How America Gets There.

There is a better world. (Imagine I pointed when you read that. As in, over there is a better world.)

How does America get there?

If you spend any amount of time reading what people say is broken in America, from the Supreme Court, to regulations, to elections, to particular priorities, programs, you hear lots of proposed solutions. Some of them would actually work or help if implemented. Others wouldn’t. But they almost universally have the unstated premise: 60 votes along partisan lines in the Senate (or overturn the filibuster, in which case either 50 votes plus the vice president, or 51 votes).

A 60-vote Senate is a hard thing to pull off. It’s actually even harder than it looks, because you end up with a few moderate-means-bipartisan-or-bust types who will defect on tough votes. Think Joe Lieberman killing the public option in the Affordable Care Act. Or, perhaps, think of John McCain saving the Affordable Care Act. The point is, if you get to a bare 60, you probably still won’t implement many (perhaps any!) of the save-America proposals that you should.

It’s not that I don’t think Democrats should aim higher, it’s that I don’t think that aiming alone, even if they hit the target, gets us there. (Imagine I pointed, again.)

I think, for starters, some simple statement. A simple creed. I don’t know how it should go, but I can say it should highlight entitlements and rights including:

1. Dignity in work (reasonable wages and working conditions)
2. Health in life (mental and physical, at affordable prices; health necessarily includes nourishing food)
3. Shelter in life (a place to put your stuff, to rest, to practice your religion, and again, affordable; shelter necessarily includes basic clothing)
4. Security in aging (financial security, healthcare security, and shelter security)
5. Participation in life (share your views, choose your representatives; to participate one necessarily has to be educated on the basics, including civics, math, language, science)

So I would probably start there. As short as you can make it. Something politicians can say, that citizens can say, to reiterate we’re on the same page for the American experiment. That we think people should get a fair shake. That the world isn’t fair by default, but as a people we believe in rising above the default, to create extraordinary conditions for ourselves and one another, so that we as a people can thrive.

And if the opposition wants to quibble and squabble over that, let them. But if they want to join on, let them.

I think a restatement of a kind of baseline is how we make a step toward there. (I pointed again.) I think people need to be reminded that there exists. That we set ourselves on a journey to there, but we got lost along the way. And that if they are sick of here (gestures at everything), want to go there (points), they have to pick leaders who will lead us there. But to choose those leaders, they have to remember about there, and they have to know who still wants to go there. So those leaders should announce themselves with the creed. And those who want to help the leaders find our way there should announce ourselves.

Because I try to be explicit, here’s a first attempt at a brief and useful creed: