Seriously, that’s what they’re asking the public, one hundred words or less. (I say seriously because they have no intent of taking people’s comments seriously.)
How Would You Fix America’s Broken Politics?
We aren’t looking for diagnoses. We’re looking for cures. If the problem is that America is not democratic enough (or too democratic), how would you change that? If the problem is with the news media, or inequality, or information technology, or social mobility, or racial relations, or gender equality, or Wall Street, or our religious institutions, or how we raise our children, or something we haven’t identified, what’s a structural reform—to our government, our economy, our society—that would make things better? In particular, we’re looking for ideas that are daring, new and specific.
Submit your suggestion below—in 100 words or fewer—by August 16, and we’ll feature the best ones in our issue, launching in September.
It’s farcical, until you remember that you can write in point form. Below are my first fifty-six words:
- Close all overseas military bases.
- The UN decides military interventions.
- End permanent UN security council seats.
- Ban remote control weaponry.
- Disarm Israel, impose the 1967 borders.
- Reinstate 1955 tax laws, collect back interest.
- Seize wealth over $50 million.
- Pay reparations to People of Colour.
- National guaranteed income, equal education and free medicare.
- Scientists dictate environmental policy.
I’m up to eighty-nine, editing and squeezing in my last ideas.
* Free Medicare FOR ALL.
* Have Puerto Rico vote either statehood or independence – no colonialism option.
* Green New Deal.
The first and third you mention are already there.
My unpublished suggestions include breaking up the country. It’s too large and disparate to manage under one government.
* Rip up the constitution and draw up a new one from scratch, allowing occasional revisions so you’re not stuck with interpreting some two century old half-formed thoughts.
Not sure eliminating the permanent UN security council seats and disarming Israel are relevant, since neither the UN nor Israel are actually part of the USA, though they’re solid suggestions apart from that.
Move the UN out of the USA.