For Democrats, Being the Opposition Party Must Start Now, and it Can't be Focused on Self-Preservation

A Presidency That Shouldn't Have Happened, if the Law Had Been Enforced

We are now just weeks away from the beginning of the second Presidential term of a man who has proven that he is not qualified to hold the office.  He proved it with four years of some of the most inept incompetence, and ignorance of how this constitutional democracy operates, that, had he worked for a private company, he would have been fired and locked out of the building.  It wasn't just bad, it was terrible.  He proved it by committing crimes indiscriminately, for his own personal benefit, during the whole time he was in office.  And to top it off, he finished out his term in office by leading an insurrection against the Capitol, with Congress in session, counting the electoral votes.  

That should have disqualified him from ever running for public office again. It was an unimaginable failure, completely inexcusable, that this was not prosecuted and he was not sentenced.  Congress laid out the case and the evidence in its investigation and hearing.  The fact that the justice department was unable to expedite and get the case to trial is a huge part of where the blame lies.  Most legal experts are not convinced that the Supreme Court's immunity ruling would have affected the outcome, since inciting an insurrection is not among the President's official duties.   

So we are in a situation that I am certain the founding fathers who authored the Constitution and spent time figuring out how it would work never imagined would have to be handled by a government of the United States.  And we are going to have to handle it in a way that will preserve the Constitution's authority and principles, and will not allow the convicted felon, who should not be there in the first place, to ruin it, or to take advantage of it to make himself a dictator.

Democrats Cannot Afford Any More Loss of Confidence

This lifelong, financially contributing Democrat is disappointed and concerned about the party leadership's response, or lack of it, to the election loss in November.  From where I sit, which includes gathering information from more progressive media sources, among them Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid, the response by Democrats to the November election seems to be one of scurrying back into their holes to hide while playing this lame-duck transition by the same old protocols, taking a break after election season and doing nothing of significance while the rest of us face a crisis they convinced us would be the case if Trump won.  I don't remember exactly where I heard the expression, I believe it was on an afternoon talk show on the progressive radio station, WCPT, here in Chicago, that when it comes to politics, especially since 2016, it's like Democrats are bringing a knife to a gunfight. 

Traditional politics, with courtesy and give-and-take in a bipartisan fashion is gone, and it will not return simply because Democrats continue to insist on playing by those rules.  Doing so only gives the other side an even bigger advantage in their determination to remain inflexible and uncompromising when it comes to getting their way.  

There was conversation, at the beginning of the Biden Administration, about the problems created by a blatantly partisan, bribery corrupted Supreme Court that badly needed to be reformed.  The only pathway to doing that was to pack it by amending the Judiciary Act to increase the number of justices, and then having the President appoint the most liberal, free-thinking, far to the left justices that could be found in the federal system.  

But that would have taken a measure of boldness and some risks that Democrats in Congress haven't seemed to be willing to take with Trump lurking in the background, and getting what amounted to a basic open forum in the news media on a daily basis.  The risk would have come with having to break the Senate filibuster to achieve it.  If Democrats broke the filibuster and packed the court, then that would open the door for Republicans do to likewise  It's a tradition that the President wasn't willing to risk breaking.  

If we had been bold, and we had done exactly that, there would be no immunity ruling from the Supreme Court protecting the President from prosecution for crimes he commits while in office, because that court would not have issued such an unconstitutional, unethical, immoral ruling.  Then there would not have been any excuses for the Justice Department to drag its feet in bringing Trump to a quick trial for insurrection, and for stealing classified documents.  

But let me tell you, it's not going to take long for this newly elected Senate to break it, to do whatever their party's sitting President, a convicted felon who shouldn't even be there, wants them to do.  The filibuster rule is a thing of the past and I'm willing to bet that it will take them less than three months to do it.  They're going to break it the very moment it is most convenient for them to do so, and the Democrats and their insistence on keeping it will turn out to be a completely futile gesture that winds up destroying, not protecting, our Democracy. 

Boldness is in short supply. 

Back Up Those Words With Action

Anyone who has read through Project 2025 knows what's coming.  The question is, at this point, one of surviving to be able to elect a Democratic congressional majority in 2026.  

We've been told by the party leadership since the last election, that this one would be the most consequential of our lifetime, and that Trump was an existential threat to American democracy.  The evidence of that claim was his first term, and his daily ramblings and rantings that had the full attention of the media, which gave him far more news coverage than they did the sitting President.  Clearly, based on election results, the Democrats did not get that message out to enough voters.  Or, perhaps, they saw something different between the rhetoric of Democrats about Trump's threat, and their actions.  

I sure did.  

If Trump was the existential threat to democracy that Democratic leadership claimed, then boldness would have prevailed over concerns about certain actions appearing "political," such as expediting his trial for insurrection.  In fact, no matter how "political" it would have appeared, there would have been a commitment to a single achievement, the removal of that threat to American democracy.  With control of both houses of Congress, and the justice department in Democratic hands, that threat was not removed.  That counts as a failure, with consequences we must all now endure.  And that's not something that increases confidence of voters in the Democratic party.  

I understand the extent of the achievements of the Biden administration, especially during his first two years in office.  It was a monumentally successful Presidency.  And it was one that did not get the media coverage it deserved, for whatever reason.  Trump has himself all over the media, but in those ways that are at a President's disposal to do the same for anyone who holds the office, Biden did not make anywhere near the number of appearances he could have ordered by simply setting the date for a press conference or speech.  

This gave tremendous credence to Republican claims that he was showing signs of dementia and his "handlers" didn't want him making public appearances.  It looks, from this perspective, like they just let that go, didn't address it, and didn't change the way they were doing things.  Even hard core party loyalists are going to have difficulty maintaining their confidence in the face of that kind of inaction and lack of response to Republican criticism that made them look like they were right on target.

"They've Given up, They're in Disarray, They Don't Know What to Do" 

I've seen all three of those phrases, describing what the Democratic party looks like right now, from the other side.  They were expecting a fight, some form of resistance, and pushback based on the fact that this really was the "razor thin" election the polls predicted it would be, even closer in many cases, and doesn't show a major shift to the right at all.  But when Republicans lost in similar fashion, they just dug in and didn't budge.  They're seeing the opportunity here to gain a lot more ground than they earned at the ballot box. 

We need strong leadership at the Democratic National Committee.  This can't be a job where people sit and collect paychecks off the contributions.  They need to be our voice in the media, pushing there way in and creating opportunities for visibility that we would not get by being polite, respectful and by sending out email notifications.  We need to show up, and the DNC needs to be the organization that leads the way to doing this.  

And will someone please answer this question for me?  What is there, in Project 2025, which is going to be the Trump administration agenda, that Democrats can work across the aisle to support?  I'm all for bipartisan achievement, but not when that means one party gets it all and the other party lets them have it.  Frankly, if a Democratic member of Congress doesn't comprehend where we are headed and what is happening, they shouldn't be in Congress.  We can't have politicians hiding in their offices, collecting their paychecks, guarding those things as their own assets.  That's a public trust, and I am depending on them to do their job.  And that's not collaborating with the GOP to bring about white, Christian America.