Don’t be fooled, the current administration is moving rapidly to consolidate control and impose authoritarianism. He is flagrantly violating the Constitution by depriving individuals of due process, usurping the congressional power of the purse, using the Justice Department to attack his political foes, and defying court orders. This is straight out of the fascists’ handbook. 

We can no longer afford decorum or bipartisanship. We must throw sand in the gears at every turn. We need to use all the leverage we possess. This means voting against every Trump nominee. It means filibustering every single bill. We need investigations and impeachments, not cross-the-aisle compromise. 

In addition to resisting the current administration, we need to acknowledge that the problem runs deeper. Money in politics is one root cause. Gerrymandered political institutions are another. We’re going to overturn Citizens United and stop billionaires from buying our elections. We also need to make DC a state in order to erase the Republican bias of the Senate. 

Climate collapse is an existential threat. Rising sea-levels threaten the lives and livelihoods of every Rhode Islander. And yet, Trump is making the climate crisis much worse by rolling back environmental regulations, opening up public lands to drilling, permitting new fossil fuel projects, and trying to claw back lawfully-appropriated congressional funds for green energy. Republicans are still casting doubt on the basic science of global warming. 

We need to be investing in scientific research and green technological development so that we’re well equipped to solve problems of climate collapse. We’re going to dramatically ramp down our fossil fuel usage and invest in clean energy jobs. Our transportation system needs a radical transformation. We’re going to invest in high-speed rail, bike infrastructure, and quality public transit. At the same time, we need to dramatically expand the usage of electric vehicles for situations when public transit is not practical.

Our economy is broken. Far too many of our neighbors cannot make ends meet. Rhode Islanders are juggling multiple jobs and being preyed on by the mega-companies that control the so-called “gig economy.” 

The current administration is compounding the problems with a needless trade war causing the price of living to soar. Real wages, or how far your paycheck actually goes, have barely moved for the middle class since the 1980s. For the working class, real wages have gone down. Economic opportunity is worse now for young adults than it was for their parents’ generation. This is absurd. 

We are going to create thousands of high paying jobs by becoming a global leader in clean technology and green manufacturing. This requires major investments in factory construction and university research which will super-charge our state’s economy. We’re also going to tackle our housing shortage with  a major construction stimulus to create thousands more high-paying jobs and increase the supply of affordable housing throughout the state. 

Every summer we are faced with hotter days, electricity price spikes, and increasing heat deaths. In the era of climate catastrophe, air conditioning is a basic human right. But the truth is, utilities love sweltering days - it means they profit. The basic model of a utility “natural monopoly” is outdated and broken, especially as publicly traded companies like PPL return shareholder dividends at the expense of Rhode Island rate-payers. 

Rhode Island pays the second highest rate for electricity in the nation, behind only Hawaii. The corporate ownership and consolidation of our electricity grid is artificially inflating prices and slowing the transition to decentralized, clean energy like wind and solar. We’re going to pass legislation to enable local communities to take back control of their power systems and operate them through local, democratic boards called Municipal Utility Districts. Community ownership will bring down consumer prices, ensure our basic infrastructure is run in the best interest of the public, and promote the transition to green electricity production.

Pay disparities in America are a joke. CEOs of the largest companies make nearly 300 times what their workers make. No executive works as hard as the nurses, teachers, or fishermen of Rhode Island. We’re going to tax the ultra wealthy and corporations to give needed relief to working and middle class Americans. Any corporation with a CEO-worker pay ratio of more than 50-1 will face an additional tax penalty of 15%. Any corporation with a ratio of more than 100-1 will pay a tax penalty of 30%. 

We must also ensure compliance with our tax code. We must crack down on tax avoidance by the wealthiest Americans who hide their riches in offshore tax havens. We’re going to rebuild the IRS and change the agency's priorities to focus predominantly on corporate and billionaire tax malfeasance. Elon Musk and his weirdo billionaires friends will pay their fair share. Congress must also start the process of amending the Constitution to tax life-time wealth.

