||| BY ROBERT AUSTIN |||


I have a modest proposal for 2025:  let’s ban all political parties.  Wait a moment, hear me out… candidates will discuss only their proposed policies and will detail which group of Americans they are intended to help or hinder, how much it will cost and how to pay for it, and lay out a rationale for such goals.
Some may wish to increase taxes in order to reduce our deficit, say, or to cut certain programs to accomplish the same goal.  Some may wish to bring good-paying manufacturing jobs back to the US, while others prefer to increase corporate profits by keeping manufacturing in low-paid overseas locales.  Let’s vote for which policies we prefer, and not, reflexibly, for “our side.”
Let’s take a closer look at what Milton Friedman’s “free market fundamentalism” has wrought upon the American people as a whole, and not just observe that wealth seems to keep flowing up to the richest families in the country while marveling that there is now even a “thing” called a hundred-billionaire.  A recent estimate indicated that half a million American families now have a net worth of $30 million or more.  There is still room at the top, apparently, just not much room for most of the rest of us.
Let’s resolve, as part of this transformation, to ban the sort of hyperpartisan us-vs-them static that keeps us from dealing with what’s really important.  Maybe the “war on Christmas” or gender bathroom and other culture war issues should take up less of our Congressional and mental space than, say, figuring out how to keep social security and Medicare solvent, provide necessary medical care to our citizens, evaluate our role in the world, our military stances and budgets in a very complex reality.
I have a dream… that we stop calling each other Communists and Fascists and baby eaters and vermin, and figure out how to get on with our lives with the agreement that us Americans are all in this together, and not warring factions that never recovered from the Civil War.
Happy New Year…



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