How Do Dems Save the Country and Their Party?

A key phrase to remember could be "a little disruption"

I’ve always felt I’d rather not have a pilot who believed in afterlife. Otherwise the stakes of his or her getting us to our destination safely are too low.

In the same way I’d prefer not to have national economics decisions made by billionaires who will never feel their effects.

You don’t want a billionaire for whom Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, access to health care, even economic downturns are abstractions that will never impact their lives being the one who decides the fate of those entities or big social or economic policy decisions. Certainly not one incapable of empathy.

And a committee of billionaires like we have in this administration is even worse. They create a decision bubble of people who are absolutely clueless about real life…about your life or my life or the lives of our families or our neighbors.

It is just that mentality that created a line in President Trump’s address to Congress this week that stood out as an example of how disconnected the current administration is from the lives of average Americans.

“A Little Disruption”

In his speech, Trump called economic hardship he and his team are unleashing on all Americans outside the 1% “a little disruption.”

"A little disruption" is code for "it's going to hurt you more than it hurts me." "A little disruption" is a warning that the folks living inside this administration’s plutocratic inner circle are going to make your lives miserable. But, living as they do on Boardwalk and Park Place, they won’t feel a thing.

When Trump said that there will be "a little disruption" but "we're ok with that" who do you think the "we" referred to? Certainly not us. It meant that when the job losses, the market losses, the recession and the inflation start crushing you our president, his bosses Musk and Putin and their oligarch buds and colleagues just won’t lose a minute of sleep over it.

What Dems Need to Do About It

Dems need to hammer this point home as each disturing economic indicator hits, as each trade war induced price hike takes place, as mass layoffs gut government agencies and then as vital US economic assistance to those in need and who are entitled to it is snuffed out. They don't care.

They are doing this to enrich themselves. And we need to fight back with facts and common sense. But let’s not whisper our disatisfaction, please. Let’s shout it out: How about we don't cut services to Americans and we don't cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and we don't fire hard working federal employees for no good reason and instead we don't give tax cuts to the rich & we don't provide more corporate welfare?

This is not an abstract national politics story story that should be left to the insider media and Georgetown cocktail parties. This is a story impacting your families, friends, neighbors, neighborhoods, and communities and that's where we need real leadership and clear communication. That's where the midterms will be won. And the midterms…if they actually happen, if they allow free and fair voting…are our single best hope to save our democracy. (Which is why Trump and MAGA will seek to put their thumb on the electoral scale in 2026 and we need to be prepared for that and to counteract it. But that is a story for another column.)

What we can say right now is this: Stop looking to the inert Dem leadership in DC and start being the opposition leaders this country needs right where you live--on your school board, on your town council, in town halls, running for Congress, using your social media platforms to drive home what's really happening here.

Make it crystal clear: Rich white men have done a hostile takeover of the US government and are selling it off for parts--profiting themselves, further enriching themselves, and aiding our enemies along the way. This is not Trump 1.0. This administration is much worse.

Their combination of greed, contempt for our people and institutions, desire for retribution, ignorance, malice and hate is absolutely toxic...and it is coming to your home as we speak.

Those who blindly support MAGA need to be confronted with the results as they happen--from epidemics to shuttered infrastructure projects, from seniors without care to veterans being dissed and discarded by the nation they served. What is happening is dangerous, reckless, costly and hugely un-American. Stand up. Make the facts known where they matter...where you live to those you see every day.

Strength vs. Weakness

Having said all that, let me make one more point about how Democrats need to proceed going forward.

Have you ever noticed how the hard right in the GOP has no hesitation about threatening elected officials in their own party that they see as weak or ineffective with being primaried but when someone in Blueworld suggests that is how to deal with feckless Dems the response is "No, you'll weaken the party!"

The reality is, of course, the opposite.·

Primaries need to be seen as an important tool to produce the best candidates and the best leaders, to drive the change within the Democratic Party it so urgently requires. We need to use them as aggressively as do our opponents and, as they do, believe in our ability to line up behind the best leaders once primary season is done. We need to use them because we need to get rid of the Dem politicians who are not carrying their weight or who are not up to the moment…and especially to get rid of the Vichy Democrats (yes, I’m talking about you and folks like you John Fetterman) who think that compromising with MAGA, splitting the difference with the people who are actively seeking to destroy our democracy and divide our society, is the way forward.

It’s not. It’s a path to MAGA victory and losing America once and for all.

It is time to stop being polite and start realizing that the house is on fire and it is time to put the fire out. Big Dem donors need to get behind the strongest leaders—which is to say the ones that can win and make the case against the GOP and move on from the those who put us and the country at risk.

By the way, this is not the opportunity for centrists to go, yeah, let's go after the progressives. Different candidates will win in different states and districts. We need to be smart about that. We also have to move beyond lame 1990s definitions of what a centrist or progressive is.

Two-thirds to three-quarters of Americans support an agenda on schools, healthcare, fair taxes, the environment, guns and international leadership that would have been called "progressive" 20 years ago. The number is higher for younger voters.

The goal should not be to coax the MAGAs into an embrace of sanity and patriotism--although many who are burned by Trump-Musk policies will certainly turn away from them and we shouldn't ignore them. Our goal should be to build a new center-left coalition that gets non-voters and young voters to vote, gets core voters to turn out.

I would argue that Trump and MAGA see the issue not as left vs. right but as weak vs. strong. If there is one lesson to take from them, it is that.

We should not purge the party leadership ranks of those who differ on policy nuances, we should rid them of the flaccid, indecisive and clueless.

Some of the very strongest Dem voices, some of the best suited to this moment are progressives--like AOC and Jasmine Crockett and Jamie Raskin and Joe Neguse and Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. And some are more centrist and many are out in the states.

JB Pritzker and Gretchen Whitmer and Wes Moore and Michelle Wu (the Boston mayor who was great this week in Hill testimony) are part of that cadre. (Don't be upset if I didn't name your favorite.) My point is that key question we must ask to guide how we weed people out, where we decide to primary, who we choose to back and work to support must be “can they win, can they help defeat Trump and MAGA and save the country?”

This may sound elementary. But it's clearly not. Tuesday night's display of inert leaders and pink dresses and tiny signs was not only ineffective against Trump, it was a warning sign that we need to change the Democratic Party now. Because if we do not two things will certainly happen. Trump and Musk will continue to wreak havoc and destruction, undercutting American strength and causing immense suffering in all of our communities. And the Democratic Party as we have known it will be done. Which frankly, if it cannot change, is just what should happen.