Restoring American Democracy: A Silver Lining Playbook

President Donald Trump, soon to be former, has performed a great national service by applying a severe stress test to every rivet and seam in our ship of state. Many, it’s now clear, are leaking badly. Our job is to fix them before another corrupt populist figure arises who’ll threaten the nation once again.

Luckily for us, Trump, the Constitutional stress-tester extraordinaire, has pointed out exactly where we must focus our energies for change.

The framers of the Constitution designed a brilliant system of government, but they could not have foreseen the rise of social media platforms launching hatred, lies, and propaganda on an unwitting public. They were anti-monarchical, independent thinkers who could not have foreseen a virus infecting the body politic whose symptoms include blind fealty to a delusional President and contempt for those who are not infected.

But the framers knew they could not predict all of the challenges that citizens would face centuries into the future, so they applied a master stroke to the Constitution—the ability to evolve to better serve people’s changing values and circumstances.

Luckily for us, Trump, the Constitutional stress-tester extraordinaire, has pointed out exactly where we must focus our energies for change. Here are ten steps for restoring democracy and emerging from the Trump regime with a system that’s more representative and resilient than when he took office.

1. Nip corruption in the bud: New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy in the 1970s, and the city survived by leveraging its employee pension funds. Officials desperate for tax revenues turned a blind eye to corruption among developers, government agencies, and unions. Donald Trump’s father, Fred, was a major contributor to Mayor Abe Beame, who instructed city agencies to give the Trumps “anything they want,” including permission to fast-track Trump Tower. 

The project helped launch what would become a real-estate empire allegedly propped up by bank fraud, tax evasion, and international money, much of it laundered criminal cash. Trump should have been stopped cold by the Manhattan District Attorney right then and there. Instead he was coddled, which encouraged him to commit broader crimes. Corruption is like a cancer that needs to be cut out early, because small corruption that goes unchecked can grow into corruption big enough to threaten a nation.

2. Stop social media from corrupting elections: In 2016, Trump hired Cambridge Analytica to purchase Facebook data on fifty million Americans without their knowledge. The firm then used it to build a psychological warfare tool that helped swing the relatively tiny number of votes that delivered the Electoral College count Trump needed to take the White House. Russia appears to have also used this same data to develop and micro-target anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda. 

Social media has proven to be the greatest propaganda machine in history, and the perfect vehicle for political con men who wish to undermine democracy and trigger violence in the streets. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies need to be much more proactive, but if they prove unable to police themselves, they should be regulated by a public agency that ensures they serve the public interest.

3. Require presidential candidates to disclose potential conflicts: Trump promised to release his tax returns back in 2016, but he has fought since then to keep them secret. He also promised to put his businesses into a blind trust. Instead he combined his personal businesses with the office of the President and directed untold millions of dollars into his own bank accounts from wealthy individuals seeking favors. 

Voters have the basic right to know whether a candidate, or their family members, could reap financial rewards from controlling the White House. Congress can and should immediately pass a law that requires all presidential candidates to publicly release their tax returns and make full financial disclosures during the primaries.

4. Give equal weight to every vote: Trump lost the 2016 election by almost three million votes, while fewer than 80,000 votes in just three states handed him the most powerful office on Earth. The system is indeed rigged. Millions of legitimate votes are thrown into the garbage during every presidential election cycle due to the state winner-take-all system of the Electoral College.  

In 1823, James Madison called for a Constitutional Amendment banning state winner-take-all laws, yet 200 years later the Electoral College process is still crippling our democracy. It is long past time to stop disregarding people’s votes just because their candidate did not carry their state.

5. Enforce emoluments violations: Trump’s decision to retain ownership and control of his sprawling business empire placed him in violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause the moment he took office on January 20, 2017. The clause prohibits the President from receiving any profit, gain, or advantage from his position. Trump’s flagrant violation of this law has normalized a level of corruption and unethical behavior never before seen in the United States. 

As a prerequisite to accepting any party’s nomination for President, candidates should be required to place all of their assets into a blind trust. Violations of the Emoluments clause need to be specified into law along with penalties to avoid the kind of extended litigation that Trump is using to continue holding the Presidency while violating the Constitution.

6. Reaffirm that no one is above the law: “Article Two allows me to do whatever I want,” Trump proclaimed, as though he were a sovereign king. His head-spinning list of crimes includes ignoring Congressional subpoenas and directing others to do so; extorting foreign governments and U.S. municipalities for political gain; deploying armed federal agents against the wishes of local municipalities; and placing migrant kids in cages. He relied on teams of lawyers who specialize in evasion, denial, delay, countersuits, appeals, pay-offs, and intimidation. 

We clearly need common-sense legal barriers that prevent a President from putting himself above the law. For starters, we must nullify the Department of Justice memo that ostensibly gives the President immunity from indictment. Without that memo, the Mueller investigation and the impeachment proceedings might have turned out very differently.

7. Limit the President’s pardon power: Trump has frequently abused the power of executive clemency to pardon supporters, political allies, and, in the case of Roger Stone, his own criminal co-conspirators. By proclaiming himself the “chief law enforcement officer of the country,” he has broken with all previous Presidents and pardoned well-connected offenders whose cases were not vetted by the Justice Department. Trump even argued that he could “pardon himself.” 

It’s time to pass a Constitutional amendment removing the pardon power—or at the very least, severely restricting its use. Such an amendment could be key to preventing future Presidents from attempting to place themselves, their families, or their business interests above the law.

8. Protect whistleblowers, Inspectors General, and Special Counsels: In the span of just six weeks, Trump fired inspectors general across five different federal departments, replacing them with appointees who have threatened and punished whistleblowers instead of investigating their complaints. Most chillingly, the House Intelligence Committee on Impeachment noted that he, “issued a threat against [a] whistleblower and those who provided information to the whistleblower regarding the President’s misconduct, suggesting that they could face the death penalty for treason.” 

Inspectors General and Special Counsels need more formal independence and protection from interference by the executive branch, and whistleblower laws must be properly enforced to protect these courageous individuals.

9. Limit the use of executive orders and emergency powers: Trump abused executive orders so badly that it appeared as though he was trying to rule by fiat. He also repeatedly invoked federal emergency powers to pursue his own agenda, such as funding the border wall with Defense Department dollars.

We need special, expedited judicial review of presidential executive orders, along with broad public outreach to inform us when they’ve been overturned and why. And Congress should permit a federal emergency declaration to be challenged in court on an expedited basis. Federal agents deployed under emergency powers, or for any reason, must not be allowed to roam anonymously in unmarked vehicles while harassing citizens.

10. Criminalize violations of the Hatch Act: Trump and his staffers repeatedly violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they’re working in any official capacity, such as addressing the Republican National Convention from the White House. 

Congress must pass a law providing for the automatic and rapid termination of anyone found by the Office of Special Counsel to be in violation of the Hatch Act.

Now that Trump has been dumped, our task is to make American democracy fairer and more representative by fixing the fatal flaws in the system that he has exposed.