US-SOS.INFO

How to Prevent Another Trump

Money doesn’t vote. We do.

In short

Trump is a symptom, not the cause. To prevent another one, we have to fix what made so many voters angry enough to gamble on him, and lock the doors he walked through.

  • Fix the anger. The richest 1% now own more of America’s wealth than the bottom 90% put together. Fair taxes and real security (health care, housing, good jobs) take away a demagogue’s fuel.
  • Get big money out. Overturn Citizens United, require every big donor to be named, and match small donations with public money.
  • Turn the honor system into law. After Watergate, Congress passed a wave of guardrails. Do it again.
  • Fix how we pick nominees. Open primaries with ranked-choice voting, so a loud minority can’t take a party’s nomination.
  • Vote and bring people with you. The midterms are November 3, 2026.

Donald Trump did not come out of nowhere. He is what happens when a democracy stops working for most of its people, and nobody has locked the doors. To make sure it never happens again, we have to fix both.

Why he happened

Start with the anger. In 1989, the richest 1% of Americans owned $22.80 of every $100 of the nation’s wealth. Today they own $32.50. That is more than the bottom 90% put together, who own $31.10.1 Over the same years, paychecks stalled, health care and housing costs climbed, and whole towns lost the factories that held them up. We were told the gains would trickle down. They didn’t.

Meanwhile, Washington wasn’t listening to the people. A 2014 study of nearly 1,800 policy questions found that when ordinary Americans wanted one thing and the wealthy and business groups wanted another, ordinary Americans had almost no effect on what became law.2 In 2010, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision let corporations and the groups they fund spend without limit on elections.3

Millions of voters felt the system was rigged against them, and they were right. Trump said so out loud. Then he pointed their anger at immigrants, the press and “elites,” instead of at the people who did the rigging.

The rules helped him too. In the 2016 Republican primaries he won only about 45 out of every 100 votes. A crowded field split the rest, and winner-take-all rules turned that into the nomination.4 In November he got almost 2.9 million fewer votes than his opponent and still won the presidency through the Electoral College.4

What he showed us

He showed how much of our democracy runs on the honor system. Presidents were expected to release their tax returns, keep their businesses at arm’s length, leave the government’s watchdogs alone, and accept losing. Almost none of that was law.

When he refused to accept losing in 2020, the result was the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.5 Then, in 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts.6 The honor system now matters more than ever, and it is weaker than ever.

How we prevent the next one

We have done this before. After Watergate, Congress didn’t just get rid of Nixon. It passed a wave of guardrails: the War Powers Resolution, a law stopping presidents from refusing to spend money Congress approved, the Presidential Records Act and the Inspector General Act.7–10 Many of those are exactly the laws that have been tested since 2017. It is time for a second round.

  1. Share the wealth, and the anger fades. Bring back truly progressive taxes. The top income tax rate was 70% in 1980; today it is 37%.11 Use the money for what makes people feel secure: health care, housing, child care, and good jobs in the places that lost them. A demagogue needs desperate voters. Fewer desperate voters, fewer demagogues.
  2. Get big money out. Overturn Citizens United with a constitutional amendment. Until then, require every big political donor to be named, and match small donations with public money, so candidates answer to voters instead of billionaires.
  3. Turn the honor system into law. Require presidents and candidates to release their tax returns and sell off conflicting businesses. Protect inspectors general and career civil servants from political firing. Put real time limits on emergency powers. Pass a constitutional amendment that bans self-pardons and makes clear no president is above the criminal law. Congress already closed one hole: the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 makes clear the vice president cannot throw out electoral votes.12 That is the model.
  4. Fix how we pick nominees. Open primaries with ranked-choice voting let a majority, not a loud minority, choose. Maine and Alaska already use ranked-choice voting.13,14 Under it, nobody wins a crowded race with 45 out of every 100 votes until the voters’ second choices are counted.
  5. Vote, every time, and bring people with you. In 2024, more than a third of eligible Americans did not vote.15 That is more people than voted for either candidate. Congress writes every law above, and Congress answers to voters, if we show up.

The midterms are November 3, 2026

Find your congressional candidates and what they support

The bottom line

Trump is not the disease. He is the fever. The disease is a government that works for people with money and leaves everyone else to fend for themselves. Cure that, lock the doors he walked through, and there won’t be another one.

Money doesn’t vote. We do.

Sources and references (checked October 2026)
  1. Federal Reserve, Distributional Financial Accounts: share of household wealth by group, 1989 to Q2 2026.
  2. Gilens and Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics”, Perspectives on Politics, 2014.
  3. Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010).
  4. Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 2016: primary and general election results.
  5. House Select Committee, Final Report on the January 6th Attack, 2022.
  6. Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024).
  7. War Powers Resolution, 1973.
  8. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Impoundment Control Act, 1974.
  9. National Archives, Presidential Records Act, 1978.
  10. Council of the Inspectors General, Inspector General Act of 1978.
  11. Tax Policy Center, Historical Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates.
  12. Congress.gov, H.R. 2617, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (Division P: Electoral Count Reform Act).
  13. Maine Secretary of State, Ranked-Choice Voting.
  14. Alaska Division of Elections, Ranked Choice Voting.
  15. University of Florida Election Lab, 2024 General Election Turnout.

By Old Treehugger. Drafted by Claude (Anthropic) under Old Treehugger’s direction.