Five Steps to an American Revolution

Imagining how to get to better world

The revolution would have five stages in this little thought experiment.

1: Chicken in the pot, 2020–2022.

2: Get your gun, 2022–2023.

3: World tour, 2023–2024.

4: Reshuffle the deck, 2025–26.

5: New paper, 2026–2028.

1. Chicken in the pot

First, put a chicken in every pot. Immediately in 2020, the new progressive congress and president need to make FDR and Congress during his first 100 days in 1932 look like a bunch of slackers. Goal: bring out the non-voters, and turn them into loyal constituents by giving them concrete benefits directly in their pockets in a hurry. Make sure they know who gave them the benefits. Don’t phase anything in over several years: dramatic quick change that is clear and direct is the priority. Explicitly tell people that if you like what you’re getting, be sure to vote for the people who gave it to you. Voting revolution is a duty and obligation to your family.

Free college, forgive all student loans, $15 minimum wage, Medicare for all, jobs through infrastructure spending, post office banking: almost every family will get something. “Ponies” are good.

Last year, I paid $400 a month in student loans. Now I pay nothing. Last year I paid $750 in health insurance premiums and had a $2500 deductible. This year I pay $50 in additional payroll taxes every month and have no deductible. Last year I got $12 an hour. This year I get $15. Last year I did seasonal construction work. This year I’m building trains, I’m in a union and I make $60K a year. Last year my tuition was $5000. This year it’s zero. Last year I paid $5 to cash my check every two weeks. This year, I can do it for free at the post office. Almost no families in the 99% would not notice the dramatic and direct improvement in their lives.

All of this would be paid for by speculation taxes on stock and bond trading, inheritance taxes and increasing the marginal rate of the top 1%. Also, these proposals would not challenge the military in any way. Military families would benefit like everyone else. The banks would be more regulated but not broken up (yet). They would howl, but they would not face an existential crisis. The monopoly positions of the tech giants would not be challenged (yet). The CIA and NSA would be allowed to continue with their large budgets (for a while).

Non-voters turn into voters. The 40+% of the population who does not vote regularly shows up in 2022 and the progressive revolution gets a strong mandate. Chicken in the pot phase one is over. Now, we enter the get your gun phase.

2. Get your gun

Maybe powerful elements of the military, the big banks, the federal courts, tech giants, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the corporate media and other entrenched interests will see the popularity of left-wing populism and shrug, say, “that’s democracy” and accept the results. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on such as reaction and the revolution has to be prepared for counter-revolution.

The revolution cannot count on the loyalty of the existing military, spy agencies, FBI, local police, courts and other vested interests and will need to create an armed force that is loyal to the elected government. In order to disarm fascist elements that do not accept democratic results, a new force will be absolutely critical. Hopefully, this loyal force would never have to be used in a concerted fashion to disarm other parts of the government but better safe than sorry.

So, around 2021, the new government would set up a new law enforcement agency specifically to tackle government corruption. Right now, public integrity law enforcement falls under the jurisdiction of the FBI but clearly, they are not able to act independently or effectively in the realm of political crime. A new force is needed.

With the rise of social media, it should not be hard to tell who would make good candidates for this new force: BLM activists, consistent activists against the duolopy, etc. The force, created in 2021, would not be called on to disarm any existing force until after 2022.

In 2023, after the post-pony election, however, the CIA, NSA, and FBI would be abolished in one fell swoop: from one day to the next, they would cease to exist. Ex-agents and contractors would be restricted in how they might communicate among themselves, swear to be loyal to the elected government on pain of imprisonment, and then granted generous pensions. Some would be rehired in new agencies that preform some of the functions of the old agencies, with vetting. The United States probably needs a federal police force but not the FBI. There is some call for espionage and information gathering, but not the CIA or NSA and far, far, less and with much more oversight. Best to scrap what we have and start over.

In case this process does not proceed constitutionally, a loyal, armed force will be needed. I would give a new force some time before they might be called upon to round up disloyal former CIA agents around the world and other such like dangerous but necessary activities.

