As the Trump conflagration continues to broaden and swallow up American democracy and institutions that most of us have known our entire lives, it is still amazing to me where most of the Democrats have disappeared to. One would think, given that every single day brings a new outrageous attack on the U.S. Constitution, more Democrats would be calling for all “hands on deck” and formulating a plan to figuratively ‘storm the Bastille’ and stop this brazen realignment with Russia. I get plenty of emails asking for money to help the cause but I see little information about what exactly the game plan is.
As I have said before, to quote Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there are no rules in a knife fight, and we are in a frigging knife fight. The Marquess of Queensbury rules for a boxing match are great if both opponents agree to abide by them. But this is not politics as usual. Trump and the Republicans do not want a fair fight and the Democrats need to understand that very quickly or we will all be laying on the canvas bleeding, bruised and unable to fight back.
First of all, it is my belief the Democrats need to stop playing defense and aggressively go on offense. I know I will be very unpopular for saying this, but I believe Trump and the Republicans are just baiting the Democrats with all the ‘anti woke’ stuff. I want to make it perfectly clear that I fully support the LGBTQ community. I fully support a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion or not. I believe in DEI and know that climate change is real. That said, the Democrats will not will in 2026 by fighting those battles. And they won’t win in 2026 by harping on what evil people Trump, Vance, Musk and all the other toadies are.
In my opinion the Democrats must 1) put out a plan about what they will do and how it will help people and 2) they need to ensure the 2026 mid-term elections actually take place. The Democrats lost, in part, in 2024 because their message regarding how their plan would help America did not get through. There was way too much emphasis on Trump. Many people know he’s a jackass and an evil person and they voted for him anyway. Focusing on Trump just gives him more free press. There is the old saying, “Never wrestle with a pig because the pig likes it and you just get dirty.” The Democrats need to stop wrestling with pigs. People will figure that out all by themselves.
No doubt some might be confused by my statement, “they need to ensure the 2026 mid-term elections actually take place.” This is exactly what I meant when I said we are in a knife fight. The Democrats (and all of us) can not just assume the mid-term elections will take place like they always do. The Democrats would be well served to set up a task force of the best legal and creative minds they can find and start asking themselves questions about how Trump and the Republicans could disrupt, cancel, or otherwise rig the midterm elections. They need to develop strategies NOW to counter that.
The Democrats cannot assume that anything that has normally taken place in the past will happen in 2026. Focusing on winning mid-term elections without also focusing on making sure the elections happen at all, will prove to be a huge and costly mistake. Elections in every authoritarian regime around the world are rigged one way or another. Think it can’t happen here? You’d better think again. No one ever believed we’d have a convicted felon in the White House. No one ever believed the U.S foreign policy would realign itself with Russia. But here we are. The Democrats need to take the gloves off and get into this fight.
