After the latest failure of the Democratic party I have no confidence that they’ll turn it around any time soon. We need a party with some actual policy recommendations that people can get behind. Simple solutions that the average voter can understand… Here’s my suggestions, and I’d love to know your opinions on what would be good here.
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Tax the rich
The top marginal tax rate during the golden age of american prosperity was 60-90%. It’s currently 37%
Fix the loopholes billionares and corporations are using to hide their money and gain those taxes back
Given all the shenanigans the rich can do to hide their money, capital gains and alternative minimum taxes also need to increase
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Strengthen regulations on corporations
It’s time to bring back trust busting, our anti-trust regulations have gotten too lax and corporations are doing whatever they want.
Protect unionization attempts. We have some strong union protections that are completely being ignored and companies need to be held accountable for closing branches that attempt to unionize.
Take stronger stances to prevent regulatory capture of vital protective agencies
Too big to fail means too big to exist. Corporate bailouts should come with buying out a stake in the company or controlling it outright.
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Housing and Cost of Living
Everyday essentials are outpacing our income. Housing costs have skyrocketed to be unattainable for just about anyone. Corporate interests and investment groups should not be gobbling up our single family housing supply just to sit on them as assets and bleed people by continually raising the rent. Add an exception to this for new development especially for multitenant buildings to encourage the continued growth of the housing supply.
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Get money out of politics
Ban government insider trading. Members of Congress should not be able to trade individual stocks. Broad market funds are fine but no more directly profiting off of legislative actions.
Reverse Citizens United. Corporate bribery needs to be limited
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Simplify the Tax Code
Other countries are way ahead of us here, they do the math and send the check. No need to keep things complicated just to keep the accountants busy and TurboTax happy.
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Legalize Marijuana
For a single issue party this is a little outside the scope, but it’s a broadly popular position that would also increase tax revenue and decrease expense of prosecuting such a minor crime
Things not to focus on:
Ignore the culture war stuff. It’s the billionaire’s way of scaring moderates and dividing leftists. Trans athletes are what, like a dozen people at most. I’m sorry for the people this directly affects but it’s better to not move forward than to keep moving backwards. Ideally we take a libertarian stance of keeping the government from meddling in people’s personal lives.
Global policy. Look we need to maintain our alliances and trade agreements, but it’s time for america to look inward and fix itself before it starts playing world police again.
Environment. This one is difficult, but it just wasn’t a key factor in recent elections. As with global policy we should continue what we can (ie the Paris Climate accord) but let other countries lead the way on solutions and technology for this and come in and benefit when we can.
Forming a new party is difficult and incredibly costly. It would take the hard work of thousands of people across the country, and odds are it will just steal some democratic votes and amount to nothing. So this is all merely hypothetical, but I wanted to get people’s thoughts on it
For what it is worth, here are the barely coherent ramblings of a random person on the internet…
I don’t think there is a magic set of issues that will fix the problem. The big issues as I see it are branding and messaging.
Democrats are now semi-permanently branded as ineffective, establishment elites who are more obsessed with procedure and big picture ideas than doing anything that actually helps real Americans. whereas republicans are seen as the more maverick, anti-establishment crowd actually trying to get things done. (That is not reality, but it is more or less how things appear.) One option for fixing this is both easy and difficult. The party just needs new, young blood. Put younger folks on committees and in leadership, pressure retirement age politicians in safe seats to retire and run younger folks in the next midterm. The average age of a congress person is mid 50’s to mid 60’s (depending on the chamber), get a bunch of mid 40’s folks (or younger) in there and they will naturally appear to be less establishment and more dynamic and challenging as leaders. Problem is, a lot of politicians would rather never hold a majority again than give up their seat and democrats seem to have less of an appetite to force them out than republicans.
As for messaging, republicans have far too much control of the media. As long as there is no meaningful, left leaning alternative to the Fox newses and Joe Rogans of the world, conservatives will continue to set all the talking points. Democrats need a popular media outlet that is owned by liberals and indulges in liberal propaganda (at least lightly.) I’m not sure what the solution is here. Maybe one of the twitter alternatives can be promoted and skewed left? Maybe some rich liberal can convince ByteDance to “Sell” him the U.S. part of TikTok… Whatever it is, the party needs a “megahorn” they control.
Then, they need to sort out the content. First get everyone on the same page and primary those who cannot be trusted not to screw it up. Then, make the issues clear, relevant to people’s daily lives, and stupid simple. There is no room for nuance, scientific terms, or careful framing. The issue needs to be in simple words and one or two short sentences. Also need to avoid existing terms that have been co-opted and corrupted by opposition.
Take climate change. That phrase is a dead end. People have already formed options and are unlikely to change them. Plus the concept requires a decent knowledge of science and debunking a lot of false info… Instead, think about why climate change would matter to (for example) a mom in Kansas. She would probably be concerned about an increase in tornados and about the future for her children. So instead of talking directly about reducing fossil fuels and global temperatures, talk about tornado frequency and the need for more disaster funding and research. Add in other similar issues (e.g. flooding in houston, fires in california) and you have the grounds for a major disaster recovery and prevention bill, which as part of the prevention can fund climate research.
Universal Vote By Mail.
American voters don’t care about policy or political nuance. You can have good policies or literally objectively awful policies, it doesn’t matter. You need to just say you’re going to give people more money in their pocket and get rid of the people they don’t like, then you can do whatever the fuck you want after you get elected. Americans as a group are uneducated, selfish, panicky animals.
Biden did tons of things for people and nobody gave a shit. Half the stuff they attacked him for, he actually made dramatically better, and no one even knows it happened. Kamala didn’t have a chance to do anything, and they still attacked her for all the stuff Biden supposedly did, and it worked.
Also, the guy they elected did every single wrong they you can possibly do, on purpose, and plans to do 10 times worse now.
Claiming that the problem is what the politicians do is missing the point of what actually needs to get solved. You could have Bernie Sanders with Abraham Lincoln and FDR controlling him like Ratatouille and he would still lose to zombie Eichmann if Twitter told everybody that Bernie made the Mideast unstable and it’s totally all his fault, and Eichmann will finally bring down inflation (he won’t).
I don’t think the issue was failing to turn out enough voters, as per https://dailyiowan.com/2024/11/06/2024-election-reaches-second-highest-voter-turnout-in-the-past-century/
What happened is that it seems the majority (the popular vote count still being tallied as I write this) voted for the exact opposite of the policies you outlined here. What I cannot fathom is why.
Independents and Republicans turned out, from what I heard Democratic turnout was lower that 2020, but perhaps that year was an anomaly. You’re right though, the fact that the child molester rapist convicted felon dementia patient won the popular vote gives me no hope at all. Not sure how you come back from that.
2020 probably was an anomaly due to the pandemic and such.
I think what happened is that former Dems ended up registering as independents or even switched sides, and that’s what drove up the higher turnout numbers for those groups. (But…why?)
Well, there’s still some hope if Dems re-take the House. We’ll see, I guess.
They just need to be able to afford to miss a day of work. That’s it.
Make voting day a obligatory paid vacation day (that doesnt count to the yearly thing). Thats what we do here in Brazil ( voting here is mandatory)
