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Opposing, resisting, and fact-checking Donald Trump is going to be an arduous task over the next four years. But if we — those who oppose Trump — are to succeed in ultimately defeating Trumpism and whatever follows him as “Trump 2.0,” we need a unified opposition.
Let’s face it, Democrats have failed miserably in countering Trump’s lies and bluster, and the public desperately needs a concerted and unified effort to take him on with a consistent and daily barrage of messaging. As Ezra Klein recently said in the New York Times, Democrats are losing the war for attention. Badly.
Which is why I favor a new approach to countering MAGA and in making clear what the majority of us favor in government: a government for and by the people. I favor the creation of a shadow opposition cabinet. U.
S. Rep. Wiley Nickel, a Democrat from North Carolina, first proposed such an idea shortly after the election of Trump in November.
At the time, I saw it as an intriguing idea. But since then, the concept has also drawn the strong support from the likes of Timothy Snyder. Snyder is the Yale University historian who wrote “On Tyranny,” a book that offers lessons for protecting democracy against the threats of 20th century totalitarianism, or, namely Trump fascism.
Here’s my summary of how such a cabinet could work. In Britain and in Canada and in other parliamentarian democracies, the opposition party has a shadow cabinet with cabinet members appointed with expertise in relevant portfolios and who can and will comment to the press. Could it work here? Nickel says it absolutely could.
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Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess “First of all, this is something we can do, this is something that definitely can happen, and they’ve been doing it for over 100 years in the U.K.,” Nickel has said.
“It’s about saying what we’re for and putting our best messengers out there to go toe to toe,” said Nickel during an interview on CNN. “You know, they put Elise Stefanik at the U.N.
We should have someone going one-on-one with her, talking about what we would do better and why the choices they make are wrong.” It’s a brilliant idea because we desperately need a critical response team, starting now, to address every one of Trump’s lies or challenges to our Constitution and to speak truth to power with Trump’s cabinet of inexperienced sycophants and multibillionaires. Starting now, the Democrats should develop an immediate list of people who comprise this shadow government — a list of policy wonks whose job it is to talk to the news media every single day about what the Republican majority is doing.
Imagine Sen. Adam Schiff of California as our shadow attorney general, or New York Rep. Gregory Meeks as secretary of state, or Colorado Sen.
Michael Bennet as treasury secretary. One concrete example, Nickel has described, is if Trump works to eliminate the Education Department. The shadow cabinet, he said, could have Connecticut Rep.
Jahana Hayes, a former teacher of the year, out on the media circuit as the shadow education secretary to loudly defend it. Snyder suggests that such a cabinet in the United States, should, for brand management, be more correctly labeled as the “People’s Cabinet,” because it represents the people’s interests, not those, he says, of the oligarchs who have prominently positioned themselves with Trump. A People’s Cabinet, he says, would give positive alternatives to Trump’s negative messages, whether it be attacks on immigrants or on trans people or doing away with reproductive rights for women.
It would be a way to give the public a sense of what a positive America could look like as opposed to more Trump hate-mongering and negative rhetoric. As Snyder has mentioned, it would also give the public a focal point — a unified opposition to consistently remind the public that there are other rational approaches to how government can be run, and that there are good and decent people who can present real plans that will make a real difference in the lives of Americans. With a Trump second term unimpeded by the Supreme Court, Trump is running his administration like he has the absolute powers of a dictator.
A People’s Cabinet, in my mind, is therefore necessary if “We the People,” are able to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I have already written Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and Rep.
Jim McGovern to endorse this idea, and all three, in my mind, could and should be named to such a cabinet: Warren as an expert on banking and consumer protection; Markey on climate change and energy policy, and McGovern on hunger and food insecurity. With the inauguration of Donald Trump, we in opposition to his leadership need hope right now. As Professor Snyder notes: Trump’s cabinet will be full of billionaires.
A People’s Cabinet would be a reminder that we need not be ruled by the billionaire class and corrupt oligarchs. John Paradis is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. He is a member of VoteVets, a home for progressive veterans, military families and their civilian supporters.
He lives in Florence..