At some point, the revolution has to show the entrenched elements who is boss and that elected government must be respected, like it or not. If you start with the biggest and baddest of the lot, the CIA, NSA and FBI, you are unlikely to have much trouble with Google, CNN and Goldman Sachs.

Next, all foreign military bases would be closed. No US military personnel would be allowed to work outside of the United States and the military budget would be slashed by 95%. The new internal police force would again be available in case there was any organized resistance to the will of the democratically elected government.

Then, break up the banks. Declare Google, Facebook and Amazon monopolies and break them up too.

3. World tour

Taxing stock and bond sales, a speculation tax, would work best if all countries instituted the same tax at the same time. Also, if redistribution is the norm in all countries, then the superrich can’t hide anywhere.

I suspect people in China want clean water. I bet people don’t like to go into a factory in Bangladesh and lose an arm in an industrial accident, receive no workers compensation. Workers in Mexico would like to have the right to join a union.

Right now, the global system pretty much ignores workers rights and environmental standards. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

If companies in China can’t dump PCBs, that is good for American workers, as industries will have no choice but to get cleaner, not to pull up stakes and move. If workers in Mexico have the right to strike, unionize and publish information about corrupt officials, that is good for Americans as well, as owners of industrial entities will not be able to evade scrutiny by moving to another country. In such a situation, they might not move at all.

According to international law, the wealth below ground, from oil to diamonds, belongs to the people of the nation where the resource is found. But if a dictator is stealing the oil and pocketing the profits, then, be international law, other countries should not be buying the oil from that nation.

If the United States were to work with other nations, from Brazil to Germany to India, to set up a new trading order that raises all standards rather than be a corporate-driven race to the bottom for the people, we might see a very different trading system and “globalization” might not be entirely a bad word.

International understanding is necessary. Protectionism in America will help win the revolution because protecting key industries from foreign competition and predatory vulture capitalists like Mitt Romney is necessary for prosperity. Free market global capitalism does not create national wealth for the people and the revolution needs to bring prosperity.

If American can protect some industries, so can other nations. Some kind of system, fair to all nations, to allow countries to develop, is conceivable. At the same time, international norms in terms of the environment, labor and mineral wealth that benefit everyone will raise the standards for all people.

4. Reshuffle the deck

Now that the revolution has secured support internationally from like-minded forces, eliminated potentially disloyal elements of the government itself, defeated the competition in elections by bringing in non-voters in droves, it’s time to reshuffle the deck. Simply, eliminate all billionaires and spread the wealth around. During this process of direct wealth re-distribution, the government would include provisions for reparations for the descendants of slaves in the United States. As these payments occur simultaneously with payments to all citizens with less than $500 million in assets, there will be far less White backlash than there would be otherwise.

5. New paper

The lottery of life has been recast, racial disparities in wealth have been obliterated, the disloyal agencies of the government disbanded, the international trade system re-written, the political order unended, and (although I didn’t mention this) the Supreme Court has been stacked, the electoral majority still secure, it is time to fix the Constitution with a new Bill of Rights and ten new amendments.

No more lifetime tenure for judges. Write environmental protection into the constitution. Proportional representation. Vastly expanded Congress, to keep congresspeople from becoming “bigwigs.” Maximum transparency: all documents online, almost no classified information. Net neutrality. Term limits. Undo systemic racism. Limit government power in criminal justice. Use statistical sampling in the census. End gerrymandering. Making voting easier. All legislation would be written in small chunks and published online before a vote. War powers would be strengthened to assure no more undeclared or permanent wars. No imperialism again. Establish independent publicly financed investigative journalism and publicly financed political campaigns. Stop intrusive government from using facial recognition, DNA screening or any other new technology from monitoring and controlling the population. Give consumers more power when they do business with big entities.

And about now, as the Constitution is revolutionized into a truly democratic document, we can congratulate each other and rest. Our work, for now, is done.