() — Amend the constitution! Political suicide! Think big and make things better!
This is the big idea period of American politics, a time that occurs roughly every four years before a presidential election, when candidates push broad proposals, usually with few details.
While great ideas generally have little chance of becoming law, they speak to what people who want to be president think will move primary voters.
With President Joe Biden currently clinched for the Democratic nomination, most of the intellectual action this year is among Republicans.
Here are some of the big ideas of the moment, which are often unique to one or two candidates rather than standard party positions. I see these as distinct from everyday political issues like abortion rights, foreign policy, border security, and gender rights, where there is a sliding scale of positions.
A “mental competence” test for candidates over 75 years of age
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley speaks at a rally in Greer on May 4, 2023. (Credit: Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, 51 years old, wants to impose a “mental competence” test For candidates over 75 years of age.
With the current two leading candidates – President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump – well past this age, which is when most people would consider retirement, age is already a major issue this year.
It’s a clever way to play on fears that Biden, in particular, has lost his skills. But it’s hard to imagine it actually being put to use. Who would administer this test? Who would evaluate the results? Why wouldn’t all the candidates present it?
The goal of the democratic system is that voters must choose. This proposal would necessarily limit your options.
On the other hand, age limits are not an entirely crazy idea. Corporations impose them on executives, for example. The pilots have a mandatory retirement age of 65although that could increase in the near future to deal with a shortage of pilots.
Raise the voting age
Vivek Ramaswamy, founder of a biotech company, wants to raise the legal voting age to 25. It’s hard to imagine how this would work, since the current voting age is 18 and is guaranteed in the 26th Amendment.
Democrats like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have pushed in recent years to go in the opposite direction, arguing to lower the voting age to 16.
Ramaswamy says there would be exceptions to raising the voting age, such as for people joining the military or meeting a “national service requirement.” Others might pass the same test given to naturalized immigrants.
“I want more civic engagement. My hypothesis is that when you give more value to the act, we will see more young people from 18 to 25 years old vote than now ”, Ramaswamy told The Washington Post.
Raise the retirement age to save Social Security and Medicare
Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence They are among those pushing to change the age at which Americans can access retirement benefits.
While both Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vow to protect these key parts of the social safety net, Haley and Pence call for a more honest discussion of the nation’s finances.
In his account, raising the retirement age would only affect the youngest Americans: people 20 and younger, generations likely to outlive and work longer than their ancestors.
But details are hard to find, as ‘s Jake Tapper found out when he asked Haley on a forum in early June What retirement age was he proposing? She said more calculations are needed to arrive at a specific retirement age for people who are currently in their 20s.
In the meantime, he said, “we are going to tell them ‘times have changed.’ I think (Trump and DeSantis) are not being honest with the American people.”
DeSantis recently acknowledged in New Hampshire that Social Security “will look a little different” for younger generations.
Pence, on his own forum in early June, he said raising the eligibility age for Social Security is one option for a tough conversation about domestic spending, but not the only one.
“It could also include allowing younger Americans to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in a mutual fund, like the TSP (Thrift Savings Plan) program that 10 million federal employees are currently in,” he said.
End birthright citizenship
Both former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis want to revoke birthright citizenship, or the right of anyone born in the US to be a US citizen.
Both complain that even babies born to undocumented immigrants become citizens. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the 14th Amendment, the key post-Civil War amendment intended to protect former slaves.
Trump has been pushing for an end to birthright citizenship for years, but there is currently no significant effort to change the Constitution.
Trump promised to sign an executive order. DeSantis has said that he would lean on Congress and the judicial system. In reality, changing the Constitution would be almost impossible in the current political environment.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Marathon County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner on May 6, 2023 in Rothschild, Wisconsin. (Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Build “freedom cities” and develop flying cars
Former President Donald Trump’s most innovative ideas have a futuristic “Jetsons” feel.
He wants to build new “freedom cities” on federal land to reopen the US border and give people a chance to own a home. He argues that the plan could reinvigorate American manufacturing.
And he envisions freeing Americans from public transportation hell by simply looking at the sky, with the initiative to promote vertical takeoff vehicles. ‘s report on Trump’s proposals he notes that the technology is already up and running in the industry, but is a long way from being available to customers.
A government-planned city may seem like an odd proposition for a candidate whose party has long embraced free-market ideals. But the idea of a planned city isn’t entirely foreign, just look at Washington.
Revoke the reform of judicial sentences
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to undo Trump’s greatest bipartisan achievement: the Law of the First Stepa criminal justice and sentencing reform law.
The product of intense bipartisan negotiations during Trump’s tenure, the law was praised for rethinking harsh prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
But the political landscape has changed since 2018, when Trump signed the law as president and DeSantis voted it in as a congressman. Now, DeSantis calls the bill the “flight bill.”
Both men want to impose the death penalty for drug offenders, an especially awkward turn for Trump, who has boasted of his compassion in freeing drug dealers like Alice Johnson when he commuted her sentence. The case helped build support for the First Step Law. His crime could have made her eligible for the death penalty under his new plan.
Trump still boasts about the First Step Act, and repealing it would require the help of Democrats in the Senate.
DeSantis, meanwhile, is moving to Trump’s right on crime and even vetoed a bipartisan criminal justice law in Florida that easily passed through the Republican-dominated legislature.
Pence also said on his forum that he would “take a step back” on the First Step Act, though it’s unclear what that means in practical terms.
