King me

Politics is a game of chess we are sometimes told. But I think it’s a game of checkers that practitioners market as chess, so that they seem smarter than the average person. Keeps amateurs out of the politics game. You wouldn’t understand. Leave it to the professionals.

But think about it, in a political campaign, you make a move, and then your opponent makes a move. You might guess what they might do, but they might do something unexpected. And anyone pretty much can play, but regular people sometimes don’t think they can, because they’re told it’s not checkers, it’s chess, and chess is for masters. But you’re actually playing checkers, and politics is for everybody. Ask Graham Platner.

This is not to say it can’t be messy. If I play checkers with my grandson, who is two, I might make a move and he might make a move, or say it’s a bus and put it on his Brio train track, or take my piece and try to feed it to the dog. Politics can be like this.

It’s perilous to bring up politics now. We’re warned against it as holidays approach. The goal is to survive Thanksgiving or the 4th of July cookout. This is a win for the chess masters of politics. They don’t want you talking about politics. It’s OK if you yell, but they don’t want you talking.

I have been talking about our current state of affairs, the politics of it, a veteran now with five book talks under my belt in the month since the book release, and at the end of each talk we all walk away alive. Some with signed copies! Of course, so far I’m speaking to friendly audiences, even if we disagree.

My friends are anxious about 2028, which could be a world war away, but currently sanguine about the midterms, my Democratic friends. Last Sunday I was asked to speak at a “No Kings to the Midterms. What to do?” gathering at my church, kicking off the program by framing things for the advocacy groups that would make their pitch for volunteers. My bit done, with the groups going through their presentations I retreated outside the Parish Hall to chat when I was told I had been asked a question inside.

I hustled in and the questioner stopped me. “What are we offering? If I sign up with one of these groups to engage with voters, what is the plan Democrats are offering? And is anyone working on that?” So, honestly? Taken in order the answers to those three questions are: I have no idea. Nothing satisfying. Everybody and nobody.

I understand the checkers (chess) strategy of making only cautious moves if you are a Democrat six months out from the November election. You’re going to win this game, your opponent has no logical strategy and you’re easily marching all the way across the board. King me. King me. King me.

An actual king, the 5th great grandchild of the one we lodged grievances against 250 years ago addressed Congress last week, with his wife, the queen, sitting beside him on a chair provided presumably by Speaker Johnson with a support pillow embroidered with an American flag. Backstory please. He was welcomed the day before by a successor to George Washington who fancies himself a king, which was preceded by a day of No Kings protests across the country.

I say, in my talks, that the No King’s rallies, which a significant percentage of my audience participated in, is really important. But in a recent op-ed in the Washington Post after visiting Marjorie Taylor Greene’s former Georgia district, I make the argument that, while important, because in dark times we need community, we shouldn’t think it is persuasive to those non-MAGA Trump voters.

They didn’t vote for a king. They voted for change. And Donald Trump can call himself whatever he wants if he shakes up the government in a way that affects their personal situations. Housing, health care, the cost of things, which Democrats call “affordability”, and maybe most importantly the sense that the American Dream is still a thing, and that they have a shot, a real one, at it. And the real kicker is they have voted for change before. Trump 1.0, Obama, Clinton, Reagan, Carter. And if things don’t change they’ll vote for change again and again, until things change for them.

The good news for Democrats is that voters have historically liked the kind of change Democrats propose. So it isn’t that the Democrats don’t know how to change peoples lives for the better. But the nostalgia for the New Deal or the Great Society isn’t cutting it for people displaced by the policies of NAFTA and the global economy.

Before 2024 the last Republican to win the popular vote was George W. Bush in 2004, and before that, his father George H.W. in 1988. The bad news for Democrats staring at a winning game board six months out of the midterms is that the day after a new game starts.

Back at the No Kings to the Midterms event, where more than a hundred activists were willing to put up some money and sweat equity to reach voters before November, the Democrats owe an answer to my questioner. What are they offering now to the broad expanse of the country not hugging the coasts?

Trump voters in Georgia and in Ohio as well as the 99 Restaurant in Woburn, Massachusetts have told me the same thing in recent weeks. They hoped Trump would bring real change, but he hasn’t. They like his rejection of political norms, the democratic checks and balances that slow things down. Even the real King Charles III can’t ignore his constitutional checks, but he doesn’t have as pliable a legislative body, does he? Trump voters like that he just does things, but maybe not the things he likes lately, invading Iran, talking nonsense about his enemies or rising gas prices.

