The Generalist Manifesto

The Agenda is written in the President’s first-person voice, for his consideration, and the open letter before it is addressed to him. It is not a statement made by Donald J. Trump.

Part One: The Key Points

I. The Claim

America was exceptional for three reasons, each larger than the last: the best-educated founding cohort in the world, the longest-lasting, most successful republic in history, and the 200-Year Miracle.

The skill that built it was the generalist. Restore the generalist and we save the Midterms, America, and Western Civilization.

II. The Generalist

A generalist is a multi-specialist with an unusual flair for seeing and anticipating relationships, and for identifying, and inventing, whatever it takes to solve intractable problems.

Become one: read michaeljkram.com, play the three word games in Appendix 4, and study Appendix 5.

III. Five Objections, Answered

1. “Plato says republics cannot survive.” Our Founders provided competence in the people’s generalists, not in a leader or class.
2. “Nietzsche says God is dead.” A morality you can reason out does not die with anyone’s faith.
3. “John Adams says the Constitution is only for a moral and religious people.” A moral people can be trained, not only born.
4. “None of the nations that copied our Constitution succeeded like we did.” They copied the document, not the skill.
5. “The people are not qualified to run any government.” They do not have to be. A strong generalist minority supplies the competence, the people supply the consent.

IV. The Agenda

1. Stop geoengineering.
2. Stop the enrichment, starting with my own family.
3. Declare a National Emergency to restore American Exceptionalism.
4. Stop the lawfare.
5. Save the election.
6. Nullify the Seventeenth Amendment.
7. An America First administration, proven on a dashboard.
8. A Sovereign Code.
9. A Moral Code.
10. Fix the rule of law.

Part Two: The Explanations

I. The Claim

America was exceptional for three reasons, each larger than the last:

1. The best-educated founding cohort in the world, nearly all of them literate, and most of them generalists.
2. The longest-lasting, most successful republic in history, designed by those generalists.
3. The 200-Year Miracle. That republic, and the free world built around it, helped carry world population from about 1 billion in 1800 to more than 8 billion today.

The skill that built it was the generalist. The decline since tracks the loss of that skill. Restore the generalist and we save the Midterms, America, and Western Civilization.

II. The Generalist

Definition

A generalist is a multi-specialist with an unusual flair for seeing and anticipating relationships, and for identifying, and inventing, whatever it takes to solve intractable problems. Da Vinci, Franklin, Jefferson, Elon Musk.

The specialist knows one field. The generalist sees how the fields connect, and solves what falls between them. Where most generalists exploit that craft, this author probes its depth and breadth, after a bigger unification of knowledge, possible only in a civilization that treats carrying capacity as a major factor.

A DIY Introductory Course

1. Read michaeljkram.com: see if you can find a different kind of thinking than others use.
2. Play the three word games in Common Sense 2.0, Appendix 4, The Generalist, each at two levels.
3. Study Appendix 5, America’s Roots: nine traditions, each counted in generations.

III. Five Objections, Answered

1. “Plato says republics cannot survive.”

Plato said people were too shallow and would choose popularity over competence, so they needed either a philosopher king or a philosopher class to survive. Our Founders read Plato, then built the answer: they provided competence in the people’s generalists, not in a leader or class.

2. “Nietzsche says God is dead.”

Nietzsche did not celebrate it. He warned that a civilization that loses its foundational God loses its morality, and therefore its civilizing impetus. Our Founders anchored morality in “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” a standard any generalist can reason out from first principles. A morality you can reason out does not die with anyone’s faith.

3. “John Adams says the Constitution is only for a moral and religious people.”

Adams named a limit, not a dead end. A strong generalist minority, with a proper education, manages it: generalists reason their way to a working morality, and teach it. A moral people can be trained, not only born.

4. “None of the nations that copied our Constitution succeeded like we did.”

They copied the document, not the skill. Our Founders were saturated with generalists, and they trained them. The copies got the text and none of the generalists to run it.

5. “The people are not qualified to run any government, much less a moral republic.”

They do not have to be. The Founders never needed every citizen to be a generalist, only a critical mass: 56 men signed the Declaration. A strong generalist minority supplies the competence, the people supply the consent, and a people that can see competence will choose it over popularity.

IV. The Agenda

An Open Letter

Mr. President, and the leaders of our patriotic think tanks:

We are appalled that you have given up so easily on finding our Founders’ Exceptionalism and mojo, and that you do not recognize how critical it is to America’s survival, and how critical that is to human civilization.

