Democrats: Part of the Problem? Their Passivity Certainly Is...

Some thoughts on the State of the Union 2025...

Listen, you didn’t have to “sit like a horrorshow cooperative malchik in the chair of torture, while they flashed nasty bits of ultraviolence on the screen” to know that Donald Trump’s 2025 State of the Union was just another act of puffery and lies. I didn’t watch it because I already knew the transcript: “Blah blah bullying blah blah bragging blah blah bullshit…” for one hour, forty minutes. Trump talked and talked and talked but didn’t say anything of meaning. Rather, he needled and poked and tried to make his Democratic enemies upset, while prompting standing ovations from Republicans every time he praised himself, smug bastards JD Vance and Mike Johnson looking over his shoulders.

The unofficial Democratic response occurred four minutes into Trump’s speech. Rep. Al Green, prompted by Trump’s lying boast that he received a “mandate” larger than large, stood up, shook his cane at Trump, and corrected the president. House Speaker Mike Johnson then ordered Green thrown out of the chambers. (On Thursday, the House voted to censure Green, with ten votes to censure coming from Democrats.)

Green was joined in his dissent by a handful of Democrats who held up signs which had stock replies to Trump statements (Not True, No King, etc.) and a small group of female lawmakers who wore pink to protest. As feeble as Green’s cohorts’ protests were, they were not what Democratic leadership wanted. From MSN,

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team had a highly scripted plan for how the party’s reaction would go. Party leaders urged rank-and-file members to show restraint and not mount a high-profile protest. Members were told no signs, no props and no attention-grabbing stunts that could be seized upon by the GOP.

So, according to Jeffries and his lieutenants, Democrats were supposed to stay quiet while Trump lied, bullied, slandered, and misled so that Trump and Republicans wouldn’t say bad things about Democrats lest they grow a fucking spine. Oh well, perhaps Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin would deliver a rabble-rousing Democratic reply…or something.

Trump done droning, Slotkin took the mic. Here’s what I heard:

Slotkin promises not to speak as long as Trump did. She served in the CIA and is ex-military. She believes in patriotism and that people in working class towns work hard and play by the rules, a value shared by her Republican father and Democratic mother.

Slotkin believes that the 2024 election shows that Americans want change. We want change because we are middle class and aspire to fulfill the “American Dream.” To do that, we need more union-made goods manufactured in the U.S., to give the business community “certainty,” and to create a fairer tax system.

Trump, Slotkin says, is giving things to his billionaire buddies while prices and the national debt rise, things that could lead to a recession. He is also coming after Social Security, Medicare, and VA benefits, using Elon Musk and his teenagers, who are "mindlessly firing" people and looking at your data.

Slotkin notes that while border security is important, we are a “nation of immigrants” who live in an “interconnected world.” While Trump talks “Peace through strength” – a line, says Slotkin, stolen from Reagan, who we should thank for ending the Cold War -"he doesn’t believe we are an exceptional nation. He clearly doesn’t think we should lead the world."

She reminds us that “We are a nation of strivers. Risk-takers. Innovators. And we are never satisfied. That is America’s superpower.” She continues, “As much as we need to make our government more responsive to our lives today, don’t for one moment fool yourself that democracy isn’t precious and worth saving.”

So, what do we do? According to Slotkin, three things: Don’t tune out, hold elected official accountable, and organize/join a group. She adds that “some of the most important movements in our history have come from the bottom up…But every single time, we’ve only gotten through those moments because of two things: Engaged citizens and principled leaders.”

And that was that.

To recap, Slotkin told us a lot about Trump that we already know, some stuff that is painfully obvious. I am sure that she did this for the sake of the casual political observer, the person who checks in a month or so before a presidential election and who definitely is not going to sit through an hour, forty minutes of Trump to listen to an official reply by a back-bencher that they never heard of.

After a wee bit of very placid “scare mongering,” Slotkin hacks through a string of very familiar cliches, cliches that failed to stick when President Joe Biden spoke them: Americans want change, middle class nation, American Dream, border security, nation of immigrants, nation of strivers, risk-takers, etc. I’m surprised that she didn’t burst into “There’s nothing America can’t do once we put our mind to it” or “Four score and seven years ago…” or “Nothing to fear but fear itself,” though that FDR nugget is pretty good advice to Jeffries and Democratic leadership.

She also promoted American Exceptionalism and the Reagan myth.

As for Slotkin’s fey defense of Democracy and her three solutions, there’s really nothing to disagree with other than how small and passive her fixes. Yes, don’t tune out, worthless advice to anyone watching the Democratic reply to a State of the Union address. Yes, hold elected officials accountable, whatever that means. Yes, organize, though you might have to join a group. Eww strangers…

I mostly agree that “some of the most important movements in our history have come from the bottom up…But every single time, we’ve only gotten through those moments because of two things: Engaged citizens and principled leaders.” However, I have two amendments:

Aside from engaging in genocide, instituting slavery, waging war, and throwing our people in concentration camps, all of the “important moments in our history have come from the bottom-up.”

Also, we certainly have gotten through “those moments” thanks to engaged citizens, but very rarely has change come through “principled leadership.” As I’ve written many times before, our “leaders” act when we force them to act, which only happens when we go Rep. Al Green on them.

So, yeah, stay tuned in, organize, and hold elected officials accountable…and start with Democrats, all of them from city officials to mayors to state legislators to governors to congress members to party leadership. Get in their fucking grills and force them to morph from feeble, ineffective obstacles like Hakem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, and Elissa Slotkin to Al Green, Chris Murphy, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

Republicans should not be the only ones afraid to appear at town halls. Democrats who refuse to directly engage with Trump and the GOP must quake when they hear our voices. They will not do what we need them to do otherwise. That is not just a Trump era thing. That is the way things work and have always worked.

We only got the Civil Rights Act of 1965 because the people forced it on the politicians, who were so damn scared of us and the unrest we’d create (and were fostering) that they did what we wanted. On the other hand, only one member of Congress – the great Barbara Lee – voted “no” on Bush II’s War on Terror, and that is because no one was pressuring other lawmakers to stand with her (thanks to the freshness of 9/11).

When we are quiet, they are quiet. When we are loud, they get louder. When we are in their faces, they act. Fuck “principled leaders.” We need principled followers, principled representatives who will do what we need them to do. But that only happens if the Democrats fear us the way Republican electeds fear Trump supporters and MAGA activists, and the way Obama-era Republicans feared the Tea Party.

So, it starts with us, right here, right now, first with a phone call to your Democratic rep, asking them what they are doing to oppose Trump, Musk, and the GOP. And if they do not have a good, concrete, non-passive answer, one that is more than them (or their colleagues) introducing legislation, filing objections, supporting lawsuits, and, god help us, “working across the aisle,” the answer should be a polite “Sorry, not enough,” a reply that must be pressed hard and often until they start to move.

And, if they don’t move, its time to visit their offices and engage in non-violent protest. If that doesn’t work, fuck it, spray paint FUCKING DO SOMETHING on their office door and resort to civil disobedience. Either that will move them to support us with action or it will reveal them as collaborators. Harsh? No. That is exactly what every “engaged citizen” from Crispus Attucks to Tom Paine to Harriet Tubman to Frederick Douglas to Elizabeth Cady Stanton to the Atlanta washerwomen to Emma Goldman to Eugene Debs to A. Philip Randolph to Martin Luther King to Malcolm X to Cesar Chavez to Mario Savio to Angela Davis to ACT-UP has done. That is how change is made.