Americans, I don’t need to tell you where we are as a country. We are currently operating outside the bounds of the Constitution. Quite a bit outside, in fact.
A lot of this is predicated on the use of the long-standing Unitary Executive Theory. Google it if you’re not familiar. If you are familiar, your cortisol level just jumped reading those words.
I have a bad feeling that 2028 is going to be more of the same. Even if it’s not, it’s not getting better. I’ve worked in a lot of developing countries, and even without a conflict to tear a functional country apart, it can take decades to recover from a period of prolonged corruption and survival for spoils. It's going to be a rough patch.
Also, it’s been 54 years since a Constitutional Amendment that mattered to Americans was passed, the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age to 18. The longest gap between substantive Amendments was 61 years, between the 12th and 13th – that stagnation included the Civil War, you’ll recall. IMO, it’s inevitable that in the next 15-20 years, we end up at a place demanding a Constitutional Convention to unfuck all the fuckery that’s only just getting started now. Not some little band-aid stuff, I mean like a full-on gut-rehab.
So we must ask: How do you prevent an Executive ruling by EO fiat? How do you dismantle the Unitary Executive Theory once and for all so it never does this to the country again?
You revise Article 2 to make the Office of the President an Executive Council.
There’s two current examples of this in action at the national level: Switzerland and the UAE. Classic Examples also include the Venetian Republic, which was baller AF for the day. I’ll take the Swiss Example, which is that a seven-person council where everyone takes turns being the ceremonial head of state. No single person can go off the rails, no single person can flip out and jerk around tariffs, no single person can put their personal enrichment ahead of the nation and get away with it either. Not that the Swiss are immune from issues, but this is a single-issue fix.
How would Americans work this? Probably pretty easily.
We already segregate ourselves by geography: The Southwest, the PNW, The Plains, The Great Lakes, The South, the Midwest, and the Mid-Atlantic. It really depends on how many divisions you want. Governors already have conferences grouped by geography and culture as well. This is the natural progression.
And no, 12 districts is not the right number. Depending on if you want ties or tie breakers to enforce decision-making, six or seven regions would be the way to go. It’s not the mess of Congress, it’s a group small enough to arrive at decisions quickly. Maybe a super-majority of five out of seven so it doesn't turn into the Supreme Court right now where one swing vote ruins everyone's year.
So if we’ve revised Article 2, we’ve eliminated the Electoral College as well (praise be!). Depending on if we have an enlightened set of descendants and survivors rebuilding from the wreckage of the Thunderdome being erected now, what would make the most sense would be either rank-choice or direct 50%+1 wins in most counties in the region, which is how janky US elections are already organized anyway. As much as I don’t love the Electoral College, it stands to reason that something needs to prevent one major metropolitan area from just steamrolling the rest of the region. LA, NYC, and Chicago, yes I mean you.
The Council would take on some part-time duties of Cabinet positions, rather than adding a half dozen people to the room. Some of those roles might actually be better delegated to those sub-national levels anyway. DOT, HUD, HHS, and USDA come to mind as already being so on-the-ground as to benefit from decentralized leadership. Things like DOI or DOD or State stay at the national level. Questions like “Who does The Football follow?” are worth asking, and as much as the fun job of being Ceremonial Head of State rotates, so does “being on call” for Defense issues, Domestic Issues, etc. where a council member can make some decisions that can always be re-checked by the council as a whole, or push decisions to the full council if needed.
Thoughts? Come at me. Tell me I’m an idiot or whatever, then steal this idea for a PoliSci thesis.
