Ask Lemmy

This is going to be way more than five points but here goes:

• Restore rights that and make them ironclad and impossible to take away again in the future, basically, make the Bill of Rights really be as inalienable as it claims to be and turn it into something that no one can touch without facing harsh consequences.

• Eliminate privatized healthcare and replace it with a universal scheme.

• Eliminate Citizens United and hold corporations under the same laws as normal people and under the same penalties for breaking them as normal people, maybe then they'd actually have to stop their abusive tactics.

• Raise taxes on the rich while cutting taxes on everyone else, and cut military spending in half or deeper, and put the added funds and savings from cutting military spending towards restoring public media funding and earmarking said funding in a way that cannot be clawed back in a future rescissions package, as well as funding education, science, arts/humanities, and healthcare, and also reworking the public education system to where it's not the joke of society anymore and it's actually competitive with the rest of the world.

• Actually regulate AI before it destroys everything, and also count MLMs under the same definition as illegal pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, etc, and actually make running one a jailable offense just like those other scams.

• Eliminate privatized and especially for-profit post-secondary education, make predatory student loans patently illegal under the same scams listed above, and actually offer free post-secondary education like most of the other countries do.

• Raise federal minimum wage to where it actually catches up with living costs, and actually put stronger affordable housing programs in place than Section 8 and make them applicable to anyone who needs them.

• Make for-profit prisons illegal and reform the prison system to where it actually focuses on rehabilitation rather than punishment, which if done right will greatly reduce recidivism rates (that means no more 'diesel therapy' among other things), and finally.......

• Actually hold anyone who tries to straight-up turn a republic into a dictatorship accountable for their actions, and also stop the manufactured 'border crisis' and actually allow the country to be the accepting bastion of freedom it bills itself as, basically let it do as it says on the tin, as it were, and start actually treating marginalized communities the same as everyone else, that means PoC, the LGBT community, the disabled community, and especially the AuDHD community has the same rights as everyone else as opposed to being discriminated against.

As an added bonus, outlaw mandatory online ID checks and code it into law that such things be strictly optional.

This is a hypothetical so I might as well go ham.

I would immediately begin searching for and hiring the smartest people in every field to help me to make my decisions. The best economists, scientists, biologists, climatologists, foreign policists, etc. I am not smart enough to be POTUS and that's exactly who the POTUS should be, someone who is willing to listen and do what is best based on proper advice.

There is no undoing some of the damage. The dollar will never be a reserve currency again. Petroleum-dollar recycling is dead. Our trade position is unrecoverable and millions will die because of it.

So to minimize the damage longer term; deploy ranked choice or STAR voting across the country. Strip as much power from the executive branch as possible, allow the post office to provide banking services to everyone and authorize them to issue home loans to everyone at 2x their annual income at Federal bond rates. Then authorize Medicaid part D to be available to all citizens at cost (thus providing a single payer healthcare option).

Change corporate tax into a graduated revenue tax model, which would make too big to fail to become too unprofitable to survive; (higher revenue => more taxes because you can’t hide revenue but you can game profits) thus cutting the tax burden on small businesses and giving Wall Street an economic incentives to rip massive corporations into spreads.

Then there are a fuck ton of targeted policies that will have to be deployed to help repair the economy and rebuild industries in the country.

1. Pass an act that declares infrastructure to be part of national security. Billions in military spending would then be redirected to the Army Corps of Engineers to repair our roads, bridges, water, sewer, electric (especially solar and wind), railroad, and other systems of infrastructure. This would provide a large amount of jobs and make out country safer and more efficient. It would also reduce wasted military spending.

2. Pass the USPS modernization act. Internet service would be considered to be under the purview of the Postal Service. They would be enabled to operate low cost high speed Internet service nationally, with a focus on isolated rural communities. This would provide competition for private ISPs, keeping the prices down and the quality of service high. Amazon would also be nationalized and put under the USPS through this bill. This would eliminate the defacto monopoly, allow regulation of product quality, and prevent market manipulation.

