that the solution for greatly reducing addiction is to focus on mental health, and that requires a four year high school course on psychology accompanied by indispensable “group therapy” and “good parenting” classes. How can any rational person object to this?

Biden also needs to understand how to deal with the illegal immigration problem logically, humanely, and in a bi-partisan, effective way. No one can rationally be for open borders. Half the world would be at our borders! It has always been morally and politically acceptable for all nations to set immigration limits. The United States has always had immigration limits and no one complained. But the sight of desperate people at our Mexican border has led to an irrational, emotional response among liberals to admit all of them, which Republicans reject. Fortunately, a rational, humane solution is available which should satisfy both Democrats and Republicans. That is to simply enforce our own decades-old asylum law (inspired by the United Nations law prompted by the Holocaust) which applies only to categories of individuals persecuted by their own government on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, and political opinion (INA 101(a) (42). It does not apply to people fleeing poverty and crime. Since there is no known persecution in Mexico and Central America, practically all the migrants at our Mexican border do not even qualify for a hearing. If that were well communicated, and if asylum applications were required at U.S. consular offices in the country of residence, there would be no waves of migrants taking long dangerous journeys to the U.S. border.

Furthermore, if we are truly concerned about poverty and crime in our southern neighbors, we should institute a major Peace Corps program providing education, infrastructure, and medical clinics. That would not only be the humanitarian thing to do, it would be enlightened, benefiting not only those developing nations but our own economy, particularly in the long term. Had this been done 50 years ago, Mexico and Central America would have become socially and economically prosperous decades ago, we’d have no illegal immigration problem.

Biden also needs to understand how to deal with income inequality concerns in a logical, enlightened, bi-partisan way. It is crucially important for everyone to understand that the problem is not income inequality; the problem is low incomes, due to a low level of education. The income inequality obsession of Democrats is a demagogic, socialistic red herring, misses the real problem, and is the result of petty envy and of not understanding how economies work optimally. Communism was obsessed with income inequality, and through income and wealth redistribution (along with a government directed economy) it reached equality by having everyone poor. That’s what happens when the wealthy are targeted, because all productive investment comes from the wealthy. Experience has shown conclusively that public sector investment in matters of business is far inferior to private sector investment.

No society can be economically prosperous without large amounts of private sector, free market directed investments, as opposed to government directed investments. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is a typical target of left-wingers. But, did Bezos take any money away from anyone? Did he create an incredibly innovative and valuable company appreciated by hundreds of millions of people? Did he not create lots of jobs, not just within Amazon, but also for thousands of small entrepreneurs who sell on Amazon? Is Bezos responsible for low incomes, or are low incomes the result of 1) incompetent economic policy which has caused or not prevented totally avoidable long recessions and high unemployment, and 2) a low level of education due to a totally inadequate public high school curriculum? Apart from Bezos, how about Bill Gates of Microsoft and Elon Musk of Tesla? And Apple led by Tim Cook? Does it make sense to raise taxes and reduce the amount of money successful entrepreneurs and companies have for investment?

Biden also needs to understand how to deal with healthcare insurance in a bi-partisan way. Biden should amend Obama Care by removing the individual mandate provision opposed by Republicans, replacing it with the obligation for the uninsured to pay their heath care bills according to a repayment plan based on their income and wealth. That way, low-income citizens are protected, while people who could afford insurance but refuse to buy it would be held accountable, a perfectly Republican free-market solution. In addition, Biden should remove all geographic limitations on insurance companies so that there is nationwide competition on health insurance, the effect being to lower premium costs and improve the quality of care.

Biden also needs to understand how to deal in a bi-partisan way with taxation unfairness due to 1) tax shelters which unjustly favor the very wealthy, apart from being economically counterproductive by severely misallocating investment capital; 2) unjustified favorable tax treatment of certain categories of investments; 3) long-term capital gains taxes which mostly hit illusory inflation-related gains, and which are economically counter-productive by reducing investment and consumption, apart from leaving those who sell their homes with much less money after taxes to buy equivalent homes; 4) the estate and gift tax, which is fraudulently unconstitutional (in violation of the 5th Amendment’s “no taking of private property” clause) legitimized by the tax code’s dishonest, Constitution go-around fiction that it is a tax on the transfer of estate property, not a tax on property; and also immoral since it not only taxes property accumulated with after-tax income, but taxes it at up to a 40% rate, which is essentially confiscation (compare with sales taxes, applicable to commercial transfers, which are less than 10%!).