Trump and the Republicans are gutting our social safety net. At the same time, Democrats have joined in the project of under-funding our vital welfare programs through bills like the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. Both parties have violated the basic promise that American families are entitled to a decent standard of living. 

Where the market fails to provide for basic needs, we must provide a robust safety net to ensure Americans are properly housed, fed, and cared for. We’re going to protect and expand programs like Social Security and Disability Insurance, invest in our public schools, ensure high-quality universal childcare, and provide nutritious food assistance for our neighbors in need. 

Bodily autonomy is under attack. The Supreme Court’s horrendous decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has created a cruel patchwork of restrictions on essential reproductive healthcare - including abortion - all over the country. The pro-natalist movement is trying to criminalize contraception, IVF, and even miscarriages. 

My policy is simple: reproductive healthcare should be accessible, affordable, and unfettered. Patients and their doctors know what is best for their own lives.

But we must do more than ensure legal access. The United States has the worst maternal mortality rate and one of the worst infant mortality rates in the industrialized world. These unnecessary deaths are a tragedy. We must invest in reproductive healthcare through a universal system that guarantees birthing care for all provided by well-trained and well-resourced doctors and nurses. 

The Republican Party has captured the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell stole a seat on the Court by refusing to even meet with President Obama’s nominee. Republicans then lowered the confirmation threshold to bare majority and rammed through three ultra-conservative ideologues. These Trump justices upended our basic rights by overturning Roe v. Wade. They ruled that presidents are above the law, paving the way for Trump’s authoritarian take-over. They have undermined our elections, green-lit pollution, and attacked the LGBTQ+ community. We need to throw the bums out. 

At the same time, Senate Democrats have been unable to respond because they do not understand the right-wing take over of the Court. Too many Democratic leaders believe in civility and decorum above the rights of everyday people. It is not the 1990s anymore, we need a new politics. One way to force institutional turnover is through across-the-board term limits of eighteen years. 

The rights of Rhode Islanders should not depend on the vagaries of when an octogenarian justice or senator dies in office. This is a crazy system!

Public offices should not be lifelong positions. No more politicians dying in office. Eighteen years is more than enough time to make an impact without growing stale. The House, Senate, and Supreme Court need fresh faces and new ideas. We’re going to cap the length of time officials can serve at eighteen years to make way for the next generation of leaders. 

One in four adults reported skipping or postponing necessary healthcare last year because of cost. Two-thirds of all bankruptcies in the country are caused by sky-high medical bills. No American should skip treatment or go into debt because of a health emergency. Healthcare is a human right. 

We need to take the profit-motive out of healthcare and make sure every American has high-quality, free medical insurance. In the richest country on the planet, we should not have lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, and a higher burden of chronic diseases than other industrialized nations. 

The United States spends over $13,000 per person each year. France, Canada, and the United Kingdom each spend half as much for better outcomes. The problem is that for-profit insurers, drug companies, and hospitals are each padding the cost of service. By moving to a single payer system, we can dramatically reduce the amount we spend while ensuring more comprehensive coverage and avoiding needless bureaucratic fights over coverage.

Corporate profits are at an all time high. The ultra-wealthy have done this through political capture and extreme anti-competitive behavior. The regulators who are supposed to ensure fair business practices have been bought and sold and the politicians are no different. Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies don’t care about workers. They are fine with an economy run by oligarchs. Meanwhile, the public gets screwed, the consumer gets screwed, and the workers get screwed. 

On the bright side, there is renewed energy by unionization at some of America’s largest companies like Amazon and Starbucks.We need to make it easier to join a union and empower unions to demand more. We’re going to strengthen unions by passing the PRO Act and providing the NLRB with more authority to enforce workers’ rights. We need worker control over the everyday conditions of the workplace to increase wages and improve employee health and safety. We are also going to remove barriers to starting worker co-operatives and provide grants for worker-owned businesses.

Even in non-unionized workplaces, the voices and interests need to be heard. While we pursue a major union renaissance, we’re going to mandate worker representation on corporate boards.