Why can’t Democrats propose bold change to counter the boldface restructuring of our institutions? The rank and file like it when they have seen it in the past, almost propelling Bernie Sanders, an actual socialist, to the party nomination, not once but twice. Kamala Harris would have been a glass ceiling shatterer, but when asked couldn’t think of something she disagreed with Joe Biden, not a change agent, on.

So I’ll start, I don’t mean in proposing bold policies, which abound outside our party leadership, but in jump starting a dialogue in hopes that the Democratic Party might be more bold, a Project 2029, if you will. I encourage you to add your own in the comments. I’ll break mine into policy and procedure. First policy:

Universal catastrophic health care. Your child requires cancer treatment. If you are not wealthy enough you will willingly bankrupt yourself to get your child the treatment they need. Or you set up a go fund me page. Or both. Under Universal catastrophic health care, treatment would be covered, insured or not. Concentrate on your loved one, or yourself.

And while we’re at it, Instant Approval for VA Care. Rather than presume each treatment has to pass a needs test, switch to a audit of claims, after the fact. It’s how the IRS does it.

Federal Urgent Care. Turns out, the federal government owns property in every town in America. Let’s put a health care professional in the Post Office. Instead of going to Urgent Care, go there where it’s staffed in shifts by someone qualified to triage patients. Compensate the professional in any number of ways, help with training, tax incentives, etc. Hope, in Augusta, Maine works three jobs, at a restaurant, at the transfer station and at the VA. She has no health insurance but did have an infected index finger. She’s on antibiotics after a visit to Urgent Care where they have a flat fee for those uninsured. Not every town has an Urgent Care, or easy access to primary care, but every town has a Post Office.

More for Your Dollar Store. Driving south through Illinois every little town has a dollar store. I think the only thing worse than having a town where your only local option is the dollar store would be having a town without one. 42 million people in this country get food assistance, maybe more than that need it. Dollar stores have the distribution, or Walmart in bigger communities. Partner with SNAP to get healthy food to where people are.

The House Always Wins. I hear it everywhere, not just in high price places. People feel stuck, they can’t buy a house, they can’t move, or downsize, or upsize. In western states, the Siegel Group makes a nice profit on converting abandoned or aging properties, in Reno, a theater called “The Virginian.” They don’t have a great reputation treating their tenants with respect when it comes time to collect the rent, but their properties are full. The dollar store of housing when you have no other option.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (is that still a thing?) could be tasked with focusing not on the adjective ‘urban’ but on the noun ‘housing’ and treat the life cycle need as people age. Low cost loans, down payments, portable mortgages, new construction, incentives for multi-generational living, assistance with moving distances, etc. Let’s get creative and put the Siegel Group out of business. Or not, but let’s give them some competition.

Orphan Drug Moon Shot. When President Kennedy pledged to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960’s the federal government invested in the research and development to make it happen. Orphan drug development should be funded exclusively by the federal government, take the risk and the huge profit margin out of it.

Bryan Interest Rates. Remember when Democrats used to be in favor of cheap money? Where is William Jennings Bryan when you need him? Now Democrats love the FED and high interest rates. Let’s have a monetary policy that benefits small businesses and small farms and families.

Immigration to Strengthen America. Traveling around before the 2024 election, almost everyone I talked to wanted a secure border. They didn’t couple it with a call to limit immigration, and in places like Arkansas and Nevada, which rely on migrant work, people understand the importance of letting people into the country. They just want clear rules to be in place, for everyone.

Now procedure:

The Legislative Branch is the first in the line-up of Constitutional Articles but it has been dominated, and currently overwhelmed, by the Executive Branch. Let’s pump it up, literally. Each member of congress represents 800,000 or so constituents. The founders envisioned it would be the branch closest to the people, but how can you do so with numbers so big. Double the size of the House of Representatives. 400,000 is a more manageable number to represent, same as a good sized city. It would also bring 436 new voices of We the People into our federal governance.

Our federal representatives were not envisioned to get rich serving in this way (back in the first congress they were already rich, most of them). Prohibit stock trading, shave pay, prohibit member PAC’s. DC is expensive! Cost prohibitive one could argue to regular people. Let’s build dorms! Or more realistically, have congress buy a nearby hotel or two and house members there. Come down, do your business, get to know your colleagues, and return to your actual homes when business is done for the week. And you get to keep your stuff in the hotel room while you’re back in your real home.

A bigger congress would allow more oversight of executive branch doings. Let our representatives do just that in our nation’s capital. We need Congress to do the job the founders intended.

OK, I invite you to offer your thoughts. Together, let’s build a Project 2029.

King me.