The rapid disintegration of President Donald Trump’s second regime is changing the political and social dynamics about what is possible. The most significant and underappreciated fact of life is the rising competence by U.S. states. States are forced to take action in the wake of the unexpected incompetence and failure that emerged as a fundamental feature of President Trump’s second regime.

The strength of the Constitution and the wisdom of the founders is the ability of dynamic U.S. States to take collective action driven by the manifest failure to resist the unconstitutional power of the second Trump government.

Article 5 of the Constitution allows two-thirds of state legislatures to call for a national convention proposing an amendment to the Constitution. Approval of the results of the National Convention must be made by 38 states that represent three-fourths of the states.

State constitutional changes are limited in that no amendment can interfere with equal states. One of the most interesting democratic responses to Trumpism can be the U.S. states' ability to institute an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. State action in times of stress can largely repair and replace collapsing federal action with state dynamics. States like California today are now expanding state action in the winter of 2025 and are recruiting expert staff that can become a national model of cooperative states.

States like Indiana have resisted President Trump’s demands for dramatically changing the ten-year apportionment rules to strip democrats of voting rights to keep President Trump in power in the House and Senate in mid-term elections.

State-based rules would mean that rich states will aid poor states. Congressional action would be tightly based on state interests. The power of a president would be limited by state interests, sharply limit the imperial presidency, and end the years of enormous deficits without regard. The federal system is broken. It’s time for the states to exercise fiscal and political discipline to save the republic and our democracy. State excess tends to be limited. By their nature, states have zero operating deficits. Most states have balanced budget requirements and loopholes markedly different from the U.S. government, which has run up enormous debt under Trump (and Biden).

We can move from a fiscally, debt-ridden social system to being fiscally secure with zero operating debt, and limits long-term, clearly articulated, limited investment. Constitutional rebirth will dramatically revive U. S. economic strength. The mode is different from that of the EU, with a mixture of independent action combined with complex, large EU-based regulations.

A US state-based system would be led by the economic power shared by states, which will be governed by state-based control, working hand and glove-with the federal government. This new federal system has poorer states sharing the wealth. States elect Congresspeople with fundamental ties to the state's wishes. For example, states like California will have the ability to strengthen the complexity of providing the full basis of health care run by the states.

States would adapt potential series of state-based rules and actions that meet national state standards. Poorer States would receive sufficient funding from richer states. States will not be saddled with trillions of expenses for war and global dominance. The United States, with its multiple allies, will be responsible for a fair share of military expenses but will not act as a global hegemon.

Participation is crucially provided both constitutionally and economically by states. States, for example, have much to say about the expense for the military and an essential willingness to support state action. The system is designed to limit the sort of dictatorial overreach of the Trump fiasco.

In the state-based system, Congresspeople would be individual state representatives who would be chosen ideally by Rank Choice voting for multiple representatives.

This is designed to increase democratic participation.

Rank choice voting to strengthen democracy

Ranked choice voting (RCV) voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third, etc. If your first choice doesn’t have a chance to win, your ballot counts for your next choice.

Voters in Rank Choice don’t need to worry about spoilers or feel forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Voters simply rank candidates in order of preference. If their first choice doesn’t win, their vote automatically counts for their next choice.

Voters are free from worrying about how others will vote and which candidates are more or less likely to win. More candidates run without fear of playing spoiler, by choosing candidates they like who can’t win single-member districts. Or are you worried about splitting the vote among like-minded opponents?

The agony of the Trump regime

The EPA, in less than a year under Donald Trump, has decided that the fossil fuel-driven climate catastrophe is a hoax. The real consequences of rapidly changing climate are deaths of young girls drowned in Texas’s flash floods driven by climate change. The position on the EPA is now to accelerate the use of fossil fuels so the United States would achieve global energy dominance. Meanwhile, China has become the global renewable energy leader.

While the Trump administration abandons renewables, in 2025 China pushed non- fossil fuel to 40% of generation. In the first 9 months of 2025, China installed 240 gigawatts of solar, more than double the rest of the world combined. By June 2025, China’s renewable energy wind and solar capacity of 1673 gigawatts exceeded thermal power capacity for the first time. China is the world leader in electric cars and trucks, and battery technology. Warren Buffett has a major stake in Chinese battery tech.

Forbes notes that China’s scale of manufacturing renewables drives down costs and is internationally becoming accessible for emerging economies.

While the Trump administration dreams of coal, China is rapidly developing a global renewable world.

Moving forward

The political collapse of President Trump’s government is, in part, a feature of the President’s increasing mental incapacity. The concerns of numerous experts predict a dire future for the President. For example, Dr. John Gartner, a psychologist and former Johns Hopkins professor, finds Trump is showing "clinical signs of dementia" and a "gross deterioration" from his earlier baseline.

Resistance by Republican politicians in Washington and by Statehouses continue to spread.

Republicans in Indiana refuse to adopt a Trump plan to redistrict the State to help Trump to maintain his control of both the House and Senate. The political facts of life are that Trump’s approval is in the lower 30s, and on most major issues, he is underwater in both red, blue, and purple states.

Conventional wisdom is likely that President Trump will cling to power until he is removed as being unfit. This can happen via the 25th amendment by actions of Vice President Vance and the Cabinet, most unlikely until Trump’s mental problems worsen. The alternative will be actions by Congress to invoke the 25th Amendment.

A promising alternative will be the impeachment of President Trump by a Democratic House, a near certainty given the decisions of enough Republicans to convict and remove Trump from holding office. This is a perfect political move. He is not jailed. But is not allowed to serve in any government office. If he is not fit to stand trial, he will be allowed to spend his time in treatment and not treated as a criminal.

What is clear to everyone is that President Trump is increasingly falling asleep in the midst of his own press events. The abuse of the Pardon Power by the President has allowed the worst criminals to go free from justice. For example, the former President of Honduras once boasted that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses”. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for conspiring to import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.

The value of state-based constitutional conventions is to revive U.S. democracy, with the United States declining to play global hegemon but being an important global partner with our global democratic allies and partners. It will be a grave error to believe that Donald Trump is merely a one-time anomaly, and happy days for American power will be back again, with the likelihood of the Democrats back in charge after the midterm-disintegration of the MAGA republicans.

The Trump administration has demonstrated the self-destructive nature of unchecked power and lawlessness. The party system in the U.S. has failed both as an international hegemon and a vital democracy.

It is a choice to follow a path that departs not only from the Trump administration pathway, but also for the United States to pursue the path not as a global hegemon, but as a democratic ally cooperating in concert with other democracies around the globe.

The key choice for a dynamic democracy in 2026 and 2027 for the Democratic Party if it gains power after the Trump administration collapse is to embrace a state-based system that will enable the United States to enjoy a new era of freedom, not as a global hegemon or global warlord. It is up to democratic politicians, women and men like the soon-to-be Speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, and soon-to-be Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Governors like Gavin Newsom and J.B Pritzker. An important group of people will be Republican politicians who will support a reborn democracy and a Maga-free Republican, strong conservative party.

It is up to these women and men to realize that a dynamic state-based system will embrace a revived democracy nationally with global resonance and embrace the United States as a partner with the world’s democracies, no longer a hegemon, but working with other democratic partners.

Politicians can save our democracy by strengthening the role of the states.

Please consider this wisely.