As we begin a new week in Trump’s fantasy empire, your guess is as good as mine as to what proclamations will be made in the week ahead, assuming he survives. What we can be sure of, though, is that none of them will be for the benefit of everyday Americans.
As we have seen time and again, outrage is often replaced by anger, which in turn is replaced by irritation, which is eventually replaced by resignation. The thought of the military roaming US cities, even a decade ago, was unthinkable, yet now, it is grudgingly seen as an inevitable norm. So much is now the norm that nobody is surprised by what Trump does next. He has normalised the lie, his attacks on corporate media, and even the courts and the rule of law. We are no longer surprised by the abduction of people from the streets and summary detention.
His ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach to questionable acts of brutality is now normal, as is the deportation of the undocumented without criminal records to dangerous foreign states. Stephen Miller is persistently creating a dangerous false narrative designed to ask the American people, ‘Are you with us or against us? ’ On Fox Entertainment, he advocated for the criminalisation of the opposition as he described Chicago as a “killing field” and went on to state, “The Democrat party is not a political party, it is a domestic extremist organisation”, suggesting they were dedicated, “exclusively to the defence of hardened criminals, gangbangers and illegal alien killers and terrorists”
It’s not difficult to see precisely where this narrative is leading. The objective is to criminalise the opposition by insinuation, because in the minds of millions, Miller’s words are accepted as the truth, and they are all reinforced by Trump’s constant reference to anyone opposing him being scum, sick, nasty and the enemy of the people. This is a carefully constructed narrative to which they want to add the abolition of mail-in voting and nationwide voter ID. There has never been a better blueprint for election interference and voter suppression, and that’s precisely where this is going.
What concerns me most is the Democratic leadership's inability to read the room. It is clear to me that they believe that Trump is so underwater with the public that they can sit back and wait for him to set himself on fire and stroll in to pick up the pieces. This is a position reinforced by recent state special elections, which have seen Democratic swings of up to 20 points in what were previously considered safe deep-red seats. They don’t believe that they have to win by delivering a vision for America; they feel that they just need to wait for Trump to self-destruct.
I can’t tell you how much this breaks my heart. It’s clear that they believe the next election will be won based on affordability. If only they had considered that when they told voters in 2024 that the economy was booming, which may have been the case for the upper-middle class whose votes they were chasing. The problem was that the working class was unable to feed their kids, so in desperation, they turned to a lying convicted felon who was promising to make their groceries affordable again.
The complacency the Democratic leadership feels right now as a result of Republican lawmakers facing a massive backlash in their constituencies is leading them to make statements about seeing similarities to 2018. It makes me want to scream. To be clear, if free and fair midterm elections do take place, and there is no guarantee that this will happen, I am reasonably confident that Democrats will, at the very least, take back the House, if not the Senate as well. The burning question will be, will they win it or will Trump lose it, assuming he’s not in receipt of a gold-plated state funeral before he gets the chance.
While the outcome is the same, Republicans lose, but it’s how they lose. Will voters vote for a vision and the promise of a better tomorrow, or just vote against the other guy because they hate what he did? There’s a big difference, because a vision requires promises and commitments to fight the oligarchy and make them pay their fair share. I hate to say it, but the current Democratic leadership would rather Trump lose and they had to promise nothing because the dark money will have just shifted sides. The same old, same old will prevail as too many Democratic lawmakers fill their pockets in return for worshipping at the altar of the special interests who bought them their seats.
Call me an old cynic if you prefer, but I’ll guarantee that if we circle back after the election, sure, the fight will be on to secure voting rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. However, actual transformational change in terms of healthcare as a right, a living wage, and paid family leave will return to aspirational goals that are never to be realised. It’s the price of doing business in Washington with the current Democratic leadership. So, the choice will be between tyranny and a return to the same old, same old politics. Voters will have little choice but to vote for the lesser of two evils at a time when the American people are screaming for meaningful change.
My friends, I am not hating on Democrats, there is nothing I want more than for them to win big, but the evident lack of ambition and vision will represent the most significant missed opportunity in history to return the soul, the respect, the moral decency and societal ambition a now broken America deserves. The damage that Trump has and will continue to do will, in some cases, take a generation to repair. I fear that a new Democratic administration will inherit an economic wasteland so bad that voters may punish it for not having recovered the economy within the first two years. The reality is that you can’t inspire hope and foster the buy-in of impatient American voters with a lack of ambition. To regain trust, you have to encourage the belief that you can deliver. I see no sign of that.
