All outstanding proposals! I hope that in 2029, Ds have control of the government, and have in hand an actionable plan that they can implement without delay. This includes the Congressional legislation and the prosecution strategy.
As for "self-dealing and personal enriching of the executive must be blocked" - the only way to block things is to attach criminality to it. That is, ensure that those - like Trump - can be criminally prosecuted for it. And make the laws bullet-proof, to withstand legal fabrications such as Roberts' tortured presidential immunities. (I still can't believe that if a former president were to lose a criminal case, separate consideration must be given to 'well, was it within the penumbra of his duties?' Tautologically, it was *criminal*.)
I doubt that our current Supreme Court would let most of those reforms stand. There is no way to bullet proof them because they can do what Alito did with Roe — go way back in English law to find a “precedent” that justifies what these “originalists” are trying to accomplish. It’s analogous to how so many “Christians” who claim to follow Jesus scour the Old Testament to find justification for their hateful beliefs that Jesus clearly did not agree with.
Bullet point 1 is crucial - while I understand the need for the next president to try and restore some unity, this cannot come at the expense of justice. There needs to be a serious disincentive to eroding democratic values. Garland dragged his feet and now the US is in this mess - this cannot happen again.
1) "The fact that those killers and their bosses all the way up have not been held to account" - as a resident of Minnesota I fully expect both killings will eventually be prosecuted under state law. The killers identities are known and there is video evidence.
2) We're gonna need some constitutional amendments to fix some of the stuff trump has exploited, including taking away ALL presidential pardon power (the president should/must have immunity as that is congress' job to police, everybody else should do their jobs knowing they can and will be held accountable for their actions which should help them make good decisions). At the same time we should add age and term limits to pres/congress/supremes.
In software engineering - all engineering, really - there are requirements and specifications. Requirements set out what a system is desired to accomplish, mostly in terms of what a user or owner needs.
Specifications are an effort to frame the requirements in a way specific enough that the engineers can build the system, and it's essential that they be expressed in such a way that each specification can be tested, to demonstrate that it meets the spec.
But the specification is only one way to meet the requirements, and it may not be correct, or it may be ambiguous, or it may be too narrow. If the specification is wrong or mistaken, then the requirements should prevail. For example, if the requirements is to travel to Mars and return safely but for some reason the specification turns out only to require a rocket that can get to the moon and return, the fact that the rocket meets the spec does not mean that it satisfies what is really needed.
For the US, laws and regulations are the equivalent of specifications. The Declaration Of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution contain the true requirements. The Supreme Court thinks that it's job is to apply the specifications to test whether some act meets them. No institution seems to have the job of seeing that the country's requirements are being met. In the absence of one, it seems to me that the Supreme Court should play that role. The priorities should be in descending order
The Requirements
The Constitution
The laws
The rules and regulations needed to carry out the functions of government
Nationally agreed policy
Presidential policy, subject to all of the above.
Executive orders
As an exercise, write down your own list of the actual priorities in effect right now. Do they match the one above?
Nice try, your premise that we’ll survive until 28 means navigating mountains of detritus. Can we? If the Ds take back the House will the entire nation grind to a halt, and, if your eco hints come to fruition, a deep recession would T try and seize power?
I hate to say it, a Germany of the mid 30s may be our future
In the near term, there’s this issue of what, exactly, constitutes a balance of payments deficit. Paul K, who is no slouch on international trade, has no idea what such a beast would look like these days. But what I take from his Substack post is that in the era from which this legislation dates, it was conceivable that a country — even the US — could lack the currency reserves needed to pay its bills. I dare say that’s a very real possibility in the Third World — but in the US? I think the path to greater Congressional authority over tariffs begins with the administration being invited to offer a definition of the term and deliver evidence that the US does indeed have a balance of payments deficit. And, just to be clear, trade deficits do not constitute proof.
