Steve Corbin is Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
The numbers are in. It’s abundantly clear Americans not only want the divisive Congress to quit playing games and become bipartisan leaders – like the good old days – but in 2024 cast Joe Biden and Donald Trump aside and elect a middle-of-the-road president.
Regarding bipartisanship, the latest PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist poll reveals 74% of Americans want Congress to work together. Similarly, a Gallup poll reveals only 16% of Americans consider themselves “very conservative” or “very liberal.” In Congress we know these fringe groups are represented by the wacko right-wing Freedom Caucus and the out-of-touch left-wing Progressive Caucus.
Americans are demanding our Congressional delegates start acting like adults, abandon their respective weird partisan affiliation groups, view compromise as healthy and put people-before-politics . . . or . . . we’ll replace them with a bipartisan legislator.
The not-for-profit Bipartisan Policy Center, founded in 2007 by former Senators Howard Baker (Rep.), Tom Daschle (Dem), Bob Dole (Rep.) and George Mitchell (Dem.), along with the non-profit No Labels, founded in 2010 to bring America’s leaders together to solve big problems, identify a host of across-the-aisle endeavors to prove bipartisanship can and has worked.
They include creation of social security (1935), National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (1956), 1964’s Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1997-Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Balanced Budget Act (1997), and 2015-Every Student Succeeds Act.
Americans who favor bipartisanship ought to pay attention to the Problem Solvers Caucus, which was created in 2017 by No Labels. The caucus is now an independent US House of Representatives’ assembly that is driven by over 60 members -- equally divided between Democrats and Republicans -- who foster impartial, unprejudiced and non-partisan cooperation on key policy issues. The Senate does not have a caucus format, but many senators are allies to the Problem Solvers Caucus.
The Problem Solvers Caucus has played a significant role in making bipartisan deals such as the COVID-19 relief bill, ongoing health coverage for veterans exposed to military burn pits, $973 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021), gun safety bill (2022), CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 and the Election Count Reform Act (2022).
On April 19, the Problem Solvers Caucus announced “its endorsement of a bipartisan debt ceiling framework comprised of steps to avoid defaulting on the national debt and advancing a sustainable budget.” The members are also addressing the immigration and border security issue, which has plagued Americans since 2014. With a divided Senate and House of Representatives, we know bipartisanship is required for these two important issues to be resolved. The Problem Solvers Caucus is coming to Americans’ rescue.
On Nov. 5, 2024, we will elect the next president and early polling speaks volumes. First, 65% of Americans don’t want Biden OR Trump to run again (Morning Consult). Secondly, a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll revealed nearly 60% of Americans would consider voting for a moderate independent if Biden and Trump seek office.
Who understands this data? No Labels, America’s centrist organization. They recently announced plans to lay the groundwork for an independent Unity ticket in 2024. This option is billed as an `insurance policy’ that will only be used if the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees are not acceptable. Logically, this announcement has greatly disturbed GOP and Democrat partisans.
If you want Congress to become more bipartisan and/or believe we need a centrist president in 2024, follow the Bipartisan Policy Center, No Labels and Problem Solvers Caucus as they are onto something that’s long overdue. Also, go to https://problemsolverscaucus.house.gov to see if your legislator is listed as a bipartisan Congressional delegate.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."