So, tax shelters should be abolished, as should the unjustified preferential treatment of certain sectors. Long-term capital gains and estate taxes should also be abolished. These measures, which would greatly benefit the economy while ensuring fairness, would lead to a Democratic landslide thanks to widespread enthusiastic support from independent voters and many traditional Republicans. With QE financing from the Fed, which has dwarfed capital gains and estate tax revenues, there is no need for those unfair and economically counter-productive taxes. Combine this tax reform with greatly increased spending on improving public school education and on providing excellent, affordable health care financed by QE. The economy grows much faster, everyone is much better off, and everyone is on board.

Since a poor public high school education is the root cause of most of our problems and political divisions, greatly upgrading the curriculum is an absolute necessity. Apart from psychology (accompanied by “group therapy/good parenting workshops), other critically important courses are 1) logic and critical thinking; 2) ethics and empathy; 3) economics and investing, including explaining why QE-financed tax rebates (not ultra-low interest rates) should be the standard economic stimulus tool; 4) analysis of domestic and world history in great detail from 1900; 5) the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the history of human rights violations; 6) introductory law including Constitutional law; 7) comparative religion; 8) history of art, architecture, and design; 9) history of music; and, of crucial importance, 10) the major mistakes in economic, social, and foreign policy over the past 100 years and which would have been the correct policies. With such course, we would end up with much more knowledgeable voters and politicians, and consequently with much better social, economic, and foreign policy outcomes. Not one of our living presidents, senators, and representatives has the critically important knowledge such a course would impart. That explains everything.

Biden also needs to understand how to solve the decades long scandal of widespread police brutality and incompetent policing. There is only one solution: creating a National Police Academy with extremely high standards, to train and certify all police officers and chiefs. States and cities can train their police officers to even higher standards, but only those already trained and certified by the National Police Academy. We need uniformly high standards of police training and vetting, in order to have police officers who are not only highly qualified and competent but are also psychologically fit for the job. A uniformly high standard nationwide is constitutionally required to protect interstate commerce and human rights, both being the federal government’s responsibility. The training and certification (reviewed annually) would be at the federal government’s expense, saving states and localities an enormous expenditure.

Regarding Biden’s running mate, the most important qualification is being very knowledgeable, centrist, practical, solutions-oriented, outside-the-box thinker, charismatic, likeable, pro-free enterprise, not socialistic, not narrow-minded, highly moral with a strong reputation of integrity and fairness. He should not select a person Republicans would get all riled up about. The goal is national unity, not acrimony. The goal is to win and govern effectively. So, he should not select Elizabeth Warren as vice president despite her competence in bank regulation, because of her off-putting stridency, her class-warfare attitude, and because of her absurd proposal to tax unrealized capital gains, a jaw dropping idea revealing alarming ignorance of economics and taxation fairness, as well as a total lack of common sense. But she is rightly angry and frustrated that top managers of bailed out banks were also bailed out despite their incompetence in dealing with subprime mortgage and derivative excesses. They should have been fired and their bonuses over the prior five years clawed back, perhaps even half of their salary. Bank regulatory reforms are needed not just to ensure fairness but also to incentivize much better management through rigorous personal accountability.

Of crucial importance, Biden must not be evasive and duck accusations like most politicians. He must directly address accusations of impropriety regarding his son’s Ukraine business dealings, and of his alleged sexual assault on a former staffer 30 years ago. He must do so in person, at a live news conference, and answer all questions posed by reporters forthrightly. He must prove himself to be a truly honest politician, even if it means admitting mistakes. Furthermore, Biden should immediately publish his and his son’s tax returns of the past 10 years, and challenge Trump to do the same. He should also call on Congress to immediately enact a law requiring the publishing of 10-year tax returns of every single presidential and congressional candidate, as well as their bank records and university transcripts. Biden should make the point that Trump’s excuse for not releasing his tax returns, i.e., of being audited, is totally invalid, even fraudulent. And that Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, his banks records, and his university transcripts logically points to Trump having something very problematic to hide.