Berstein gave a lot of good ideas but there is no need to wait until Trump leaves office to start the process. For Renee Good and Alex Pretti to have not died in vain, their killers must be held accountable. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is currently trying to do that, helped by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. But one thing that Moriarty and Ellison apparently have not been doing is gathering evidence to prosecute the Trump minions in DHS, ICE, CBP, and the Department of Justice that have been illegally obstructing their investigations. (Though Moriarty details their obstruction in her Touhy letters about the Good shooting and in the press release about sending a Touhy letter for the Pretti shooting.) Obstructing justice in these investigations is a state crime that Trump can't pardon and, according to the New York Times, F.B.I. director Kash Patel was the one who ordered federal investigators to stop investigating the Good shooting. The local federal prosecutor assigned to the Good case apparently resigned because of that. The Orwellian irony is that the alleged reason ICE approached Good and CBP approached Pretti was that they were obstructing justice. DHS and the Department of Justice have been openly obstructing justice by withholding evidence from Minnesota state prosecutors. Prosecuting all federal officials that obstructed justice into the Good and Pretti shootings and other shootings and assaults by federal officials should begin ASAP and will begin to restore the rule of law in America.
Here's a link to the Hennepin County Attorney's website where they have been posting about this:
With all of the debates about various policy issues, we are overlooking the most important. What needs to be resolved are presidential “emergency declarations”. Those are at the root of much of what’s going on and disrupting the Constitutional balance of powers.
We can generally agree that any President needs to be able to respond quickly to an emergency and that it’s impossible to foresee what those emergencies might be. However, we don’t have a solid process for Congressional oversight. We need an Emergency Powers Act.
1: Upon declaring an emergency, the President must personally appear before Congress to explain the details and facts about the situation AND must take questions from the members. Advisors can assist in providing information, but the personal appearance and direct questioning is mandatory. (If the majority and minority leaders of both houses agree, a joint committee could be used in place of a full joint session)
It needs to occur in a short timeframe such as 48-72 hrs of the declaration.
2: Congress must debate and vote to affirm or reject the emergency. Again, a short timeframe (perhaps 2 weeks) would be mandatory. Failure to vote automatically rejects the emergency declaration.
3: An affirmative vote must also include a time limit (maybe 30-90 days) at which a vote to extend must be taken. Rinse and repeat.
Votes must be straight up or down and not subject to filibuster or other procedural delays or amendments. (Use separate legislation to deal with amendment-type issues).
This law preserves the duty and ability of the President to act in an emergency and the duty of Congress to oversee those actions on behalf of the Americans they represent.
JB: "The Senate filibuster is a related problem in this space as besides being unfair and unbalanced in terms of representation, it fosters inaction, dysfunction, and non-deliberation."
All true. But it is important to remember that the Republicans could decide today to end the filibuster, which would allow them to pass the SAVE (Trump and Republicans and Fascism) Act, which would wreck free and fair elections. Since there is some question as to a) who will control both houses of Congress in 2027, the GOP may not decide to end the filibuster and b) also arguing against the passage of the SAVE Act is the realization that it could disenfranchise more Republican voters than Democrats. If the Republicans believe that, then they won't want to pass the such a major voter suppression act since it could suppress their vote the most. They're stupid, but are they that stupid?
When the Dems take control the next time, they will need to end the filibuster if the GOP hasn't done it already in order to fix one of the most catastrophic things that is wrong with this country today -- the SCOTUS majority. There was almost no stomach for that when Biden was president, which was just one more of Biden's horrendous blunders. Biden had a surprising amount of legislative success and then tore it all down with his Israeli-Gaza pro-war crimes and genocide policies that kept many Democratic voters home on November 5, 2024 and then refusing to acknowledge his own mental and physical deterioration and insisting on staying in the race until he finally guaranteed a Harris loss. Just as Ruth Bader Ginsberg allowed her ego and poor judgment to undo her life's work on behalf of women, Biden's ego allowed him to destroy any positive legacy he might have had and worse send this country down the path of fascism. With such obvious lessons for politicians to see, it is remarkable that so few are capable of applying that lesson to themselves. Ego keeps Chuck Schumer clinging to power in the Senate when all of the evidence makes it clear he is a terrible leader and absolutely not up to the task of leading effective Democratic opposition to Trump. Chuck is the fellow who, when faced with the destruction of democracy, thinks that sending a "sternly worded" message to Trump is effective. With Schumer it isn't just a matter of ego. He has to be very stupid to think he is doing a good job.
JB: "When this is over, there must be accountability."
