A Three State Solution?

Let us start by quoting an optimist and a pessimist about the US OF A.

George Washington, one of the founding fathers, said,” The establishment of our new government seemed to be the last great experiment for human happiness,” which excluded slaves. Sigmund Freud may have got it closer when he said, “America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but I am afraid it is not going to be a success.”

The Founding Fathers designed a complex political framework of “checks and balances” to ensure against the tyranny of the majority at both the federal and state levels. At the Federal level, there are three coequal branches: the executive branch, which includes the presidency; the legislative branch, comprising the House and the Senate; and the judicial branch, which encompasses state legislatures, federal legislatures, and the Supreme Court.

What has gone wrong in what sounds like a good basis to manage a democracy? Let us focus on three:

The Legislative branch: Post-war bipartisanship that delivered the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, helped rebuild Europe and create NATO is over. It began with the adoption of Hayekian free market economics in the form of globalisation and shareholder tyranny, which created the “rust belt,” contributing to the rise of the populist far right. The irony is that the Republican Party fully embraced both Hayekian economics, globalisation, and offshoring, resulting in the “Trickle Up” effect. The trickle-up effect is further exemplified in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. The election for seats in the House is corrupted by gerrymandering or redistricting by the party in power in each state. This is what is happening in Texas today, which is undermining the participation of minorities in the democratic process. The election for the House takes place every two years. The result is that before you get a chance to debate any serious legislation, you are up for sale. The US has no nationwide election standard, whether for postal ballots, drop-in ballots, opening hours, or the number of voting stations and their locations, effectively undermining the democratic process.

Each state has two senators, making a total of 100 senators. Their job is to oversee legislation coming from the House before it goes to the President and to advise and ratify key presidential appointments to the cabinet, such as the Attorney General, the Director of the FBI, etc. The Senate also approves appointments to the Supreme Court, usually on a broad cross-party consensus. Trump and Republicans have changed all of that. To garner votes of right-wing Evangelical Christians and ultra-conservative Catholics, particularly on the issue of abortion, Trump promised to appoint so-called pro-life Supreme Court justices to the bench. He did, all rubber-stamped by the Republican Senate majority. Gorsuch, Cavanagh, and Barrett went on to overturn Roe versus Wade, which guaranteed a woman’s right to choose. Trump, a narcissist with only one goal, to win the Presidency, embraced the arch-conservative groups such as the Federalist Society, advising on judicial appointments and the Heritage Foundation, which created Project 25. Its objective is to roll back the state and enhance executive power, in effect, the Stalinisation of the state. You may say this is what defeat looks like, so let us look at the Senate a bit closer. Firstly, when a president controls the House and the Senate and appoints ideologs to the Supreme Court, he has unbridled power as he can use his bully pulpit to intimidate his own party’s elected representatives. This, along with his far-reaching executive orders, is a tool that autocrats throughout the world already have, known as unchecked political power. The UK’s second chamber, though unelected, does a better job of holding the executive to account. The election of two senators to each state, irrespective of the state’s population, was to ensure against the tyranny of the majority. California has a population of 39 million and 2 senators, Wyoming, with a population of 600,000, also has two senators. That just seems odd in a democracy today, whatever the rationale of the Founding Fathers. You could call what is happening today in the US the tyranny of the Minority. A simple change is to have term limits, allowing new voices and ideas into each of the two legislative chambers. However, I cannot see Schumer, Durbin, Grasley, and Mitchel voting for this, as it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.

Although senators face their electorate every six years, there are no term limits, unlike the president. It becomes a full-time job, and you will do anything to retain it, from kissing the president’s ring, taking money from the National Rifle Association, evangelical Christian groups such as the Council for National Policy, the Southern Baptist Convention and multiple linked bodies disguised as charities. APAC, a Jewish lobby group, has considerable influence in the corridors of Washington, especially with the assistance of Evangelical Christians such as Mike Huckabee, the current Israeli Ambassador.

