What We Must Do to Drain the Swamp in DC!

OUR REVOLUTION image is credited to Bernie Sanders and his organization as the copyright owners.

A Brief Background on My Shifting Political Landscape

Hello Readers,

I am a twenty-seven years old recent college progressive graduate that went to a liberal arts university in Washington DC, but recently returned to my adopted hometown of Flint, Michigan. I used to be a conservative supporter when I was in high school, and that ran from Fall of 2004 to early Summer of 2007. When I had my first taste of collegiate experience in Rochester, New York, I shifted my political perspective toward moderate. It was Fall of 2007, and I was eighteen years old. That was before I dropped out of school the first time around late Spring of 2009. Upon returning to Flint, my perspective was pushed to become liberal because of experiences I gained through people in my life, and situations I have encountered personally. For the years in-between attending school, I have learned about the structure of what a workplace is and/or what is supposed to be. I have always been knowledgeable about various topics, especially when it comes to politics. But what I lacked back then was what is called the "worldly insight" that is needed in order to understand the complexities of the American mainstream society. After working for four years as a teacher aide, I decided it was time to return to school and attempt to gain an insight into the world that I had yet to possess. I decided to attend the university in Washington DC, and it had given me a major shift in where my allegiance in political ideology lies. I met people from different parts of the United States, and even different countries. This way, I was able to get a firmer grasp of what the world is like. Also, it helps when I have a degree in International Studies where some of the tendencies require learning and understanding how different societies and sub-societies operate. Now I am a fully embraced progressive, and a hardcore Bernie Sanders supporter. With a little bit of my background regarding the shifting of my political beliefs covered in this paragraph, it is time to begin giving out suggestions on how we can truly drain the swamp in the DC. For your information, this is my personal opinion and is not in any way reflective of anyone else other than myself. There are a lot of things we need to do in order to bring the power back to the American people. I am going to break the suggestions into a set of bullet points, so everything won't be all cluttered into one single, long paragraph. Thus, how do we go about draining the swamp?

What We Must Do to Fix the Currently Broken Political System!

The first thing to do is:

Do not vote on the candidates merely based on political party affiliation. Rather, focus on the platform of a candidate. Please do extensive research first on what type of platform a candidate is running before deciding whether that particular candidate truly represent the American people. In my eyes, that usually describe progressive candidates but that is not always the case. This meant disassociating from the traditional mindset where you're usually stuck with choosing between a Republican and a Democrat. In my eyes, both major parties are not that different from each other in context to fighting so hard not to lose any political powers and only concern themselves with getting their own agendas passed at the expense of millions of Americans. When enough people-supported politicians are within the Congress, that's when we can start draining the swamp from the inside. How do we do that? By doing this:

• Reenact Glass-Steagall Act to restrict the corporate abuses and influence by the big banks.
• Reversal of decisions on Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission which would restrict corporations from financially abusing Super Political Action Committees (Super PACs) so the political candidates would have to represent the constituents rather than their corporate sponsors.
• Restrict lobbyism to prevent too much corporate influence in the politics.
• Pass a bill to ensure public and private campaign financing are considered to be both fair and equal toward all parties, including the third parties.
• Pass a bill to ban gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency to favor one party or another. This essentially meant a candidate would not have to take the time and efforts to attempt and persuade every single voter if a certain area is strongly swung in one party's favor.
• Pass a bill for both major parties to abandon the requirement of registering for party affiliation upon voting in a primary contest. In the most recent election cycle, the independents were the highest voting group among any in the country and the majority of these were prevented from participating in the Democratic primary due to not wanting to register as a Democrat.
• Pass a bill to restrict the congressional terms. Four terms for house of representatives (which is up to eight years), and two terms for senators (which is up to twelve years).

If we are able to achieve such, then it's likely we're able to return the societal power to the American people. I will admit that it won't be easy at all, and would probably take years to be successful. However, this is what we need to do in order to be successful. This is why the 2018 midterms elections are as important as 2020 general elections. We should pay attention because every bill that is passed in the Congress likely will affect our lives one way or another, and we need the politicians to be representative of the people for this reason.