That would be nice and the right thing to do, but I fully expect Trump to issue blanket pardons to every member of his administration (he hasn't soured on) who has the potential to be indicted and prosecuted. If I were a Trump-serving criminal, I wouldn't be entirely comfortable with that because Trump is notorious for falling out of love with people who were his BFFs yesterday. But the fact remains that Trump has done extraordinary damage through his use of pardons and I can't imagine that will stop now.
Quite apart from using pardons to avoid accountability, I have no confidence that any incoming Democratic majorities and president, which will be mandatory for there to be any accountability, will have the stomach for what will be needed if there is to be meaningful accountability. Democratic Party leadership is weak to say the least and at the same time we should be holding people accountable the government will have the twin tasks of running the government every day and trying desperately to fix at least some of the most egregious failings of our thoroughly inadequate Constitution.
I wish I felt otherwise, but something will have to give and it can't be the everyday running of the government. To fail to do that or to do it poorly would almost certainly result in a return to right wing Republican anti-democratic rule in 2033. If there we only have time and resources to fix one of the other two tasks -- accountability or fixing the failings -- then fixing the failings will be more important for the future (though not really by much, if at all) and that would mean accountability for most criminals will fall by the wayside.
I listen to people today calling for accountability and I doubt they are being realistic. Democrats are in the fix they are in today because they are so inept. Is that really the party that will be able to successfully tackle the three major needs of post-Trump. And don't forget, we may be post-Trump, but we won't be post-Republicans and I see no real likelihood that the electorate, which caused this disaster in the first place by re-electing Trump, will improve in any meaningful way. Yes, today we are seeing huge turnarounds in special elections with Democrats defeating Republicans by wide margins in places where previous races were either GOP blowouts or very close races. However, that is not because voters have suddenly decided that they need to understand how government and economics work. Nope, it's because Trump is so terrible and so incompetent -- something that was obvious when those same voters re-elected him -- that the problems don't require any greater engagement or knowledge. They simply require voters to go to the store, try to balance their budgets, and watch TV to see Trump Thugs abusing human beings. When those issues fade, it will be necessary for the electorate to step up and be far better informed and engaged, and my expectation is that that won't happen. So, in the future, probably after the 2028 elections, we may find ourselves back where we were in November 2024 -- poorly informed, none-too-bright voters basing their votes on lies and wishful thinking.
I'd be a little more optimistic if the Democrats had the intelligence to dump Schumer and Jeffries and choose genuine fighters who won't continue to kowtow to the corrupt donors they rely on now (such as AIPAC, which is bad for both American Jews and Israel). But, in the end, the future of this country depends largely on the quality of our electorate and it is there that I am exceptionally pessimistic, which I think is being realistic. I'd love to be wrong.
None of this will happen—certainly not to the degree needed—in our reality.
You need a radically different national Democratic Party than we have or will have any time soon. Indeed, the nation is in its current state exactly due in huge part because the post-Clinton party shifted to be the least opposition to the GOP as possible.
You can’t even expect party to give lip service to all of Mr Bernstein’s suggestions.
This dotard just doesn’t have any patience for plans that don’t have a chance of working. (To be clear, undoing what Trump and the GOP have been doing since even before Trump was elected starts with primarying Congressional Democrats and turning the party away from being an alt-Republican corporate party way to the right of Democratic voters.)
Even after the Orange Menace leaves, you forget that the GOP in the House, Senate & SC are all versions of the Orange Menace - just look at the big ugly bill passed unilaterally by the GOP, subsequent ICE actions,
and look at the House that investigated the Jan 6th, 2021 insurrection & note how Cheney & Kinzinger were blacklisted by the GOP & how GOP senators shamelessly wanted tax payer funds for being tolled by Jack Smith. You also forget the GOP Senate & the 6 SC justices who gave the presidency back to him despite Jan 6th, 2021 & the huge no of deaths during Covid. The only way we get our democracy back & have accountability is if Republican voters vote against the GOP. The country needs a good two party system but we only have one. Seeing red states protest what ICE is doing provides hope for our country.
All outstanding proposals! I hope that in 2029, Ds have control of the government, and have in hand an actionable plan that they can implement without delay. This includes the Congressional legislation and the prosecution strategy.