The corruption of the political ecosystem accelerated in 2010 with the case of Citizens United verses the Federal Election Commission. The absurd ruling by the Supreme Court regarding campaign finance, in which the Court found that laws restricting the political spending of corporations and unions are inconsistent with the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. They also took the absurd view that independent spending could not pose a substantial risk of corruption. This created a new breed called Super PAC (political action committees), which injected into the veins of the body politic the money drug where both politicians and political parties can, in effect, be bought. These include Super PACs funded by the climate crisis deniers, the Koch brothers. Charles Koch’s net worth is $60 billion. In addition, you have the DeVos dynasty, which is part of the right-wing evangelical Christian fundamentalist group, the Council for National Policy, which has given tens of millions to so-called Christian groups and causes. Their goal is to create their version of Margaret Atwood’s Gilead, a sort of Christian State. In pursuit of this, Betsy DeVos is now Trump’s Education Secretary. She wants to have the Ten Commandments displayed in all schools and creationism given equal parity to the Theory of Evolution. In 23/24 Presidential and down-ballot campaigns, according to the Federal Election Commission, almost $14.0 billion was spent by both parties. In the UK 2024 election, the record-breaking spend was £94.5 million ($130 million). Those working people in the MAGA movement who believe that they have a voice through Trump are deluded. The Trump Presidency is a de facto Oligarchy with a cabinet full of billionaires who, along with Trump, secretly believe in the Marie Antoinette view, “let them eat cake.” On this issue, the Democrats have not done much better.

The Judicial Branch: Here, the problem is that the judiciary is not acting as a coequal branch of government. Why, because each Federal judge and each Supreme Court judge is selected at the behest and whim of the President and will inevitably be ratified by the party that has a majority in the Senate. Simply put, this is a highly politicised selection process open to political abuse, which can be seen in the appointment of the last three Supreme Court justices and the blocking of Obama’s Supreme Court pick of Merritt Garland. The current cabal has overturned Roe versus Wade, a promise made, a promise kept to the evangelical pro-life Christian right, resulting in many states banning abortion under the threat of criminal sanction to both the woman seeking it and doctors performing it. In some states, abortion is banned with no exceptions for rape or incest; these include Alabama, Idaho, and Kentucky. Mississippi, which allows an abortion for rape but not incest, praise the Lord! The Supreme Court recently made a landmark democratic cock up by a decision to grant the current President and all future presidents immunity from prosecution for criminal acts committed while in office, giving Donald Trump a free pass for his past crimes and no repercussions for his future ones, setting a dangerous precedent for all future presidents. This truly conjures up Philip Roth’s “Plot Against America.” We in the UK may not have a written constitution, but Boris’s attempt to prorogue parliament in 2019 was struck down by our independently appointed Supreme Court. On a webinar with Mick Mulvaney, Budget Director in Trump’s first term, when I asked about this, he said, “You (the UK) have nothing to teach us about this issue.” What is now clear is that the US Supreme Court, as it currently sits, is no longer a coequal branch of government but just another tool in the ever-expanding executive branch’s toolbox. A simple solution is the setting up of an independent judicial authority for the appointments of federal and supreme court judges with term limits. To be fair, there is nothing simple in a political structure and constitution designed 250 years ago. You need a 2/3 majority in the Senate to change the Constitution, in this divided political ecosystem, not a snowball’s chance in hell.

Executive Branch: As said earlier, the Supreme Court gave the presidency a dystopian boost with its ruling on presidential immunity. Presidential Executive Orders are constitutional under Article II of the US Constitution, but must be within the legal framework and norms. Congress has the power to pass a law to override an executive order, although the President can veto that law, a form of political whack-a-mole, which is odd.

The increased use of these orders allows presidents to bypass Congress. The irony is that if the next president is of the opposite persuasion, they can reverse them. Executive orders were used to desegregate the military and education, a good thing. However, Trump is using them to remove birthright citizenship and has used them to commute the sentence of 14 offenders, including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes. He then gave a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offences related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. I will put money on it that Ghislaine Maxwell will get a pardon on the last day of his presidency. The Trump administration is beginning to abuse the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act is among the most powerful, unchecked, and unbridled emergency powers at the disposal of a president, who can use it to deploy the U.S. armed forces and the militia to suppress insurrections, quell civil unrest or domestic violence, and enforce the law when it is being obstructed. Once invoked by a President, the Congress or the Courts play no role in deciding what constitutes an obstruction or an insurrection. In addition, the law does not limit the action of the military forces once deployed. As I write this, Trump is using this power to militarise law enforcement, as can be seen in the capital. The use of the Insurrection Act has been limited, and the most famous was when it was used by LBJ to enforce Civil Rights laws. Also, many of Trump’s supporters asked him to use it to stop the peaceful transition of power in the 2020 election. However, in the hands of a narcissist and his puppeteers, this is a legislative process that would put a smile on the members of AAS, the association of authoritarian states (just made that one up).