3. Constitutional amendment defining healthcare as a human right as well as mandating a nationalized healthcare system.

4. Pass the Wealth Disparity Reduction Act. It would remove the annual income cap on paying into Social Security, tax inheritance 100% over 1,000,000 times the federal minimum wage, tax stock dividends as income, add tiers above the current top marginal tax rate escalating 5% per tier until there is a top tax rate over 80%, and tax political donations by any person or entity by 1% per $1,000 capped at 90%.

5. Labor Rights Act. "Right to work" laws are illegal, federal anti-union activity watchdog empowered, mandatory sick/vacation leave, mandatory parental leave, mandatory employer health insurance contributions to national healthcare system, time and a half over 8 hours at work, double time over 40 hours, no scheduling shifts within 12 hours of the end of previous shift, corporate tax subsidies for work from home and 4 day workweeks, mandatory paid 30 minutes lunch plus two 15 minutes breaks included in 8 hour shift.

I expect I would be assassinated pretty quickly after that.

Universal healthcare.

Release the un redacted epstien files and prosecute every last pedofile

Impeach the Supreme Court and add term limits

Overturn citizens united and making all private funds illegal in campaigns

Ranked choice voting for all elections

Abolish ICE

Go back to the 1950’s tax rate of 90% on income over 1 million and capital gains

Free college

Immigration reform

Strengthen labor laws for workers

Strengthen the EEOC for workers

Strengthen the NLRB for workers

Strengthen osha for workers

Pass laws to make it illegal for congress to hold stocks

Have the fbi, cia and DOJ crack down on white supremisist terrorists organizations

Remove the social security income cap

Strengthen social safety nets

Make it illegal for corporations to buy up housing for shareholder profits

Divest from Israel

Cancel palantir

Cancel all subsidies to elons companies

Only give taxpayer subsidies to small business or companies who have high ethical standards

Demand employers pay a living wage

Hold corporations to account

I would investigate how on earth is it possible for a random dude from Czech Republic to become the president of the USA overnight. Sounds kinda problematic. I know the political system there is pretty fucked up but this is way beyond what I'd expect possible even by today's standards.

1. Term limits and cognitive age checks for Supreme Court

2. Free Healthcare and Student loans(no interest and no limit on paying it back)

3. BAN Lobbyists from all levels of government while overturning citizens United

4. LGBTQ and women's rights amendments.

5. Treason Charges for like a thousand people maybe more

Get rid of state based voting, people vote directly for the president in ranked choice, and the most popular person gets in.

Nice try Vance.

Gay marriage for all (mandatory)

1. Amendment that Congress cannot limit the size of the House of Representatives. This will eliminate the Appointment Act.

2. The Senate should be increased to 10 per State. This will make bribery significantly harder.

3. A new branch of government (People's Branch) which has the sole job of ensuring the transparency of the government by auditing, investigating, prosecuting for corruption of all members of the Federal government. The branch will be run like a Union where a board of 15(ish) is elected nationally and they appoint a speaker. Term limits are 1 term, six years, non repeatable, and members are not to have served in any other Federal branch for at least 5 years before or after service in the People's Branch.

4. All elections for Federal positions are to consist of RCV or (or better) voting methods. FPTP is banned.

5. National firearms laws that forces 1-year of firearms training for anyone, including law enforcement, to wield a firearm. This will include de-escalation classes, proper weapon safety, and other known weapon safety measures with requirements for recertification every three years. Penalties for violation will be severely increased.

1. Everyone is by default registered to vote. Bring a valid ID at any voting place and you're good.
2. Ban stock trading for elected officials
3. Ban super PACs and similar forms of political funding.
4. Change to ranked choice voting.
5. (Reserved for later use)

• Electoral reform. Abolish the electoral college, end first past the post, and make SCOTUS an elected position with term limits, as well as term limiting Congress and instituting universal mail in voting nationwide.

