Amid all the hullaballoo over Trump’s tariffs and other trade plays, there is a realization that has serious implications for our future as a nation. If it takes an act of God to arrange for a circumstance where any of the powerful men who run this country have the best interests of everyday Americans, then what chance have we of maintaining a healthy middle class?
I think we are more or less where the Romans were at about the time of Julius Caesar. Which is without a doubt a very bad place. But I’m not advocating for a dictator. I don’t think that a king no matter how he is selected is a solution.
But maybe what we need is a tribune. Tribune was an office that was given to the plebians or common people of Rome. The office was founded to give the common people a veto against actions by the Senate which was the legislative body of Rome and composed of the patricians or nobles. If a law was written that negatively impacted the common people, the tribune could veto it.
Well, I think we’ve reached that point. Both major parties are completely compromised by the special interests that buy their votes for laws that allow these companies to flourish while the common people are turned into paupers and serfs. It’s gone on too long. We need some kind of brake on the power of both parties.
Of course, the sticking point is how do we find the proverbial honest man? How do we prevent the office from being filled with just another crook? Well, the only absolutely fool proof method would be to appoint me tribune for life but even that is limited by my mortality.
A possible way to get the same effect as a tribunate without the actual office could be instituting a national referendum process to allow unpopular laws to be revoked, politicians recalled, and laws voted into existence when the Congress isn’t doing their job.
The threshold for triggering a referendum would have to be reasonably high but not onerously so. Let’s say ten million signatures. The point is we need a way to prevent the difficulty of getting good people elected from turning our government into the monster it has become. Everybody knows Nancy Pelosi uses her office to make hundreds of millions of dollars through insider stock trading. If she could be fired because half of American voters get outraged about this then she probably wouldn’t be such a blatant crook. Also don’t you think that a great majority of Americans would vote yes on a referendum outlawing insider trading for Congress? Common sense things like this would happen naturally and should.
Well, anyway that is something I thought about today. Direct Democracy is a dangerous thing but as we’ve already seen our system with its checks and balances has failed us pretty miserably and changes need to be made.
Maybe Trump has in mind to champion changes to the way Washington works. Or maybe he thinks from now on we’ll elect good people. I think after he leaves, the chances of electing only presidents who have our best interests in mind is pretty low. We need to strike while the iron is hot and call for a constitutional convention before the crooks get back in charge. Otherwise, we’re headed for a repeat of the Roman Empire with us as serfs.