25 Steps Democrats Must Take to Undo the Trump Catastrophe

After four years of Trump, halfway measures and bland compromises won't cut it

When I came to Washington in 1993 to join the Clinton Administration, being a “new Democrat" had a kind of sheen to it. As it turned out, what it really meant was that to win, our party had decided that the way forward was to offer ourselves up as Reagan-lite.

We would get tough on welfare “cheaters” and beef up the police. We would put in place economic officials who were more attentive to the bond market than labor unions. We were free traders and preached a rising tide would lift all boats. We ultimately were responsible for deregulating the banking sector and putting in place laws that catered to tech moguls.

While plenty of good was done during the administration—notably the creation of 23 million jobs—our neo-liberal economic policies helped fan the flames of inequality that began with Reagan and have continued for the past forty years. What’s more the dislocations caused by the globalization we promoted were not addressed adequately and as a result, we planted the seeds that have subsequently led to the economic nationalism and protectionism that President Trump now champions.

In other words, labels aside, we were neither offering much that was “new” or, for that matter, terribly big D Democratic. Clinton and Obama after him were more the heirs to Eisenhower and Nixon than they were to Roosevelt and Truman.

Meanwhile, Republicans took the wins that our compromises brought but worked tirelessly behind the scenes at the local, state and federal level to rewire our political system to grant ever increasing power to the emerging American oligarchy that they served. Republicans on Capitol Hill threw out the rule book and went scorched earth while many Democrats clutched their pearls and took their fainting couches.

By the time Trump was elected in 2016 and his authoritarian tendencies began to manifest themselves, the Dem pushback was too little too late. Joe Biden won and made an earnest effort to return the party’s policy focus from Wall Street to Main Street, but even he was too much of an institutionalist and he sidestepped efforts to restructure the Supreme Court or to exert pressure on his Department of Justice to hold those behind an effort to steal a presidential election accountable. Biden was well-intentioned but his team was too numbed by the platitudes of the establishment to address the existential issues that were emerging, threats to our democracy, the cohesiveness of our society and our international leadership.

I’m sorry. But it’s true.

Being well-intentioned just isn’t enough when the other side has shredded the rule book and is willing to do whatever it takes to seize and hold power.

So now, we find ourselves with an authoritarian president, a supine Congress, a Supreme Court of co-conspirators in the plot to rest power away from the American people and invest it in a despot, a would be monarch who surrounds himself with the trappings of an Atlantic City version of Louis XIV. In my New Jersey neighborhood we described the style of those who embraced cheeseball grandeur as “Louis the Last” and it sums up the work Trump is doing to make the Oval Office look more like a bordello every day. That said, the bordello metaphor works as Trump is pimping out American virtue, selling that which we once held precious to the highest bidder.

Still, while the president and the GOP and the right wing on the Supreme Court are certain to do everything in their power to try keep Democrats from winning the elections in 2026 and 2028, the reality is that it is unlikely they will be able to do enough. It’s not impossible that they will succeed and Lord knows we need to be vigilant in that respect. But it seems likely that Democrats will have one more chance to reclaim power.

What they do with the power they win will likely determine whether the republic is lost or whether it can be salvaged. It will also determine whether we become a exploitative society in which 99 percent of Americans work to enrich the top 1 percent of the population or we can restore economic as well as political democracy in this country.

As I have written before though, we need to recognize that whomever leads the Democrats in this next period must be prepared to eschew business as usual. They cannot make the mistakes of recent Democratic Administrations and write off recent GOP gains as politics as usual. They will need to do some things that will be very uncomfortable for many of them. For many of us. (Starting with getting real about where Dems have fallen short in recent years—from our leaders to apathetic voters to too much division within our ranks.)

Beyond new leadership, we will need a commitment to a different kind of party one that embraces not just the vision of FDR and the bluntness of Truman and the get-it-done pragmatism of LBJ but one that also channels the courage of Washington and the innovative spirit of the rest of the Founders. We can’t take our system or American power for granted any longer. Those days are over. We will need to resolve to be the bolder, tougher party, the one that will do what it takes to save the country and rebuild our futures.

We are entering a time when Democrats will need to truly be new and also, in my view, truly be Democrats, fight for our values because they are what the country needs right now rather than more compromises, the MAGA-lite formulations of a new generation of political savants who say that in order to save the country from Trump we have to be willing to accept Trumpian ideas like immigration brutality or rejection of decent social programs as “communism” or “socialism.”

It’s time for real change. Time for new new Democrats. It’s time for some or all of the following 25 core ideas that ought to be considered to be among the commitments of our party if this country is to have any chance of returning to the path to growth and true strength from within. (The following ideas are offered in no particular order. All are important.)

1. It’s time to restructure the Supreme Court. Biden fumbled this ball. Democrats must move first to impose term limits on the justices and then, as soon as possible, to increase the size of the court from 9 justices to 13. This will not be easy…but it must be done.

2. It’s time to hold Trump and his enablers legally accountable. Yes, Trump has immunity. But only for official acts. Yes, he will pardon some of those around him. But, there will be plenty of grounds to go after these people, charge them, try them and send them to jail. If there are no consequences for what they have done, they will do it again. This makes some Democrats uncomfortable because they think it will open the door to Republicans doing it to them. I’ve got bad news for them. That horse is out of the barn. They’re doing it. If Trump does not end up paying a legal price for what he has done, the notion of justice in America will forever be tainted.

3. It is time to change the rules of the Senate. And when we do, we should try to think like a Mitch McConnell. Bend the rules to our favor. Win however we can win. I’m sorry, but Michelle Obama was wrong. When they go low, we should not automatically go high. We must go in whichever way enables us to win. We must accept that the MAGA GOP, even if supported by tens of millions, is a menace, a threat that must be eliminated if our form of government is to survive.

4. Achieving point one above and undoing some of the fundamental imbalances in our system (the disproportionate power given rural states) will require that we commit ourselves to expanding the union. The District of Columbia and Puerto Rico should become states.

5. We are overdue for Constitutional reform. First let’s take the above steps, then let’s get to work fixing what is broken in the rest of our Constitution. And there’s plenty of work to be done there.

Yes, yes…I know…this is a bit strong for many of you. I’m sorry. Now is a time for strong ideas. Even if we cannot achieve them all, we must work for the changes we need and not just settle for the compromises that lie along the path of least resistance.

And yes, I know I promised 25 ideas. They’re coming. But the next 20 are only available to paying subscribers. I hope you’ll understand the reasons behind that. Namely, that your support makes a real difference (for which I’m grateful) and it’s important that those who pay get their money’s worth.