When Sanity is Restored to America...

Our government is crumbling around us at both the state and national level.  In some areas, like Cuyahoga County, even the local government is scandal ridden. All branches of the national government are failing the people with an Executive branch that no one wants to serve and a Legislative branch that is paralyzed by division.  The judicial branch of government is partisan to the point that it has lost the trust of the American people.  Lady Justice's blindfold is off. Her sword is dull from the partisan war she has fought and her scales are tangled and tattered.  We are not doing a good job in keeping the Republic going as Benjamin Franklin warned.

The State government is gerrymandered itself into irrelevance. Thank you federal courts for showing the extremes Republicans have gone to keep control, but my guess is that the Supreme Court will reverse all these partisan gerrymandering cases to return things to normal. They ran with a total disdain for the very office they sought. They were elected with the promise that they would cut taxes no matter the circumstances.  They sacrificed the health and well being of their citizens for a nice powerful job that dwindles in power every year. This is the reason that so many smart well educated flee the state.  This is why good jobs are not locating in Ohio and it is the reason people seek an escape from their problems in opioids at a higher rate compared to other states.  Who wants to live in a state that does not value government, civil society, immigration, public resources or education?

It is a dark time, but we have experienced dark times in the past.  We have survived an evil alliance built on hate and and the attempt to consolidate Europe under one maniac as king. We have survived a civil war as well as cold wars between nuclear armed nations.  We have lived through a time when a few big business men ran the country and the time when a significant population was enslaved.  The US has survived the disenfranchisement of women and hundreds of years of discriminating against nearly every minority population living within its borders.  We can make it through these rough waters as we have overcome challenges of the past, but we need to keep our eyes on the prize.

There are so many norms that were lost over the last three years from the trust in our elections to painting the news media as an enemy of the state, but a strong wind of justice is coming.  There are seven areas which we need to focus after the crisis.  To make it simple for the short attention span Twitter crowd here are my suggestions for focus after the hurricane has passed.

1. Restoring representative democracy including voting and oversight.
2. A massive building spree to dramatically expand affordable housing.
3. Income support to expand living wage jobs and livable incomes to those who cannot work.
4. Improving quality free public education through an associates degree for every American.
5. Protection of our natural resources from the effects of climate change.
6. Universal free quality healthcare to everyone living within the United States to include a focus on behavioral health.
7. Reducing incarceration by reforming the criminal justice system.

This is a broad list that needs some details.  I know that many will quibble with the non-inclusion of critical social justice issues such as immigration, the gun culture, reproductive rights, and discrimination of the LGBTQ community.  Some of these issues fit within the list of seven and others just confuse the public.  These issues overlooked have been used by the far right religious zealots to divide and conquer the United States. They use these issues to spread fear and misinformation.  Take these issues off the table and it is difficult to rally people against a justice issue.  I am not dismissing these issues, but the water is so cloudy that we need a period of filtration to prove that government can solve problems.

by Brian Davis