My Political Platform

We’re about eight months away from a presidential election in which nearly everybody involved has already made up their minds. It’s ridiculous. Between now and November, billions of dollars will be spent attempting to persuade a couple hundred thousand people across a handful of battleground states to pull the lever for their preferred eighty-year-old candidate.

Obviously, I know why I can’t support the current Republican party, which is actively trying to dismantle the historic institutions of this nation for the purpose of transforming it into a Russia-like mafia state wrapped in the fervor of a white Christian Nationalism. When I ask myself if I want that, I answer, “No, self. No, I do not want that.”

The choice is so stark that it’s sort of hard to understand how anybody could be undecided but, on the other hand, I also have to applaud these people for keeping an open mind. Yes, it’s most likely open because they’ve undergone a lobotomy, but I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they’re such diligent voters that they’re taking their time to see how each candidate aligns with their personal political platform.

But then I thought, wait a minute, do I have a personal political platform? If not, I should get one!

So that’s what I decided to do - sit my gorgeous ass down and write out what I believe the role of the American government should be.

It’s an exercise I’ve never performed before. Why would I have? It sounds like a fifth-grade homework assignment. But fuck it – any fifth grader should be able to articulate what the government’s job is, so I should be able to do so as well. So, here, forthwith, my political platform:

Michael’s Totally Fun American Political Platform

I believe the role of the American government in domestic affairs is to foster a national culture in which each person has an equal opportunity to live their life in whichever way they choose. Plus, free soda in the cafeteria.

I almost included “…without fear of getting shot” but decided if I had to choose between free soda in the cafeteria and not getting shot, I’d go with the soda. But feel free to infer that I also want people to live in this nation without fear of getting shot.

And that’s pretty much what I believe. Of course, you have to derive policy from platform and that’s where my platform might get a little dicey for some folks. The inclusion of the phrase “equal opportunity” implies a lot about our nation’s spending priorities, which I believe should move away from an ever-expanding military-industrial state and towards a nation in which we prioritize infrastructure, education, affordable healthcare, and social welfare.

America. Photo by James Yarema on Unsplash

So, yeah, it’s a totally trite bleeding-heart liberal platform, but it’s also the most sensible plan I can think of for helping to expand the middle class, which, in turn, stabilizes the nation, raises national happiness, and lessens domestic tensions. But it costs money, money which has to come from somewhere.

Does anybody enjoy paying taxes? Does anybody relish the idea of giving up more of their income? Of course not. On the other hand, what would it be worth to you to know that your kid breaking their arm isn’t going to set you back thousands of dollars, or that your college education isn’t going to require you going into the hole for the majority of your adult life? What is it worth for the nation’s highways to be smooth, its airports up-to-date? To me, all that stuff is worth a lot more than the couple percentage points in additional taxes I might have to pay to afford it.

The great trick of the Republican party, however, is to market responsible stewardship as “governmental theft.” The notion that taxes are, somehow, immoral. Does the government misappropriate, steal, and otherwise abuse the money Americans give? Of course they do. But the answer isn’t to starve the government of its ability to help people, but to starve the ability of lobbyists, corporations, and oligarchs to purchase our politicians, and to throw those found guilty of stealing the people’s money into the people’s prisons.

But that requires the kind of political will that, so far, our leaders haven’t demonstrated because they want to keep those fat campaign checks coming and those fat promises of careers on K Street when they leave Congress. And yes, it’s both parties.

As for international stuff, I tend to avoid weighing in on it too much because I don’t feel like I have an adequate understanding of the role of America in the larger world. I think there are good arguments to be made for continued American global leadership and good arguments for diminished American global leadership. So I don’t know and won’t offer an opinion.

What I do know is that this nation has felt adrift for some time. We’re so caught up in our day-to-day political nonsense that it feels like we’ve lost our sense of direction. Worse, neither candidate has articulated a clear vision for where they want to take America in the future. Trump has come closer to Biden in that respect, describing his vision of a jackbooted, gold-plated police state. Biden’s blurry vision is certainly gentler, but while his most recent State of the Union articulated a few policy goals, it lacked any kind of forceful vision for a better, more cohesive American future.

For years, I’ve been advocating for a new Constitutional Convention, a traveling road show of the best minds across the political spectrum going across the nation hashing out, in very public forums, what a new American Constitution might look like. It would be a high-minded exercise in American renewal, an opportunity to examine what it would look like for us to rebuild this nation from the ground up. The document that ultimately got produced wouldn’t be binding, of course, but done well, it could be a great way to engage the public in a good-faith debate, not only about what it means to be American, but what it means to be America. Enjoy your free sodas, everyone!