As for "self-dealing and personal enriching of the executive must be blocked" - the only way to block things is to attach criminality to it. That is, ensure that those - like Trump - can be criminally prosecuted for it. And make the laws bullet-proof, to withstand legal fabrications such as Roberts' tortured presidential immunities. (I still can't believe that if a former president were to lose a criminal case, separate consideration must be given to 'well, was it within the penumbra of his duties?' Tautologically, it was *criminal*.)
I doubt that our current Supreme Court would let most of those reforms stand. There is no way to bullet proof them because they can do what Alito did with Roe — go way back in English law to find a “precedent” that justifies what these “originalists” are trying to accomplish. It’s analogous to how so many “Christians” who claim to follow Jesus scour the Old Testament to find justification for their hateful beliefs that Jesus clearly did not agree with.
Congress can dunk on the #not-supremes!!
Bullet point 1 is crucial - while I understand the need for the next president to try and restore some unity, this cannot come at the expense of justice. There needs to be a serious disincentive to eroding democratic values. Garland dragged his feet and now the US is in this mess - this cannot happen again.
Two comments:
1) "The fact that those killers and their bosses all the way up have not been held to account" - as a resident of Minnesota I fully expect both killings will eventually be prosecuted under state law. The killers identities are known and there is video evidence.
2) We're gonna need some constitutional amendments to fix some of the stuff trump has exploited, including taking away ALL presidential pardon power (the president should/must have immunity as that is congress' job to police, everybody else should do their jobs knowing they can and will be held accountable for their actions which should help them make good decisions). At the same time we should add age and term limits to pres/congress/supremes.
In software engineering - all engineering, really - there are requirements and specifications. Requirements set out what a system is desired to accomplish, mostly in terms of what a user or owner needs.
Specifications are an effort to frame the requirements in a way specific enough that the engineers can build the system, and it's essential that they be expressed in such a way that each specification can be tested, to demonstrate that it meets the spec.
But the specification is only one way to meet the requirements, and it may not be correct, or it may be ambiguous, or it may be too narrow. If the specification is wrong or mistaken, then the requirements should prevail. For example, if the requirements is to travel to Mars and return safely but for some reason the specification turns out only to require a rocket that can get to the moon and return, the fact that the rocket meets the spec does not mean that it satisfies what is really needed.
For the US, laws and regulations are the equivalent of specifications. The Declaration Of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution contain the true requirements. The Supreme Court thinks that it's job is to apply the specifications to test whether some act meets them. No institution seems to have the job of seeing that the country's requirements are being met. In the absence of one, it seems to me that the Supreme Court should play that role. The priorities should be in descending order
The Requirements
The Constitution
The laws
The rules and regulations needed to carry out the functions of government
Nationally agreed policy
Presidential policy, subject to all of the above.
Executive orders
As an exercise, write down your own list of the actual priorities in effect right now. Do they match the one above?
Nice try, your premise that we’ll survive until 28 means navigating mountains of detritus. Can we? If the Ds take back the House will the entire nation grind to a halt, and, if your eco hints come to fruition, a deep recession would T try and seize power?
I hate to say it, a Germany of the mid 30s may be our future
In the near term, there’s this issue of what, exactly, constitutes a balance of payments deficit. Paul K, who is no slouch on international trade, has no idea what such a beast would look like these days. But what I take from his Substack post is that in the era from which this legislation dates, it was conceivable that a country — even the US — could lack the currency reserves needed to pay its bills. I dare say that’s a very real possibility in the Third World — but in the US? I think the path to greater Congressional authority over tariffs begins with the administration being invited to offer a definition of the term and deliver evidence that the US does indeed have a balance of payments deficit. And, just to be clear, trade deficits do not constitute proof.