 Project 25 is a key part of the Heritage Foundation’s agenda, now a de facto part of the executive branch with the appointment of Russell Vought as Budget Director. Their goals are, in summary:

Stalinisation: Using a little-known “Schedule F” to facilitate easier firing and hiring of civil servants ensures that federal agencies will be staffed by individuals who will implement the president’s agenda without resistance from expert career civil servants, taking surveillance capitalism to a new level. We see Ivy League academic institutions cowering to pressure from the Trump administration over being wrongly accused of being bastions of antisemitism and liberalism, in order to avoid federal research funding being stopped. In addition, media corporations are capitulating to threats by the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, to revoke broadcasting licences, which they cannot do under the law or the Constitution. Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC satirical late-night show has been pulled by the media giant due to those on the right, including Trump, who showed manufactured outrage over Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Long live the fourth estate. Michael Eisner’s quote is a clear message to those who believe in the First Amendment: “Where has all the leadership gone? If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the First Amendment?”

Climate Change Deniers: Project 2025 seeks to roll back many of the Biden administration’s climate policies. It proposes dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency, thus halting the expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy, slowing the transition to renewable energy to a snail’s pace. In effect, favouring the fossil fuel sector.

Social Policies: Anti-contraception agenda and suggests the reinstatement of the Comstock Act to limit mail-order abortion pills. The removal of federal funding from providers who offer reproductive health services, in effect, to make abortion illegal in all states, reversing Roe Versus Wade. In addition, it includes measures to restrict LGBTQ+ rights and undermine hard-fought rights around diversity and equality.

Education and Public Services:  The dismantling of the Department of Education, delivering more control of education standards to state and local authorities. This could and will lead to metaphorical “un-American” books being banned, if not burnt. You will see the banning of Critical Race Theory being discussed, in effect, extolling the greatness of white American history and burying the bad and the ugly. You will see the removal of the separation of government and religion, in other words, the Christianisation of the State. Gilead!!!!!

Healthcare and Social Services:  A privatisation agenda by reducing the scope of federal social programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Taxes: A laissez-faire free market economics, small government, tax-cutting trickle-up agenda, leading to the undermining of social cohesion. Robert F. Kennedy, the current health secretary, is a vaccine sceptic and has recently cancelled a $400 million research fund for mRNA vaccines.

Executive Power: A significant aspect of Project 2025 is the expansion of executive power. This shift aims to consolidate authority and the powers of the President to streamline decision-making processes. This poses the question, “Is the US dictator proof?” The answer at this point is absolutely not.

The Electoral College: This is used as the process for the election of the U.S. President, and boy, is it strange and broken. It is a winner-takes-all system with no element of proportionality. So, if a candidate wins a state by 10 votes, whether in California or Wyoming, the person with those 10 extra votes gets all the electoral college votes in that state. In the case of California, which has 54 electoral college votes, and Wyoming, which has 3 votes. California has 1 electoral college vote for 722,000 of its population. Wyoming has 1 electoral vote for every 200,000 of its population. Tyranny of the minority. So, a president can win the electoral college but lose the popular vote. There is then a political and financial focus on so-called swing states. Therefore, it is easy to feel that in red, blue, or purple states, your vote does not count, thus undermining voter turnout.There seems to be a broad agreement that the system of winner-takes-all is flawed; however, the polarisation and inflammatory rhetoric of politics in the US today make cooperation, let alone a friendly debate, impossible.

