There’s no avoiding the fact that U.S. citizens are currently experiencing a world of hurt. As one newsletter glumly reported, the federal government is now a subsidiary of Trump Inc. and the laws meant to prevent such a takeover go unenforced. There’s no investigation into Trump’s open corruption and self-dealing. The U.S. Supreme Court has elevated the president above the law. Congress won’t even meet.
No wonder Americans aren’t having policy debates.
The current lack of interest in the intricacies of policy may be entirely understandable, but–unless we are prepared to give in to Trumpian autocracy, we need to be thinking about how we go about rebuilding once the would-be king is gone and his MAGA racists have crawled back under their rocks.
According to a recent article in the American Prospect, a new think tank is doing precisely that. The organization is called Common Wealth. It is based in both Britain and the U.S., and it is focused not only on policy repair, but upon analysis of the policy failures that enabled Trump’s rise.
Common Wealth’s focus is on public ownership, public provision, and building state capacity. The first reason for this is simple reality: Despite the utter madness of what Trump is doing, the mess he’ll leave is going to have to be cleaned up. A future Democratic president, should there ever be one, will have no choice but to rebuild much of the entire administrative state from scratch—so they might as well build it back better, to coin a phrase. “We’re in a moment where things feel really perilous politically,” said Common Wealth’s U.S. program director Melanie Brusseler, “but also there’s a lot of hope in response.”
One important focus for Common Wealth is the affordability crisis. It has become obvious that neoliberal strategy didn’t work- belief in shipping jobs overseas to cut labor costs and keeping supply chain investment low finally collapsed during the pandemic, as supply shocks led to skyrocketing prices for goods and shipping. But it isn’t simply manufacturing; Common Wealth researchers point out that our current crisis of affordability is primarily driven by prices for things that can’t be offshored and/or imported– housing, education, health care, transportation.
As a result, Common Wealth supports public provision, including Medicare for All and free college. As its researchers point out–and as this blog has frequently noted–America’s health care system is so plagued with hyper-complicated rent-seeking in which “uncountable private actors maneuver to swindle each other and/or the government and thereby claim a fat slice of America’s world-historical spending on health care, that the case for state coordination of providers as well as insurance practically makes itself.’
A primary focus of the new think tank is–understandably–climate change, and the policies necessary to ameliorate or slow it. Their researchers advocate “adaptations and asset development” –the creation of a huge number of publicly owned electrical generating assets that would be totally disconnected from volatile global markets for oil and gas.
Common Wealth claims affinity with previous efforts at what it terms “public provision.
Many Trump critics are focused on what he is doing to our basic democratic compact, and rightly so. But there’s a reason that all the presidents who led us through our worst previous crises also had an aggressive program of reform—and these also included public provision and ownership. Abraham Lincoln had greenbacks and land grant colleges; Franklin Roosevelt had Social Security, a massive public works program, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and much more. A core purpose of a democratic republic is to protect the welfare of the citizenry, and if a future government is to repair the damage inflicted by Trump and fight climate change as well, they will have to think even more ambitiously.
I will admit to significant reservations about some of the “public provisions” Common Wealth endorses, but we should all take comfort from the fact that there are institutions and individuals who are engaging with what will be a truly monumental task: rebuilding our governmental guardrails and ensuring the ability of those we elect to do their jobs.
And speaking of “their jobs”–policy wonks need to start with a foundational inquiry: what is government’s job? What parts of our civic and economic life should government control, and what parts should be left to individuals and voluntary organizations? What aspects of our common lives must be approached collectively, and what parts must be protected against government overreach?
That inquiry must be the framework within which we evaluate proposals to “build back better.”
There are NO positive programs or initiatives coming from the Trump administration’s criminal enterprise. Everything it touches dies. Retribution government is like that. Psychopaths are compelled to wreck and wreak havoc. It’s part of their pathology.
When this monstrosity finally does end, sifting through the ashes of our democracy will uncover several ignition points. The first being the Citizens United v. FEC decision. The second will be (finally) that the Electoral College has to go and true popular vote installed for all elections, elections funded strictly by the government with NO private contributions to candidates allowed. Next, strong incentives to registered voters must be put in place to get them informed and out to vote. We simply can’t afford another “minority” turnout for ANY election.
Admitting that neo-liberal/trickle-down economics is and was an abject failure. Stick to the principles of John Maynard Keanes to return intelligence to our economics thinking and behavior.
These things should keep everyone busy for a coupe decades.
A bit off the wall – It seems that a number of Americans (including me) are looking into offshoring ourselves. Thoughts?
I recognized the Program Director’s name since she came from Democracy Collaboration, which is/was Gar Alperovitz’s organization. I followed them for years and have one of their books. This new organization has lots of nonprofit and foundation support from both the US and UK – Reagan and Thatcher screwed both countries with Milton Friedman’s extraction of wealth from the working class. And don’t forget, Art Laffer, who is still part of Koch’s dark network. He was laughed out of the economics profession.
As Vernon said, they’ve had over forty years of destruction in the federal and state governments. Over 150 universities have incorporated libertarian economics into their business departments. Ball State University is still heavily invested in promoting Koch economics. Koch also owns the ALEC creature and its State Policy Networks, which gave rise to the likes of Mike Pence in Indiana.
You’ll recognize the focus of the Koch-run SPN’s and ALEC:
– Opposing healthcare reform and environmental regulations.
– Pushing for the privatization of education through school choice initiatives.
– Weakening public employee unions and opposing minimum wage increases.
They will have to contend with Koch’s dark network and the Silicon Valley Broligarchy, which is deeply embedded within the federal and state government network. As Vernon said, it will keep them busy as the billionaires now own all of our mainstream news and social media ecosystem. They also have control over our Intel and Surveillance State.
If anyone saw how the billionaires attacked Zohran Mamdani, it was a disturbing sight. It didn’t matter because New Yorkers are generally more informed than most voters. I loved Zohran’s post on X, where he told Cuomo to enjoy his Trump endorsement – it was the kiss of death for many voters. After the victories last night, hopefully, it was a hint of things to come in 2026 and 2028. But, trust me, Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon will put up a defense. If they can’t trust the voters, they will follow Plan B.
Zohran will be implementing a taste of Common Wealth’s proposals, so we’ll get to evaluate in the largest city. To help fund his socialist programs, he will be taxing the ultra-wealthy, who have just seen a $850 billion increase in wealth for the first eight months of 2025.
This will be a wild ride…
Perhaps they – Common Wealth – could begin the whole process by suggesting a way to eliminate the Electoral College and gerrymandering, two of the most obnoxious roadblocks to a sane electoral entity (another would be the abolition of the Senate, but that of course would never happen). I have always been a proponent of federal government control of apolitical life-or-death entities in our lives: healthcare, transportation (especially air), utilities, etc., those areas where profits don’t have a place at the table, in addition to sturdy regulation of pharmaceuticals, prepared foods, real estate, etc. The whole idea seems to be contrary to the uber-conservative, backwards-looking Project 2025, which after yesterday’s election results has been roundly repudiated.
All of the positive results from yesterday’s election may give us hope for a more sane future, but pay attention to his reaction. He will be further panicked and may become even more destructive and aggressive with no checks on his rage. The Insurrection Act may be too tempting for his fragile ego to avoid as a retaliation. It won’t matter that there are court orders, his cult will do whatever he demands because they believe he is divinely sanctioned.
Paul we had been contemplating “offshoring,” but, it turns out, that is a VERY expensive proposition, and has something of a feeling of giving in.
Vernon, all your points are worthy!
Common Wealth sounds good to me.
I caught sight of an opinion piece, a bit ago, claiming that Zoran’s victory will be welcomed by the Orange Putz, as a punching bag. Yes, we can expect him to start screaming that “The Commies are coming, the Commies are coming!” A**wipe that he is!
It’s obvious there are millions here and now who understand the existence and value of our traditional mixed economy. We have always been served by both socialism and Capitalism, and have had sensible former leaders who allocated different needs to one of the two. We have suffered the drawbacks of wealth redistribution until it went extreme and toxic. Now it’s killing us.
The two most significant changes in the near future that require thoughtful leadership are AI and the impact of all the greenhouse gases we have already emitted (think landfilled, now air-filled) above us. Oligarchs want to own AI and ignore climate change, leading to noticeable disastrous results for the people.
It’s the timing of the Trumpian debacle and the fact of it that will be so destructive.
We need action right now!
How about just starting with getting rid of the Electoral college.
A true popular vote. NO private or very limited per person donations?
We have a lot of work to do. As of last night we have 24 Democratic governors and, due to Gerrymandering, few of them have majorities in their legislatures. That will make it very difficult to eliminate the Electoral College. Anything that requires an Amendment won’t happen unless we change the rules It needs to be open ended and no backzies. Remember the ERA!
luckily much of what we have to do won’t be as hard as changing the Constitution. We need to codify violations of the Constitution like the Emoluments Clause by elected officials. Penalties seem much more important today. We also need to look at existing legislation, like the Insurrection Act. We give too much authority to the President with unspecified limits.
The hardest part will be dealing with the Congress. They have a strange idea of what their duties include. I heard one of our brave House members say, “The President is our leader. When he says ‘Jump’, we say, ‘How high?’ Equal branches? Oversight? No longer!
I am more positive about the sanity and integrity of American citizens as the voting results continue to come in from yesterday’s mid term elections.
While it is but a sampling of voters it gives one hope that Americans are fed up with the Trump Republican lawmakers and courts.
Americans will come out in droves to defend the constitution and to remove the far right Republicans from office.
If republicans are wise they will ignore Trump’s leadership and move back toward the center if they want to be elected.
Unfortunately, Peggy, our oligarchy was set up a long time ago, so sliding into authoritarianism wasn’t tricky. Both are top-down systems, similar to a corporate hierarchy. Once they stand with the POTUS (executive) instead of with voters/constituents, our democratic republic ceases. The people pay taxes but have no representation. We were there before, and it took a revolution to correct that situation. 😉