I. Abraham Lincoln is best remembered, of course, for winning the Civil War. That epic event, however, has obscured another enduring success of our greatest president — the first progressive income tax to help finance public works essential to a growing economy.
So it’s odd that the self-proclaimed Party of Lincoln is now run by two billionaires who always overstate the costs of federal action while ignoring its benefits hoping that enough voters will credulously swallow their slogans about the “Deep State.”
But America’s regulated economy and social safety net didn’t just materialize after an invasion of socialists from Mars. That took generations of struggle by ordinary citizens who didn’t think that monopolies, pollution, bank fraud, stock fraud, racial bias, extreme economic inequality and unsafe products and workplaces had to be the price of progress.
Yet a century later, Donald Trump and Elon Musk keep insisting that we take our country back to the absurd level of “waste, fraud and abuse” of that robber baron era. Despite their attempt at reverse Darwinism, Democrats appear stuck on reacting one by one to waves of disinformation rather than — since their whole-is-greater-than-the-sum -of-its-parts — reframing the narrative to get back on offense.
The Trump-Musk theory-of-the-case is essentially Private Sector Good/Public Sector Bad. Our economic history, however, is built on competition and regulation as two sides of the same coin of capitalism, because markets without rules is piracy. So the tragic 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire over time led to the creation of the Wagner Act, NLRB and OSHA; pregnant women delivering tens of thousands of of thalidomide babies spurred passage of the 1962 Drug Safety Act; and 50,000 annual car deaths enabled Ralph Nader to persuade Congress to create the 1966 auto safety agency that, over the next 60 years, avoided an estimated 4.2 million deaths.
These and other life-saving laws happened once people understood that it was better to locate guardrails at the top of a cliff than ambulances below — that a Rule of Law was preferable to the law of the jungle.
Hard to imagine that Americans would now agree that corporate oligarchs in the 19th century should be our model for the 21st, no matter how often “Baghdad Bob” Trump insists that a new “Golden Age” is around the corner.
II. A Republican Party yearning for the glory days of spoiled meat, child labor and exploding Corvairs began anew in 1971 with Virginia corporate lawyer Lewis Powell. His influential memorandum entitled “An Attack on the Free Enterprise System” sounded an alarm to Chambers of Commerce to organize a multifaceted propaganda campaign — involving the media, textbooks, foundations, universities, courts, elections — against perceived enemies of America, Inc.
The Powell memo was shrewdly adopted by President Ronald Reagan evangelizing against “Big Government” since that term was obviously more persuasive than candidly cheering for dirty air and killer cars. Now President Trump has picked up that flag and waved around fake examples of over-regulation and silly spending (trans-mice?).
What’s beyond ironic is that, although there’s zero evidence that, say, Joe Biden “weaponized” the law, Trump’s irrepressible corruption, chaos, lawlessness, lies, and gaslighting are too voluminous to chronicle here. But they’re evident in news stories daily.
Allow just four examples out of hundreds that show he’s not remotely on-the-level: he repeatedly argues that the Jan. 6 insurrection was a “day of love”; fires lawyers who prosecuted him; flirts with disobeying court orders; and grotesquely exaggerates antisemitism on some campuses to justify a federal takeover by the small-government party. To quote John McEnroe, “You Cannot Be Serious!”
Yet he’s occasionally prevailing by using a divide and conquer tactic based on his blunt leverage of trillions in federal spending and contracting, a trade war and credible threats to prosecute opponents or coax vigilante violence.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski last week confirmed that her colleagues were “all afraid” of #47, who had earlier admitted to Bob Woodward that he indeed governed based on “fear.” Author M. Gessen says this adds up to a “police state” — and renowned Prof. Laurence Tribe concludes that “Trump has waged war against the United States which is a form of treason.”
What’s alarming is that so many voters and leaders are not more alarmed by his catch-me-if-you-can extortion.
III. Yet somehow the Democratic Party — with far more popular policies in fact — appears to be losing today’s rhetorical war-of-the-words between devotees of Lewis Powell and those of Louis Brandeis.
Smart allies like Mark Cuban and James Carville doubt that Democrats can polemically succeed against loud Trumpists or should even try. They argue that Democrats should best play dead and wait it out.
In the arena of debate, however, you’re either on offense or on-the-ropes. Being satisfied spectators of the battle for public opinion risks losing the larger war over what we should expect from federal health/safety protections. It brings to mind Churchill’s admonition after the Dunkirk retreat that “wars are not won by evacuations.”
The frustrating truth is that there’s now no easy formula to retake Congress and the national narrative from Trump. One baby step would be to at least remind the mainstream media that, while losing the presidency by 1.4% is significant, it is neither a landslide nor mandate for revanchist policies.
Over time, a Democratic Party will need a three-pronged counter-attack to reverse Trumpers’ unprecedented blitzkrieg to the worst of two worlds — oligarchy and fascism.
Facts about Impacts.
