If we fail to restore our democratic republic and overhaul the Constitution, the result may well be revolution, civil war, and tyranny 

The United States of America has always been an imperfect union striving to, much of the time but certainly not in every instant, realize noble ideals from its many struggles for noble causes. We don’t have much time left, however, before we destroy ourselves in what historian Timothy Snyder calls “superpower suicide.” Corruption is rampant throughout American government, and the American people are for the most part in denial over how severe corruption is or simply do not care. Corruption flows like water through our politics. It affects the Republicans far more today than the Democrats, but the Democrats engage as well. The further one moves away from the moderate, pragmatic center to the edges of Right and Left, we encounter ideological rigidity with self-righteous extremists demonizing each other. Even those over in the same quadrant are busy demonizing their otherwise natural political allies in never-ending orgies of cannibalistic splittism amid endless fracturing over ideological purity to anachronistic belief systems from the 18th and 19th Centuries. It is time we unite to stop this bloody damn nonsense.

We must overhaul our Constitution. A constitutional convention would be wise. There is much to must accomplish in a short time to restore our constitutional democratic republic. Time is short, however, and partisan gridlock so severe and acrimonious having a such a constitutional convention seems highly unlikely at this time. Not only that, but the underlying issues are systemic and must include reforms to our economics, finances, and energy infrastructure as well. What follows are twelve proposed steps:

Necessary Steps:

1. The States must hold a National Convention to amend the Constitution. Without doing so reforms will fail. A patchwork of bandaids at federal and state levels across the three branches of government will result in demagogic manipulation and failure. American extinction may result. Such a collapse will crash into the rest of world civilization.
2. All Territories of the USA including the capital district must become States of the Union within 5 years, and all citizens and nationals of all territories will become full US citizens. Multiple extra stars will be placed upon the American Flag.
3. Gerrymandering will be outlawed. Separate and ever-changing legislative districts will be abolished. Instead each jurisdiction within all states including counties, parishes, cities, city-county hybrids, recognized tribal nations, and any comparable entities will become their own separate legislative district. Each jurisdiction thus gets the proper representation its people have longed for since Independence from the British Empire.
4. Money out of politics. Corporations are not people. Overturn Citizens United. Strip all corporate and similar entities of all rights and claims to personhood. The only entities to be recognized as persons are individual Human beings and not a single one of their organizations. Oligarchic control of our politics at all levels by the superwealthy as they manipulate their corporatocratic entities must be erased. This campaign of eradication includes not only all corporations but labor unions, religious organizations, family businesses, special interest groups, nongovernmental organizations, universities, secret societies, big banks, and clubs of every kind. Root them all out. Root out even clubs and companies of one person seeking to shield their assets behind corporate legalisms. Root their money out of politics. Overturn the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company case and its abuse of the Equal Protection Clause. Money out of politics!
5. The Equal Rights Amendment must be reconstituted and passed.
6. The Voting Rights Act must be restored and set down as a Constitutional Amendment.
7. Term Limits are to be set for all elected Federal offices including maintaining the current limits for President and Vice-President and additionally for all members of Congress. Term Limits are to be set for high appointed positions including the Justices of the Supreme Court and for the members of the Federal Reserve Board. No more lifetime positions.
8. The Electoral College is to be abolished. All elected positions will be determined by the popular vote.
9. The United States of America must restore its integrity with its allies, with our Allies, and other nations who once sought our help in addressing their challenges. We must return to respecting our allies and friends even when we disagree on issues.
10. The Unites States must publicly declare it will never seek to conquer and annex the territories of other nation-states. Other countries, however, are welcome to inquire into joining the United States by their own free will and popular consent. Or together seek to form a new union. We stand for the whole world to find ways to work together despite our differences to build towards a more integrated and long overdue planetary union of Earth as a constitutional democratic republic.
11. Yes, Step 11! The primary two reasons Donald Trump and his MAGA mafia cult were so successful in doing whatever the Hell they felt like doing were, A) they chose to violate established conventions of behavior that were and are not encoded in law and policy. Therefore the Congressional participants in any new Constitutional Convention MUST deliberate over what to do to reframe historic precedent of convention into actual written law. Finally, B) consequences. They got away with so much because so many weak-willed, cowardly politicians were afraid of triggering civil war, but Trump and gang were not afraid. This goes back to President Ford’s pardon of the disgraced Nixon, and even before to the weak hand-wringing that preceded Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration and determination to hold the Union together with bloody force of arms after the slavery-loving Confederate traitors seceded and fired on pro-Union American forces. So Donald Trump and the leaders of his MAGA mafia cult must be removed from office AND arrested, jailed, and put on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors including treason, financial corruption, and war crimes. Congress must pass another amendment to the Constitution that forbids anyone convicted of felonies who, like Donald Trump, have not served any punishment nor completed any sentence from ever running for any and all Federal offices. Those found guilty of treason are barred forever from running for office, and anyone currently in jail or in prison cannot run for public office at the Federal level. Each State may follow suit in their own way. 
12. The concept of presidential immunity must be revisited and further defined. The Supreme Court ruling allowing Trump as President to do anything he wants per full presidential immunity is not just a grave criminal offense but full blown corruption. It’s rubber stamping a despot. Similarly, all public officials in every position must be stripped of blanket immunity. Such corruption is unforgivable.

These Twelve Points do not address other pressing issues such as Full Disclosure of Non-Human Intelligent species and their technologies, Global Climate Disruption, the challenges of Human-made Artificial Generative Intelligence with recursive self-improvement, the threat of omnicide by thermonuclear and biological weapons, how to navigate new ways of generating and distributing energy, protecting the environment, and other challenges. Nevertheless all of them must be addressed for even one to be resolved. We live down in a planet where interconnections are everywhere, so much so we often no longer even see or realize our interconnectivity. We fail to behold the centrality of consciousness, and thus we are left behind as primitive bipedal beings without even realizing our ignorance. 

If we Americans fail in this task, more misery will follow. If we find the challenges to even hold a constitutional convention impossible, if our politicians are so enslaved to money they refuse to revoke corporate personhood and deny such funding, then we will likely slide further off the cliff. We will fall into a slow, grinding, and increasingly bleak maelstrom of poverty, violence, and social collapse where warlords, gang leaders, and idealist extremists harrow the ruins from which a populist, law and order dictator to arise. We risk bloody revolutions, civil wars, depressions and recessions, and even more tyranny. Do we want more violence? No! Do we want more dictatorship? No! Reform now. We must have a Constitutional Convention. Get ‘er done!

William Dudley Bass
Tuesday 29 September 2026
Revised Monday 5 October 2026
Shoreline/Seattle, WA
USA
Earth
Sol

Copyright © 2026 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.