• Top to bottom education reform. Straight up completely change how education works.

• Trust busting wave. Google, EA, Uniliever, Disney, and so many others.

• Crackdowns on elements of social media and dating apps that encourage sensationalism or otherwise harm society. (Dating apps I might go as far as nationalization.)

• Fund third spaces, in a similar manner to how other countries are involved in arts funding.

Subject matter experts would be involved in all of course.

Release the payroll list for all ICE agents and let real Americans sort them out. That would save my valuable time as president and I wouldn't have to use federal funds to round them up and imprison them. That's the kind of efficiency DOGE wishes they had.

As president, I run the executive branch.

1. Remove Trump's cronies from positions of power in the executive branch. Re-hire the people he fired/layed off/quit.

2. Review currently effective executive orders. Cancel any which don't directly deal with national security. Orders which might be supporting some significant aspects of large numbers of peoples lives will be ramped down slowly but predictably so no one suffers undue economic hardship.

3. Attend a bunch of boring meetings, occasionally decide the fate of Ukraine.

4. Respect the boundaries of my branch of government by not acting like a king and issuing a bunch of decrees without the agreement of congress.

5. Respectfully prod congress to reign in the executive branch's power, implement reforms in the electoral process, and create term limits for supreme court justices.

I'd bomb Denmark of course!

Our arch enemy!

Signed: a swede

/j ofc

Start looking for smart objective people to hire. I know enough to know that I don't know enough to make decisions in a vacuum. At the end of the day, the president is the face of the government, but the people behind him are what should really matter.

1. Amendment to get rid of gerrymandering. Districts will be drawn up by statistical models that emphasize culture, values, demographics of the district. Every citizen also gets a vote by mail ballot.
2. Amendment to implement sensible gun control. Not ban guns, as people need some way to fight back against a tyrannical government. And some people truly do need to keep themselves safe from wildlife, crime, etc.
3. Amendment to bring in Puerto Rico and Washington DC as states in the union. If Texas wants to split into East TX and West TX, I’m fine with that too.
4. Law to require 2 years voluntary service. Meals, food, housing, recreational stipend will be provided. Similar to CCC, you’ll learn a trade and build up a camaraderie that will last a lifetime. As a citizen in a country, you should have skin in the game, it gives you a sense of ownership . Bonus is infrastructure gets kept up and senior citizens are cared for. Volunteer groups can be unionized.
5. Gas tax goes up significantly. Seriously, Europe pays $8/gallon. Why the hell do we need to keep it at $3? Tax will pay to build out much needed public transportation and sustainable energy grid infrastructure. We need trains people. If China can do it in a country much more mountainous than ours, we can do it.
6. Wealth tax. Anything over $100 million earnings is taxed progressively at 70% anything above $1B is taxed at 90%. Tax on unrealized gains, but can be balanced by unrealized losses.
7. Abolish tax exempt status for churches. You can be nonprofit, but you will still be taxed. No more slave owning mega-pastors.
8. Amendment to overturn Citizens United. Political contributions will be limited. You want your money to be speech? Sure, do it the old fashioned way and convince enough people to align with your cause.
9. Federal Healthcare for everyone damnit! What the hell is wrong with us!?
10. Give more power back to the states. There will be some cohesive things that we all agree upon that keep the tether of our society together, but New York is not Oklahoma is not Colorado is not Alabama. States should have more power to govern themselves. Think of it like Catalonia in Spain or Scotland in UK. States are the test beds of democracy.

