Let us first celebrate the commonsense decision Americans made in this critical election.
Then let the new Congress roll up its sleeves and get to work.
Following is a 20-point agenda for the new Democratic Congress and for regular citizens to enact.
For Congress:
1. End dark money and Citizens United in every way possible. Let Musk and the other billionaires get ONE vote just like the rest of us. Let taxes pay for elections, not corporations or billionaires or individual donors who get inundated with requests every damn day of the election season. A CRAZY way to fund a democracy.
2. Raise SCOTUS numbers to 13 justices. This number matches the number of judicial districts in the country. Six times in history, the number of justices has been altered–this is not “radical.” It is common sense. Time to break the current compromised and thoroughly corrupted Supreme Court.
3. Stop corruption. Prosecute MAGA minions in the administration, ranging from Trump family members to the DOJ lawyer who sold a pardon for $50 million. She upset Trump NOT because she sold a pardon but because he did not get a cut of it! Mob behavior exactly.
4. Be alert to a second coup by Trump/MAGA!
5. Impeach Hegseth and restore sanity to the military and stop the firing of women, people of color who are leaders, and trans people.
6. Restore $1.1 billion to support NPR and PBS.
7. Restore SNAP cuts.
8. Dismantle the current ICE program and create a healthier version.
9. Be inclusive and include rural and red states and republicans and others in the debating and decision-making.
10. Stop Trump vanity projects.
11. Bring back the EPA, Endangered Species Act, etc.
12. Return funding to science, but include a less materialistic, narrow, and rational definition of education and science at the same time. Include what Einstein calls the intuitive brain (and I call the mystical brain) along with the rational brain. Einstein says values come from the intuitive and not the rational brain. Bring values back to education.
13. Support Ukraine, not Netanyahu’s pro-genocide politics in Gaza. Halt funding to Netanyahu’s wars against Palestinians.
14. Release the Epstein files! Congress already passed a bipartisan law to do so. We are talking about pedophilia in very high places. What the hell? Is the American government going to be slower than even the Vatican was to tell the truth on pedophilia? Arrest the big shot pedophiles. In England, they’ve arrested a prince. Only one person has been arrested in the US, and thanks to the attorney general, is spending her sentence in a comfy prison.
15. Expand Medicare and Medicaid and restore health care for many as a starting point for guaranteeing all citizens have this right.
16. Defend Social Security, now also under attack from MAGA leaders.
17. Block money for the Iran War.
18. Establish limits and safeguards on AI.
Citizens at Large:
19. Celebrate Life and Existence by building community! Biophilia trumps necrophilia, and the “fatalistic self-hatred” of patriarchy (Adrienne Rich) is the source of sadism and cruelty. Since there “is no community without ritual” (Malidoma Some), create good, lively, and grounded rituals to celebrate life in all its diversity and spread the new creation story from science. Our Cosmic Mass is a good start.
20. Stand up to the Manosphere and crackpot MAGA Masculinity. (See my chapter in my book on MAGA and Trump as Antichrist on “MAGA’s ‘Precarious Manhood vs. Authentic Masculinity.”) Open up a wide-open exchange on what authentic masculinity entails. My book on The Hidden Spirituality of Men lays out ten archetypes of whole, holy, and healthy masculinity and offers a good springboard for such a discussion. Teach and enact those metaphors to girls and boys, women and men alike.
Banner Image: A cresting blue wave. NOAA photo on Wikimedia Commons
Queries for Contemplation
How do you celebrate the Blue Wave of yesterday? What are your priorities for this new Congress? And for citizens at large?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
“The Cosmic Mass: Reinventing Worship and Religion,” in Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest, pp. 363-383.
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
TRUMP AND THE MAGA MOVEMENT AS ANTICHRIST: Recognizing the Archetype of Evil in Our Time
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