Since Trump has been a life-long con artist and doesn’t play by the rules, there is a real danger that he might do something truly outrageous to interfere, delay, even cancel the November elections in order to remain in power, fearing that once he’s no longer president and defended by President Nixon’s invalid, fraudulent, corrupt, unconstitutional OLC rule against indicting sitting presidents which Attorney General Barr is illegally enforcing, he will be indicted, found guilty and sentenced to years in prison. That is why it is so important for the polls leading up to November to swing dramatically against him. If the polls start showing the Democratic ticket ahead by 60% to 40%, or even 70% to 30%, it will be impossible for Trump to even consider contesting the election results. We cannot afford a tight election result, which Trump would undoubtedly say was due to error or was rigged. A truly massive lead in the polls for Democrats is essential. For their shameful dishonesty and maliciousness, Trump and his Republicans must be crushed. That must be the priority of Democrats, not stubborn, misguided, severely divisive ideology. It’s all up to the Democrats. Are they going to be open-minded, pro-business, and low-tax with a smart, effective anti-poverty and practical solutions platform, or stubbornly ideological and divisive as they were in 2016, which is why they lost to Trump, apart from having a very mediocre candidate in Hillary Clinton, despised by half the nation in part for her egregious incompetence in sending an ambassador to jihadi controlled Benghazi with only three bodyguards who was attacked and killed within days. Somehow, President Obama did not block Secretary of State Clinton’s irresponsible and idiotic decision, and he has strangely escaped blame. If the Democrats lose this November, they can fairly be blamed, even excoriated, for Trump’s second term.

Last but not least, Biden needs to understand how to successfully resolve three very divisive and highly charged disagreements among Americans, namely the attachment of many Americans to the Confederate flag, the question of kneeling during the national anthem, and the question of burning the American flag. It’s high time to stop sweeping these issues under the rug.

On the questions of kneeling during the national anthem and of burning the American flag, Biden must explain that neither is unpatriotic or disrespectful. They are simply forms of protest against serious misbehavior by citizens or government officials, or against government policies. They are both a matter of free speech, the expression of concern or severe disapproval. They are not unpatriotic gestures; on the contrary, they are very patriotic gestures when showing disapproval of injustice, of violations of human rights and democracy. They are intended as a defense of our fundamental values. How can demonstrating against racism, voter suppression, gerrymandering, human rights violations of all sorts, and police brutality be unpatriotic? It is either stupidity or dishonesty to characterize kneeling and flag burning as being unpatriotic and disrespectful to the nation or its symbols. Trump, a crass demagogue, is guilty of intentionally promoting the misinterpretation of both kneeling and flag burning in order to stoke discord amongst Americans with false characterizations which only the mindless will agree with. (We have all too many mindless citizens precisely because all too many of our public schools are so mediocre with terribly deficient curriculums.) He wants to be elected thanks to dividing the nation, not unifying it. That is truly unpatriotic. As are his unconstitutional attitudes like calling the press “the enemy of the people”, expressions used by demagogic dictators. To verbally attack freedom of the press is truly un-American, an insult to the nation, and a serious violation of the Constitution by a president, grounds for immediate impeachment and removal from office.

On the question of the attachment of many Americans to the Confederate flag, Biden must ask why anyone would be attached to it. The Confederate flag represents those American states which wanted to preserve slavery. How can anyone have pride in that flag? Millions of Americans died in the Civil War in order to end slavery, while millions died in order to keep slavery. Biden must ask the following question: are those who want to fly the Confederate flag people who want a return of slavery? How can anyone fly the Confederate flag along side the American flag, which represents the courageous, virtuous fight against Hitler and fascism, the decades long fight against Communism, the however imperfect fight against dictatorships and violations of human rights?

Biden must make the point that Trump insults the enormous sacrifices made by Americans against Hitler and fascism and against communism, by embracing homegrown neo-fascists and dictators of other nations, often former communists turned fascists. By betraying and insulting American values and the long costly struggle against fascism and communism, Trump is the most unpatriotic citizen America has ever seen. It is essential for Biden to make that clear to all those who voted for Trump in 2016 and are still his admirers. He must also make clear that Trump demonstrates through his statements and actions that he would like to be a dictator, even a violent one, as he has always glorified, encouraged, even incited violence. It is essential that Biden convince Republicans that Trump is a betrayer of American values and a clear and present danger to American democracy, even possibly beholden to Russia, as suggested by his closeness to its president and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election on his behalf. At the same time, he must reassure Republicans that he, Joe Biden, is not a socialist; is for free market capitalism and low taxes; will not push for abortion but emphasize preventing unwanted pregnancies while encouraging adoptions; will not take away their guns; will humanely and intelligently enforce immigration limits; will unite the nation by greatly reducing political divisiveness through enlightened consensus, and by leading the nation to the highest degree of economic and social prosperity through effective, nonpartisan policies. Only then will Biden win by a landslide, a necessity for a smooth, peaceful transition from Trump to Biden.

© Edward Sonnino 2020

June 15, 2020