Would I get a second term? Hell no. I’m a change agent technocrat. People like a showman. There’s a reason city planners are divorced from mayors at the municipal level. I come in like a four mile freight train then I go home. Some populist demagogue would probably replace me.

immediately implement ranked choice voting at all levels of government and implement UBI

Prosecute

My zeroth thing would be to yell at the top of my lungs What the actual fuck

1. Increase security personnel for myself and the White House. Sadly this will have to be necessary given the hostile nature of the US at the moment... hopefully this is temporary
2. Reverse every policy Trump and the MAGA team have been doing (if that even counts as one thing)
3. Convert the US voting system to ranked choice voting
4. Add a wage indexing scheme: governmental salaries, minimum wage, and private market wage guidelines will be pegged to inflation
5. Increase governmental budget especially in areas like health, science

I'd probably be voted out by the time my term ends, but I hope at least some of the changes are permanent

• age limit on public representatives, probably the same as retirement
• voting is completely changed to a ranking system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
• hire a bunch of actually qualified people to run each office and governmental positions
• a bunch more shit that I dont feel like writing

I won't get a second term, but that's because I'm trans.

I'm going to start by putting forward several amendment proposals including one that removes presidential immunity, one that prohibits partisan gerrymandering, and one that mandates the right to bodily autonomy, as well as reintroducing the ERA, with full assertions of gender presentation and sexual orientation as well. I'd also push one for medical care. None of these amendments will have a deadline as I wouldn't expect them to make it through the states.

I'd give Puerto Rico and DC the right to become a state, as well as offering Puerto Rico independence if they'd prefer, which would not be popular.

I'd push through a full blown single payer healthcare bill.

From there I'd start talking to experts in Keynesianism. I don't like capitalism, but I'm not making America socialist in 3 years without a complete destruction of social order. But we're in a precarious position and the economy is torn between inflation and recession which demand opposite policies. My suspicion is that it will demand taxing the wealthy and spending on the struggling. Also I'd of course instill Lena Kahn to do her thing

This is where I can do a real green new deal. If people can't afford rent and can't find work then they can build Council housing owned by municipalities, built around public transit lines or places to put them. They can install publicly owned fiber internet lines and publicly owned renewable energy generation. I'd also want to build a high speed rail line from Chicago to Pittsburgh with plans to extend it to NYC, as well as Seattle to the bay area and the 3CD line in ohio (Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati). With all of this of course I'd be offering a better deal to American manufacturers to provide the materials with a bonus for cooperatively owned suppliers. I'd also put forward a request that every state government look into how to implement an intrastate rail network.

Furthermore I'd be doing fireside chats like FDR to explain what I'm doing and why as well as demonstrating austerity within the presidency. I'd also travel the country speaking to unions and asking everyday people about their current struggles. Making ordinary folks feel heard goes incredibly far

For foreign policy, I'd be really speaking about how my aims are to make America as stable as we once were rather than demanding other countries submit to us or trust us again. Trust is earned and an unstable country can't be trusted.

The hope is that my directly targeting material conditions and talking my way through it I can cut the right wing support out from under it.

Disband ICE

Prosecute Trump for his many crimes

Pull National Guard out of places they don't need to be

Begin educational reforms

Get rid of any tariffs Trump implemented

1. End Capitalism by force

2. Fuck up a bunch of people who resist

Which one of you is already heavily involved in politics? You'll have my vote.

1. Universal healthcare: Every single legal resident should have the same healthcare as the politicians.
2. 1960's Tax Brackets You will pay your fair share.
3. Education: Increase education budgets for all subjects. College tuition, room and board to be paid with taxes. Setup vocational schools and apprenticeship programs, like Germany. In exchange dump the damn athletics and leave it for recreational use. If you want play sports, join an athletic club like in Europe.
4. Infrastructure: The USA is fucking pathetic, build it like Japan and increase renewable energy research and development.
5. Age and term limits for all politicians at all levels.

The poor bast bastard will have to sign hundreds of executive orders to get rid of the fucked up ones left by Krasnov.

1. Load the Federal Gold Reserve onto a container ship
2. Sail home under carrier group escort
3. Disband the US armed forces
4. Resign

Have a shotgun engraved with the words "Official Acts" and then do what comes naturally afterwards.