There will need to be a frank disclosure of the state of the economy and what it will take to deliver a recovery. You can only do this if you are serving the people and not special interests, and Democratic lawmakers will need to prove that to the people with EVERY piece of legislation that they pass. Sadly, I remain to be convinced that a Democratic administration can do this without exceptional leadership by a team of ‘People First Democrats’
We live in a society of instant gratification, and there will be no instant solution to the challenges that the next Democratic administration will face. Do they have the political talent to deliver? Absolutely, but it will require out-of-the-box thinking and a forward-looking agenda, along with bold and ambitious leadership, as well as a cabinet whose sole focus is on the prosperity and well-being of the American people, not their corporate donors. With the right proposition to the American people, Democrats could deliver a true landslide victory, which would facilitate actual transformative change and banish tyranny to the dustbin of history.
This is about fearless opposition from Democrats, who are on the offensive. The days of polite opposition are long gone. While Gavin Newsom would not be my choice, he has taken the kind of position that is required. He’s the only Democrat who has managed to get MAGA influencers to propagate his talking points through rage posting. This is something that has hitherto been limited to the right.
Winning big requires a whole new mindset, and my concern is that there is a lot of work to be done. In a report by Shane Goldmacher with Jonah Smith in the New York (which I have gifted here), Times dated August 20th, they note:
‘Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a lot.
That four-year swing toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole that could take years for Democrats to climb out from.’
The report goes on:
‘The stampede away from the Democratic Party is occurring in battleground states, the bluest states and the reddest states, too’
This is the same message I’m getting from trusted Democratic ground game operatives who are also seeing evidence of this across the country. The truth is that Republicans, with the help of the likes of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, have a fine-tuned voter registration machine that is leaving Democratic efforts in the dust.
I recommend that you read the full article I have linked, as it outlines a severe deficiency at the heart of what appears to be a broken voter registration system. At this point in the electoral cycle, this represents a serious problem that needs to be addressed yesterday.
People often ask me, “How do we win?” One thing is for sure: you don’t win with the current leadership. So that’s the starting point. I had high hopes for Hakeem Jeffries, but listening to the lame excuses for why he hasn't endorsed Zohran Mamdani was a telling moment for me, in which he lost all credibility for me. He’s not alone either, Chuck Schumer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Gov. Kathy Hochul are all paralysed with fear of the most people-focused candidate in the race. It speaks volumes about a visionless culture of self-preservation and a lack of social ambition. As an aside, I also find Jeffries’s oratory style intensely irritating. I don’t mind a pregnant pause or two, but when they become an epidemic and the pauses are often in the wrong place, it really diminishes the message.
While I know it’s early to pick a horse in this race to represent a vision for transformative change, I think it’s important to hear more from those who are looking to stand. At the moment, the activist base is rudderless because leadership is hiding in a corner, playing ‘risk aversion’. That is NOT what is required; the foot soldiers need a banner to rally behind and fearless leadership leading from the front.
I hope this piece demonstrates I am not here to bash the Democratic Party. I believe with every fibre of my being in the core values of the party, I’m just not sure that many current legislators share my enthusiasm, as they play their games of self-preservation. I do not hold Marxist or Communist values; I am a social Democrat who believes that only by integrating social responsibility into the capitalist model can society prosper while protecting the vulnerable.
America is more than capable of taking on the challenge of a better tomorrow, where no child goes to bed hungry and no family is left behind. An America where losing your job should not result in bankruptcy if you are ill. Where the minimum wage should be a living wage, and affordable childcare should be a given, along with paid family leave. These basics will not bankrupt America; they will make it more productive and better motivated.
Voters need to wake up to the fact that US tax dollars, which could be spent supporting the vulnerable, are currently being spent on corporate welfare subsidies to partly fund employee wages of companies, whose shareholders continue to receive ever-growing dividends. Neither should those dollars be subsidising big pharma and the fossil fuel industry. The truth is that hard-working Americans have become the piggy bank of the rich, and this needs to stop. That can’t happen without transformative change that only people-first Democrats can deliver.
There's an unfathomable disconnect at the moment between Dem leadership and Dem voters. A disconnect that we must extirpate if our country's gonna emerge from this chaos in one piece.
Jasmine Crockett and Greg Casar are my hope. Unfortunately, since Jasmine is a female/black the dumb will not take a look at her but she is GREAT leader! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 that people need to vote for these two Texas Leaders!