It is 2024 and once again we turn our tired eyes towards electing another President of the United States.
Why so tired?
Biden vs. Trump…the election two-thirds of America does not want.
This is what the American Experiment has come down to…two of the least popular Presidents in U.S. history running in a rematch.
We could laugh it off for the pulp fiction it is if we were not facing a myriad of existential challenges:
- A climate crisis requiring a rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in order to avoid irreversible, catastrophic climate related impacts.
- Unnecessary geopolitical conflicts: War in Ukraine, Genocide in Gaza threatening a U.S. War with Iran, while the drum beats for a U.S. war with China over Taiwan.
- Severe Wealth & Income inequality radicalizing democratic governments around the world.
In our moment of greatest need, choosing the lesser of two evils will not do.
This moment calls for our generation’s Abraham Lincoln…a leader who is capable of uniting independent minded Americans for the good of each other And our country.
Who is this leader?
It is NOT President Joe Biden:
- Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. We know this because the genocide is being live streamed on social media by Israeli Defense Forces and Palestinians in Gaza. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has determined the evidence submitted by South Africa supports a plausible case for genocide in Gaza, and the risk of ‘irreparable prejudice’ to the Palestinian people is sufficient to support Emergency provisions to order Israel to immediately stop killing, harming or denying essential food, water, shelter or medical care to the Palestinians in Gaza. The ICJ issued six Emergency provisions, four by a vote of 15 – 2 and two by a vote of 16 – 1. For the two 16 – 1 provisions [preventing & punishing incitement to commit genocide, and providing essential food, water & care], the Israeli Judge on the ICJ concurred. The American representative on the ICJ, President (Chief Judge) Joan Donoghue, concurred with all 6 Emergency provisions. Only Uganda opposed all Emergency provisions.
- Yet, President Biden claims the charge of genocide by Israel is baseless. He has provided exclusive diplomatic cover for Israel’s genocide by twice vetoing globally supported ceasefire petitions at the United Nations. He has circumvented U.S. law by providing billions in funding to Israel directly and deployed two aircraft carrier groups to the region in support of Israel without Congressional consent.
- Biden has broken critical promises:
- Failed to raise the federal minimum wage
- Failed to provide $2,000 stimulus checks if Georgia elected both democratic senators
- Failed to provide broad Student Loan Forgiveness
- Forced Railroad Workers to end strike with no meaningful concessions from Corporate executives
- Claims he is running for re-election to protect democracy from fascism when he has orchestrated the first sham Presidential primary season in U.S. history. State democratic parties are being pressured by the National Democratic Party to cancel primary elections and grant all delegates to President Biden. Florida has already complied.
It is NOT former President Trump:
- While President Trump has successfully earned the anti-establishment moniker by eviscerating both President George W. Bush [for the War in Iraq] and Presidents Clinton and Obama [for selling out Middle & Working class Americans], he has done nothing to slow the multi-trillion dollar syphoning of wealth and income from the middle & working classes to the top 1% American earners.
- The CARES Act passed March 2020 offered temporary relief to workers and small businesses (most expired by August 2020) while providing the Federal Reserve the seed funds to unleash $4 Trillion dollars in liquidity to large corporations. By year-end 2020, people who earned $27,000 or less lost 10 million jobs, 30% of all small businesses in America closed and never reopened, yet corporations boomed with the S&P 500 increasing 16.3% and the NASDAQ Composite increasing 43.6%. U.S. Billionaires’ wealth increased by over $1 Trillion dollars, while according to the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey: 33% of U.S. households are having a hard time covering basic expenses and 12% report food shortages.
- President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a complete boondoggle for wealthy Americans by reducing corporate taxes from 35% to 21%, doubling the Estate tax eligibility threshold from $11 million per couple to $22 million, reducing the corporate pass-through tax by 20%, and reducing the highest earning individual tax bracket from 39.6% to 37%. Per the Tax Policy Center, the average annual benefit to top 1% earners is $61,090 while the median earners received just $910.
America wants an Independent:
- 2023 Gallop poll indicates 43% of Americans identify as Independent verses 27% for Democrats and 27% for Republicans
Independents need to borrow a page from former President Obama’s playbook. During the 2020 Democratic Primary, Senator Bernie Sanders was starting to run away with the race to the nomination. After tying in Iowa, Senator Sanders won New Hampshire, then blew away the field in Nevada. Establishment Democrats panicked. Over the next few weeks, leading up to Super Tuesday, President Obama encouraged centrist democrats Mayor Pete Buttigieg (#3 in delegates) and Amy Klobuchar (#4 in delegates) to drop out and endorse Biden (#2 in delegates) the day before Super Tuesday, while fellow liberal democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren (#5 in delegates) was encouraged to stay in the race to split the left leaning Super Tuesday voters. Senator Warren then dropped out two days later on March 5th, 2020.
Independents and 3rd Party Candidates should use the Primary/Caucus season to make their best case to the American people. As we enter the summer while both establishment parties are having their coronation conventions, Independents and 3rd Party candidates can come together and determine the unifying agenda, then select the strongest Presidential ticket for the general election. Once an independent ticket is selected, national ballot access can be obtained by utilizing the coalition parties earned ballot access (i.e. Green, No Labels or Libertarian Party access). Independent and participating 3rd party organizations can work together in support of the newly selected independent ticket.
What could be America’s unifying agenda?
According to the Rand Corporation, had the more equitable income distribution of the three decades after WWII (1945 – 1974) been maintained through today, all working Americans in the bottom 90% of earners would be doing much better. More specifically, you could pay each worker an additional $1,144 per month ($13,728 per year). The accumulated loss in earnings from 1975 to 2020 is estimated at $50 trillion dollars.
America needs the Clean New Deal.
The Clean New Deal is a two-part plan:
- Establishment of a new national commitment to rebuild the American Middle Class:
- National Jobs Guarantee with wages starting at Area Median Income
- Develop a new National Renewable Energy Power Grid
- Build a National Renewable Energy High Speed Rail System
- Modernize & Repair the Nation’s Bridges and Transportation Infrastructure
- Retrofit National Housing stock for Sustainability & Climate Risk Adaptation
- Retrofit Excess Commercial Real Estate for Sustainable Multifamily Housing
- Enact Medicare for All
- National Student Loan Forgiveness
- Free Public Vocational and College Education
- Phase Down of the Global U.S. Military Footprint
- Federal Tax Overhaul to restore pre-Reagan Progressive Tax Structure
- Our new Independent President must appoint an Independent Counsel who will:
- Investigate the Criminal Causes of the Multi-Trillion Dollar redistribution of Income & Wealth from Working and Middle Class Americans to the Wealthy Elites
- Establish a standing Federal Grand Jury to interrogate Persons of Interest and bring Federal Indictments where appropriate
- Make recommendations to the Congress for Impeachment of any Office Holders found to have engaged in actionable activities within the scope of the Independent Counsel
- Make Recommendations for Federal Legislation to repeal or modify any law that is found to have facilitated the extraordinary redistribution of income and wealth
If given a credible independent choice for President and a unifying agenda, America will reject the lesser of two evils and elect the first independent President of the United States.
No doubt it will be a moonshot, but so is America…the first country in the world to declare “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”.