Berstein gave a lot of good ideas but there is no need to wait until Trump leaves office to start the process. For Renee Good and Alex Pretti to have not died in vain, their killers must be held accountable. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is currently trying to do that, helped by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. But one thing that Moriarty and Ellison apparently have not been doing is gathering evidence to prosecute the Trump minions in DHS, ICE, CBP, and the Department of Justice that have been illegally obstructing their investigations. (Though Moriarty details their obstruction in her Touhy letters about the Good shooting and in the press release about sending a Touhy letter for the Pretti shooting.) Obstructing justice in these investigations is a state crime that Trump can't pardon and, according to the New York Times, F.B.I. director Kash Patel was the one who ordered federal investigators to stop investigating the Good shooting. The local federal prosecutor assigned to the Good case apparently resigned because of that. The Orwellian irony is that the alleged reason ICE approached Good and CBP approached Pretti was that they were obstructing justice. DHS and the Department of Justice have been openly obstructing justice by withholding evidence from Minnesota state prosecutors. Prosecuting all federal officials that obstructed justice into the Good and Pretti shootings and other shootings and assaults by federal officials should begin ASAP and will begin to restore the rule of law in America.
Here's a link to the Hennepin County Attorney's website where they have been posting about this:
https://www.hennepinattorney.org/news/news
With all of the debates about various policy issues, we are overlooking the most important. What needs to be resolved are presidential “emergency declarations”. Those are at the root of much of what’s going on and disrupting the Constitutional balance of powers.
We can generally agree that any President needs to be able to respond quickly to an emergency and that it’s impossible to foresee what those emergencies might be. However, we don’t have a solid process for Congressional oversight. We need an Emergency Powers Act.
1: Upon declaring an emergency, the President must personally appear before Congress to explain the details and facts about the situation AND must take questions from the members. Advisors can assist in providing information, but the personal appearance and direct questioning is mandatory. (If the majority and minority leaders of both houses agree, a joint committee could be used in place of a full joint session)
It needs to occur in a short timeframe such as 48-72 hrs of the declaration.
2: Congress must debate and vote to affirm or reject the emergency. Again, a short timeframe (perhaps 2 weeks) would be mandatory. Failure to vote automatically rejects the emergency declaration.
3: An affirmative vote must also include a time limit (maybe 30-90 days) at which a vote to extend must be taken. Rinse and repeat.
Votes must be straight up or down and not subject to filibuster or other procedural delays or amendments. (Use separate legislation to deal with amendment-type issues).
This law preserves the duty and ability of the President to act in an emergency and the duty of Congress to oversee those actions on behalf of the Americans they represent.
JB: "The Senate filibuster is a related problem in this space as besides being unfair and unbalanced in terms of representation, it fosters inaction, dysfunction, and non-deliberation."
All true. But it is important to remember that the Republicans could decide today to end the filibuster, which would allow them to pass the SAVE (Trump and Republicans and Fascism) Act, which would wreck free and fair elections. Since there is some question as to a) who will control both houses of Congress in 2027, the GOP may not decide to end the filibuster and b) also arguing against the passage of the SAVE Act is the realization that it could disenfranchise more Republican voters than Democrats. If the Republicans believe that, then they won't want to pass the such a major voter suppression act since it could suppress their vote the most. They're stupid, but are they that stupid?
When the Dems take control the next time, they will need to end the filibuster if the GOP hasn't done it already in order to fix one of the most catastrophic things that is wrong with this country today -- the SCOTUS majority. There was almost no stomach for that when Biden was president, which was just one more of Biden's horrendous blunders. Biden had a surprising amount of legislative success and then tore it all down with his Israeli-Gaza pro-war crimes and genocide policies that kept many Democratic voters home on November 5, 2024 and then refusing to acknowledge his own mental and physical deterioration and insisting on staying in the race until he finally guaranteed a Harris loss. Just as Ruth Bader Ginsberg allowed her ego and poor judgment to undo her life's work on behalf of women, Biden's ego allowed him to destroy any positive legacy he might have had and worse send this country down the path of fascism. With such obvious lessons for politicians to see, it is remarkable that so few are capable of applying that lesson to themselves. Ego keeps Chuck Schumer clinging to power in the Senate when all of the evidence makes it clear he is a terrible leader and absolutely not up to the task of leading effective Democratic opposition to Trump. Chuck is the fellow who, when faced with the destruction of democracy, thinks that sending a "sternly worded" message to Trump is effective. With Schumer it isn't just a matter of ego. He has to be very stupid to think he is doing a good job.
JB: "When this is over, there must be accountability."