On the global front, the America First agenda is focused on undermining its allies and giving a nod and a wink to the US’s former adversaries. His deference to Putin is sickening, and the simple question is, is Trump an asset or an asshole or a bit of both? This administration’s support for Article 5 of NATO is unclear, and its mad Evangelical Christian Zionists are making the US partners in Netanyahu’s genocide. It beats up on the poorest in the world with tariffs. Slaps huge tariffs on India for buying Russian oil and not China, who are the biggest purchasers of Russian oil. He has abandoned the world’s largest democracy, a relationship fostered over decades, as a counterbalance to China in Asia. Instead, Trump chose to have a private meeting at the White House with Pakistan’s Army Chief, the de facto head of state. If such tariffs were slapped on China, they would simply turn off the exports of vital rare earth minerals to the US, and the reduction in global oil supply would send the cost per barrel to a level that could trigger a global recession. If India, the world’s largest democracy and China, the world’s largest authoritarian state, can bury the hatchet and pivot towards Asia, America may yet regret the decision to penalise India. This is also the start of a China strategy to undermine the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and build a new world order, which will include many of the world’s worst autocratic regimes.

 European leaders have had a rude awakening, unable now to hide under the American security blanket. Europe lags, as US companies dominate AI, social media, chip intellectual property and manufacturing, quantum computing, cloud computing and social media platforms, the new Big Brothers. On top of this, American companies represent over 60% of the global stock market value. If all of this is not a wake-up call for Europe, what is? The Trump administration has rolled back its support for Ukraine and wants a land swap, which is ludicrous as the Ukrainian’s have no Russian land to swap. This, in effect, breaks the UN Charter article 2/4, which prohibits the use of force to change internationally recognised territorial integrity of a state. USAID, an important part of America’s soft power diplomacy, has been shut down, causing a global humanitarian aid crisis in places like Sudan, where hundreds of thousands are facing starvation because of a brutal civil war and the closing down of health programs for the globe’s most vulnerable. The total cuts, according to the Global Policy Journal, amount to $60.0 billion. Trump is chasing the Nobel Peace Prize; his complicity in genocide and his deference to the war criminal Putin would entitle him for a nomination for the No Balls Prize. Just to be fair, Biden did not do any better on the genocide going on in Gaza.

Today, the US is a divided country as never before, at least not since the abolition of slavery, the Jim Crow era, Red Scare McCarthyism, Martin Luther King Jnr and the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the banking crisis, and COVID-19. The two-party system is broken, and new progressive voices are unheard because of the crazy decision in Citizens United v FEC. The Constitution and political structure are sadly flawed and seemingly unable to be repaired. Regan, a Republican President, said that America was the “Shining City on the Hill.” Ironically, it may be the Republican Party of today that extinguishes that light. Let us be clear, there is a civil war going on, till now a war of words, but the trajectory, if I were a betting man, is towards a three-state solution, red, blue, and possibly purple. What is clear is that America currently does not feel, act or is governed like a democratic unitary state. What is also blindingly obvious is that Trump and his blood sucking family see the Presidency as simply an opportunity to add billions to their personal wealth. Hopefully, the MAGA voters will remove the cobwebs from their eyes and see what the narcissist Trump really stands for, and that is himself. I will finish by saying God Bless America; however, if those who voted for Trump and his regime cannot see the obvious, not even their imaginary friend in the sky can help.

Just to finish on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, clearly this was wrong, as was the assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman in June. When asked about Hortman, Trump said he knew nothing about it or just did not care. In the case of Charlie Kirk, flags at the White House were at half-mast, and a huge prayer vigil was organised by God fearing Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and House Speaker Mike Johnson. The far right will leverage Kirk’s murder and pursue a vendetta against all who defy Trump. Steve Bannon said that they will not accept unity only victory, and J.D. Vile has also called for national disunity by saying,” put on the full armour of God. Richard Hofstadter wrote that the reason Americans forget their long history of violence is that they are certain their political system will endure. Looking at it from the outside, can the political structure endure another three and a half years of Trump, far-right white nationalism, the ultra-conservative Evangelical Christians and their ultra-conservative Catholic brothers and the corrupt oligarchy that surrounds Trump, who want to destroy the checks and balances built into the Constitution?

Suneil Sharma

20th September 2025