I sign an executive order dissolving the union and seek no second day

First, tax the rich. Go back to Eisenhower's 90% tax rates. Use that money to pay off all the student loans.

Next, bring back the CCC*. Details would be figured out, but I'd give the young men and women a chance to get good paying jobs with just a high school diploma. We need to repair the infrastructure, put in high speed rail, update the power grid, and prepare for climate change.

Space colonization. We were doing a Gemini mission every month back when computers were bigger than the Empire State Building. We know that there are asteroids with enough iron to last our industrial needs for the next thousand years. Our goal should be to move all heavy industry off planet.

Things like health care and education you can take as a given.

*Civilian Conservation Corps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps

Do I still get a pension if I resign

Resign.

This sounds like I would be running a dictatorship and that is not on my bucket list.

Well, considering how fucked things are right now...

1. I gather up the publicly active billionaires and bring them into stage with me before starting a speech on inequality, really digging into the fact that they probably don't feel safe in public anymore, then I announce that "these industry leaders have volunteered to help fix this, and will be staying in Washington until we have a plan". During the speech, I'd kick out their entourage and after I'd trade out their phones for ones that can only make calls

2. I'd keep guards everywhere and make pointed implicit threats, but leave that wiggle room for civility. I'd use this distraction to keep other parties from interfering as I sic the FTC, SEC, and FCC on trust busting basically the entire economy. I'd have the NSA help behind the scenes to speed up this process, hell I'd expand the judiciary just for this purpose, to push it through as fast as possible

3. I'd deploy the national guard everywhere to basically open soup kitchens and shelters. I'd probably send in large portions of the military as well - we have the resources and logistics to feed everyone for an extended period of time, so I'd use it to mitigate the short term damage

4. I'd call on other world leaders for aid. I'd make a big speech about collapsing empires and the dangers of the coming dark age. I'd call for a new age of cooperation and solidarity as equals, of breaking the cycle by playing another game. I'd ask for medicine and aid workers from around the world to help us through our trying time, then I'd parade out the billionaires to let them announce their plans to use their wealth to create jobs (and make sure they talk about how they want a world where they can feel safe, no matter how forced). Not all of them would make an appearance, but they'd all pop up later

5. From there I'd try to stabilize this whole mess legislatively. I'd overturn citizens united by making it expressly illegal with huge penalties, come up with a transition plan to nationalize healthcare, I'd create a program to buy food from independent farmers at cost to keep the soup kitchens open, I'd expand the supreme Court and put restrictions on them, and as things settle I'd make a big deal about restricting certain powers I used to get all of this through

It would be a huge mess. Like a total shit show. The plan is to basically turn the economy off and on again without loss of life

But I'd make sure people had food, housing, and hope for the future. They'd be terrified day 1, they'd be terrified as they lose their jobs and the stock market disappears, but then they'd have people going door to door arranging free food deliveries and healthcare. The power would stay on. The Internet would still be up. The evictions wouldn't come... And

I'd make a show of limiting my own power, and it would be largely true... But we really have to rework a lot of things, and I'd get the public buy in to do that by becoming a firm lifeline for them. I'd move much more slowly from then on

So that's my 100 day plan. Flip the table, burn the boats, then hold things together by giving people what they need until they can reorganize bottom up

I think I'd be reelected, I think I'd have to firmly reject a third term

I resign and go home

Impeach the activist ideologues on the Supreme Court.

Eliminate presidential immunity.

Do away with private schools and force all children into well funded, fact based public education with a strong focus on critical thinking.

Round up and re-educate everyone involved in the attempt to destroy the US.

Fix elections. Do away with gerrymandering. Establish truly apolitical, independent election commissions to establish electoral boundaries. Guarantee every citizen the right to vote and equal access to the ballot box. Do away with the electoral college. Make all votes equal.

EDIT: Break up all of the media companies.

Nationalize the assets of every billionaire who bought a cabinet post in the Trump government to destroy the agencies that regulated them.