Team Trump’s erratic game of Russian roulette over tariffs, vaccines and Ukraine are only the most dangerous examples of their unpatriotic incompetence. Swing voters won’t easily shrug off other coming distractions:
More plane crashes due to steep cuts at the FAA…inflation returns and unemployment rises as America possibly enters a “lost decade” economically….measles and bird flu infect their own child due to decimated public health agencies…air and water become re-polluted since the EPA has announced its top goal is “to lower prices”…taxpayers won’t receive timely and expected refunds or retirees their Social Security checks…immigrants and critics worry that they too might be rendered to a foreign prison without due process… and that’s just the short list.
For the GOP faithful, “owning the libs” probably sounded better than that. The emerging big question is whether lower-income red state voters who benefit the most from federal actions will connect-the-dots between Trump’s chesty predictions and their own eroding living standards.
Sincere Indignation Works.
For too long, Democratic leaders have pulled their polemical punches, seemingly afraid of losing someone’s vote somewhere or offending the Beltway ideal of staying safely within the cocoon of Reagan-O’Neill bipartisanship. Think of Sen. Chris Coons’ every public condemnation over the past decade about Trump (remember any?).
But cautious rather than dynamic language is a proven loser in our “Attention Economy,” as authors Chris Hayes and Ezra Klein have called it, especially when Trump routinely labels opponents “scum, sick, socialists, communists, fascists.” Gov. JB Pritzker, for a leading example, suggested a contrary approach to his party. “The only way to stop a bully is to punch him in the nose.”
Several leading Democrats are indeed now engaging in more polemical pugilism. Beyond the recent Bernie Sanders-AOC “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour drawing hundreds of thousands, this growing cadre includes Reps. Jamie Raskin, Eric Swalwell, Jasmine Crockett as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Chris Van Hollen and Cory Booker. The latter’s tour de force earlier this month came as close as anyone has to a Joseph Welch moment defenestrating Donald McCarthy.
What’s Next?
Former House Speaker Sam Rayburn put it best: “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”
Will Democrats be “good carpenters” with an aspirational agenda by the coming elections? Since their declared top policy goal is to reduce inflation and steep economic unfairness to boost working Americans, there’s already some low-hanging fruit. Two examples: Democrats want to raise the minimum wage now frozen at $7.25 an hour for the past 25 years so workers can afford to live on their earnings — the GOP doesn’t. Democrats want to extend the Child Care Tax Credit to reduce the number of children in poverty by half — the GOP doesn’t.
But since we’re merely three months into a new presidential term, the fact is that “big new ideas” and a comprehensive Democratic Blueprint will only slowly emerge over months from the collective efforts of thousands of electeds, citizens, civic groups, town halls, scholars and and from millions protesting on and after Indivisible’s “Hands Off” and “No Kings” rallies.
So while the big book on Trumpism is now being written day-by-day, the good news is that the final chapter of a New Patriotism hasn’t yet been drafted.
IV. One trend-line appears ominous.
Unless someone or something stops him, Trump appears likely to just keep quadrupling-down until he defiantly rejects a Supreme Court decision, prosecutes “enemies of the state” or deports them without due process; and tries to get rid of the two-century Marbury v. Madison decision that established judicial review of laws, the Miranda warning, the Sullivan rule, Medicaid, and broadcast licenses of critics. Defense Secretary Mark Esper refused his request in 2020 to shoot George Floyd demonstrators. Would Pete Hegseth?
Frightening and plausible? Yes. But as Norman Cousins sagely observed in the 1950s, “no one’s smart enough to be a pessimist.” For there’s a very different future also on the horizon.
Might a combination of an economy in “cardiac arrest,” massive and continuing street protests, a president with the lowest (and falling fast) favorable polls at this point in the past century, a growing disgust at a chain-sawing, Nazi-saluting character out of “A Clockwork Orange,” a Cabinet of inexperienced billionaires and Fox hosts committing unforced blunders like Signalgate and a judicial process that keeps blocking dangerous Executive Orders…create a 1974-level backlash in the coming two national elections that realigns our politics?
Pre-Kool-Aid, Lindsey Graham saw this coming in 2016 when he warned that “if we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…and deserve it.”
This final chapter will not depend on the traditional political contest of Left-Right that framed earlier eras but rather a more fundamental question — whose side are you on and will you enlist? All eligible voters — including the 70 million who didn’t show up in 2024 — will now get to choose either of two very different theories-of-the-case in 2026 and 2028 — between the values of billionaire bullies or average families; laissez-faire or moral capitalism; Rule of Law or One-Man Rule; corporate pirates boarding our ships of state to sell off public assets…or an Economy-for-All? Going back-to-our-future or looking-up?
It’s 90 days down — only 1,371 to go.
Green was the first public advocate for New York City and is the author of a couple dozen books on policy and politics, including (with Ralph Nader) “Wrecking America.” mark green | Substack
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