The 10 weeks between Kamala Harris’s concession speech and Donald Trump’s re-swearing-in as President of the United States threaten to be as contentious as any in our history since the end of the Civil War. If more recent history is any guide, Trump’s inaugural will be met with more of those “fiery but mostly peaceful” protests, and the Democrat “resistance” will smear Trump and half of the nation as he attempts to implement the MAGA agenda.
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Unless, perhaps… Trump dares to reach across the aisle — right now — in pursuit of a bipartisan agenda.
Hear me out on this one because, believe it or not, Democrats and non-Beltway Republicans might have a few goals in common.
Earlier this year, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) introduced the Judiciary Act that would expand the Supreme Court to 13 seats, to restore “balance to the nation’s highest court, as Schiff described it in his official announcement. “It’s time to pass the Judiciary Act to ensure the court serves justice, not political interests. Our democracy and the rule of law depend on a fair and impartial judiciary, and we must act now to preserve it,” he said.
Why let such important legislation gather dust on a shelf somewhere? House Democrats, should they win control, ought to be happy to see one of their favorite reforms finally move forward. The new Republican majority in the Senate could show their bipartisanship with swift action.
Acclaimed science fiction author John Ringo has already put together a list of potential SCOTUS nominees and, while I’m sure we’d miss Kurt Schlichter’s Townhall columns, he’d make a fine addition to the bench.
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A few Senate die-hards might stand in the way but that’s where Kamala Harris, herself, comes in. While serving in the Senate and as a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris called for an end to the filibuster. “The legislative filibuster is directly downstream from our founding tradition,” Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell wrote at the time. “If that tradition frustrates the whims of those on the far left, it is their half-baked proposals and not the centuries-old wisdom that need retooling.”
If there’s another thing non-Beltway Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it’s that McConnell is almost always wrong. So let’s ditch the filibuster like Harris wanted and get that MAGA agenda steamrolling through. And, hey, if it turns out to be a good idea, we can always bring the filibuster back sometime before the next election.
Harris also supports taxing unrealized capital gains. As her party’s standard-bearer, Harris said in August, “It’s just not right that those who can most afford it are often paying a lower tax rate than our teachers and our nurses and our firefighters. That’s why I support a billionaire minimum tax and corporations paying their fair share.”
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You can be certain that progressive billionaires such as George Soros and Bill Gates will be happy to pay their fair share. However, in the interest of national security and combating climate change, Congress should exempt capital gains on vital industries such as electric vehicles and reusable rockets. Elon Musk will be saddened to hear that he won’t enjoy the same taxpaying opportunities as Gates and Soros, but we must all make sacrifices.
And here’s a bonus fourth item: we will agree to drop all complaints and doubts about the 2020 election if Democrats will drop theirs about 2024.
Let the healing begin, America.
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