The test that every idea here has to pass

I have thrown out perhaps half of what I originally believed by applying one question, and I recommend it to you as a general instrument of political hygiene.

Would I still want this rule if the politician I trust least were the one holding it?

Not the politician I dislike. The one I actually fear. Picture them in the office, with this rule in their hand, and ask whether you would still want the rule to exist.

If the answer is no, then what you have is not a rule. It is a weapon, and weapons change hands. Every power you build for your side will be inherited by the other within a decade or two. That is not a risk; it is how the system works and always has.

Apply it to everything in this pamphlet: to ballot access, to the definitions in the immigration law, to emergency borrowing, to the governance of the investment accounts, to every enforcement power I have proposed. Good intentions are welcome. The design cannot depend on them.

This is the single most useful idea in this pamphlet and it costs nothing to adopt. You can apply it this evening, to whatever your own side is currently proposing.