A jobs program on the scale necessary to bring many of them around will be expensive but worth the cost, especially when democracy hangs in the balance.
Big business, which used to have a home in the GOP, will need a third party. Democrats should not try to court them; the Democratic Party should aim to represent the interests of the bottom 90 percent.
Third, disempower the giant media empires that amplified Trump's lies for four years -- Facebook, Twitter, and Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and its imitators. The goal is not to "cancel" the political right but to refocus public deliberation on facts, truth, and logic. Democracy cannot thrive where big lies are systematically and repeatedly exploited for commercial gain.
The solution is antitrust enforcement and stricter regulation of social media, accompanied by countervailing financial pressure. Consumers should boycott products advertised on these lie factories and advertisers should shun them. Large tech platforms should lose legal immunity for violence-inciting content. Broadcasters such as Fox News and Newsmax should be liable for knowingly spreading lies (they are now being sued by producers of voting machinery and software which they accused of having been rigged for Biden).
Fourth, safeguard the democratic form of government. This requires barring corporations and the very wealthy from buying off politicians, ending so-called "dark money" political groups that don't disclose their donors, defending the right to vote, and ensuring more citizens are heard, not fewer.
Let's be clear about the real challenge ahead. The major goal is not to convict Trump of inciting insurrection. It is to move a vast swath of America back into a fact-based pro-democracy society and away from the Trump-based authoritarian one.
Regardless of whether he is convicted, the end of his presidency has given the nation a reprieve. Unless America uses it to end Trumpism's hold over tens of millions of Americans, that reprieve may be temporary.
Thankfully, Joe Biden appears to understand this.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