It is absolutely astounding that you would so cavalierly consign humanity to another Stone Age because you are too lazy or too thoughtless. My God, what have we come to?

DARPA put up a million-dollar prize to help them figure out an autonomous car, then two million when that failed. But you did nothing when the 1776 Commission bombed out, and now you are not seeking advice or approval.

You simply gave our republic to the technocrats, plus a trillion for walking money, while you out-Bidened Biden’s corruption, vacuuming up billions, not millions, for your and your friends’ soft landing!

That, sir, is high treason of the most shameful sort.

We really do hope you abort the treason to America, and the finger to your loyal base, and take the high road to redemption we offer below.

The Proposed Agenda

Proposed agenda, written in the President’s first-person voice.

1. Stop geoengineering.

I am ending every federal geoengineering and weather-modification program, as the first signal to all Americans, and to their servants in government and business, that every front of the war being waged against the American people is shutting down. From here on, this administration honors my oath to protect and defend the Constitution and its purposes: to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

2. Stop the enrichment, starting with my own family.

I am shutting down a major Trump-family enrichment program to get everyone’s attention. From here on, every improper enrichment program for every public servant will unwind and close. America is not going down the drain, so no one needs a soft landing.

3. Declare a National Emergency to restore American Exceptionalism.

Our Founders had an exceptional skill. What they built, against how far we have fallen without it, is the proof. Our best patriotic institutions, including Hillsdale College, the Claremont Institute, the 1776 Commission, the Brownstone Institute, the Hoover Institution, Solari, the United States Semiquincentennial Commission, and the White House Freedom 250 task force, have not produced a solution that ensures America’s survival. So we will do it ourselves:

• 3a. Education and literacy. The founding generation was the best educated and most literate in the world. Some reports now place American education and literacy around the global average, near 49th of 160 countries. Both matter. Neither is top-tier critical.
• 3b. The generalist. The decisive factor. We will identify, train, and promote generalists.
• 3c. Basic Principle. One, set by executive order: coherence, with a bias for the Golden Rule.
• 3d. The narrative. One sentence: generalists built the world’s most successful republic, losing them nearly lost it, and restoring them will save it.

4. Stop the lawfare.

I will stop rogue judges and attorneys general, and the machines and money behind them, from blocking my duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Article II, Section 3). The usual objections:

• “No one is above the law.” Wrong. Everyone is, or can be, at some point. “Necessity knows no law”: anyone with sufficient necessity stands above any law that blocks it, and a law that blocks that common law standard is a bad law. Every licensed professional stands above the law that binds the unlicensed. And the President answers to three superiors only: the people in elections, the Congress in impeachment, and the Cabinet on questions of capacity. Everything else is overreach or partisan interference.
• “Courts are the check and balance.” Review and referee, yes. A right to strike, block, or sue the executive out of its duties, no.
• “Attorneys general manage enforcement the President must respect.” No. The President nominates the judges and appoints the attorneys general. He does not hold control over himself or his office, so he cannot delegate it to them.

5. Save the election.

• Voting limited to qualified citizens.
• Campaign advocacy and funding from outside a district limited, at levels to be set.
• Anyone who publishes on election issues, in any American medium, personal digital included, identified by name, stake, funding, and affiliation.
• A public guide to the rights the Bill of Rights actually protects and limits, set against the popular misconceptions.

6. Nullify the Seventeenth Amendment.

The rights the people held in their state capacity, including choosing their senators through their state legislatures, were unalienable and never theirs to give up. To avoid a national crisis that would undo every Senate action since 1913, the new Senate gets five years to arrange a suitable alternative.

7. An America First administration, proven on a dashboard.

Every significant initiative gets a simple, running, public scorecard. It names the principal stakeholders, with America as one party and the American people as a separate party, and shows each one’s gain or loss in numbers.

8. A Sovereign Code.

The people are the sovereign. Government is their servant. We will reverse every rule, form, and habit that turned that relationship upside down.

9. A Moral Code.

The Basic Principle, applied to every public servant first: coherence, with a bias for the Golden Rule. Govern the people the way you would want to be governed.

10. Fix the rule of law.

• 10a. Stop punishment add-ons. A sentence served is a debt paid. No penalties stacked on after the court is done.
• 10b. Stop citizen eugenics and scamming. Expansion to come from the author.
• 10c. Stop counterproductive judicial discretion. Replace it with code as clear as the DMV’s: the same act gets the same published result, for everyone.

V. What Comes Next

This manifesto is the short version. Each agenda point expands into the long version through michaeljkram.com, the book Common Sense 2.0, and its Appendix 4 training.