That would be nice and the right thing to do, but I fully expect Trump to issue blanket pardons to every member of his administration (he hasn't soured on) who has the potential to be indicted and prosecuted. If I were a Trump-serving criminal, I wouldn't be entirely comfortable with that because Trump is notorious for falling out of love with people who were his BFFs yesterday. But the fact remains that Trump has done extraordinary damage through his use of pardons and I can't imagine that will stop now.
Quite apart from using pardons to avoid accountability, I have no confidence that any incoming Democratic majorities and president, which will be mandatory for there to be any accountability, will have the stomach for what will be needed if there is to be meaningful accountability. Democratic Party leadership is weak to say the least and at the same time we should be holding people accountable the government will have the twin tasks of running the government every day and trying desperately to fix at least some of the most egregious failings of our thoroughly inadequate Constitution.
I wish I felt otherwise, but something will have to give and it can't be the everyday running of the government. To fail to do that or to do it poorly would almost certainly result in a return to right wing Republican anti-democratic rule in 2033. If there we only have time and resources to fix one of the other two tasks -- accountability or fixing the failings -- then fixing the failings will be more important for the future (though not really by much, if at all) and that would mean accountability for most criminals will fall by the wayside.
I listen to people today calling for accountability and I doubt they are being realistic. Democrats are in the fix they are in today because they are so inept. Is that really the party that will be able to successfully tackle the three major needs of post-Trump. And don't forget, we may be post-Trump, but we won't be post-Republicans and I see no real likelihood that the electorate, which caused this disaster in the first place by re-electing Trump, will improve in any meaningful way. Yes, today we are seeing huge turnarounds in special elections with Democrats defeating Republicans by wide margins in places where previous races were either GOP blowouts or very close races. However, that is not because voters have suddenly decided that they need to understand how government and economics work. Nope, it's because Trump is so terrible and so incompetent -- something that was obvious when those same voters re-elected him -- that the problems don't require any greater engagement or knowledge. They simply require voters to go to the store, try to balance their budgets, and watch TV to see Trump Thugs abusing human beings. When those issues fade, it will be necessary for the electorate to step up and be far better informed and engaged, and my expectation is that that won't happen. So, in the future, probably after the 2028 elections, we may find ourselves back where we were in November 2024 -- poorly informed, none-too-bright voters basing their votes on lies and wishful thinking.
I'd be a little more optimistic if the Democrats had the intelligence to dump Schumer and Jeffries and choose genuine fighters who won't continue to kowtow to the corrupt donors they rely on now (such as AIPAC, which is bad for both American Jews and Israel). But, in the end, the future of this country depends largely on the quality of our electorate and it is there that I am exceptionally pessimistic, which I think is being realistic. I'd love to be wrong.
None of this will happen—certainly not to the degree needed—in our reality.
You need a radically different national Democratic Party than we have or will have any time soon. Indeed, the nation is in its current state exactly due in huge part because the post-Clinton party shifted to be the least opposition to the GOP as possible.
You can’t even expect party to give lip service to all of Mr Bernstein’s suggestions.
This dotard just doesn’t have any patience for plans that don’t have a chance of working. (To be clear, undoing what Trump and the GOP have been doing since even before Trump was elected starts with primarying Congressional Democrats and turning the party away from being an alt-Republican corporate party way to the right of Democratic voters.)
Well said all around!!
an excellent list!
Also, bring back the fairness in broadcasting act.
Even after the Orange Menace leaves, you forget that the GOP in the House, Senate & SC are all versions of the Orange Menace - just look at the big ugly bill passed unilaterally by the GOP, subsequent ICE actions,
and look at the House that investigated the Jan 6th, 2021 insurrection & note how Cheney & Kinzinger were blacklisted by the GOP & how GOP senators shamelessly wanted tax payer funds for being tolled by Jack Smith. You also forget the GOP Senate & the 6 SC justices who gave the presidency back to him despite Jan 6th, 2021 & the huge no of deaths during Covid. The only way we get our democracy back & have accountability is if Republican voters vote against the GOP. The country needs a good two party system but we only have one. Seeing red states protest what ICE is doing provides hope for our country.
Massive general strikes might be the only way to Trump proof America.
District 13 needs to be established to
organize the resistance to Panem .