By Sandra Storey / Special to the Gazette
When folksy comedian Will Rogers said, “I’m not a member of any organized political party… I’m a Democrat,” in 1935, it was funny.
It isn’t now, though Democrats started holding rallies in red states earlier this month.
According to a CNN poll taken around the same time, the Democratic Party has only a 29 percent favorability rating among the American people, compared to the Republicans at 36 percent. A rift opened up among Democrats when Senate leader Chuck Schumer and nine others voted to approve the Republican spending bill rather than see a government shut-down that would have included federal courts hearing cases against Trump’s orders.
When things are not going well for the Democratic Party, they are probably not going well in Jamaica Plain, because the neighborhood is largely Democratic and votes overwhelming that way, including in national elections. So does the rest of Boston and Massachusetts for that matter.
Most important, people here have strong attachment to the United States’ history of freedom from rulers and support a constitution that spells out anti-authoritarianism and accountability in multiple ways.
Plenty has been written and said by pundits and ordinary people since November about how Democrats should change regarding identity groups and the usual list of issues. What actually needs to be improved, according to my observations, is the Democratic Party’s basic competence at conducting skillful political party business and understanding its role in defending our democracy as it is faced with an existential crisis. Until it recognizes its proper role as a coordinator and communicator for the American people, it can’t recover its good standing of decades ago.
Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has issued at least 319 edicts, 89 of which were executive orders that have gone through the process of being officially recorded in the federal register.
A lot are labelled “remarks” and “presidential actions.” And remaining lists contain what are called ‘fact sheets,” “briefs and statements” and some writings called “articles,” which are more like press releases. They are all on the White House website and read like royal proclamations.
In addition, the site lists “administrative priorities.” Trump also adds additional swipes of commands and threats to his Truth Social account and in interviews almost daily. It’s overwhelming.
Most of his dictates attempt to usurp the powers given to Congress by the Constitution to create and disband agencies and to make and repeal laws, not to mention trying to manage individual agencies and make sweeping policy and funding changes.
The American Civil Liberties Union has said that most of Trump’s commands are “unlawful,” and courts have agreed when lawsuits were brought against many orders.
The Trump regime claims his nonexistent “landslide” presidential win (with less than 50 percent of the vote) gives him the right to do that. Even if he won big, he wouldn’t have the right, of course, according to our Constitution and laws.
Some organizations, institutions officials and individuals have employed attorneys to take some of his edicts to courts around the country, thank goodness. Many of Trump’s power-grabbing orders have gotten frozen or even overturned by judges.
Unfortunately, no one, including the Democratic Party, appears to be keeping track of all of it for us. And Trump is playing around with following/not following judicial orders, mostly by filing lots of motions and appeals, his usual tactics, to slow things down.
People have demonstrated in the hundreds against many of his orders around the country.
Except for the lawsuits, some demonstrations and speeches by elected Democrats are about all that’s been done to battle the chaotic, daily onslaught of unreasonable commands from the chief executive, his lieutenant billionaire Elon Musk and his minions.
So where is the Democratic National Party when it comes to defending the country from a president who has already called himself “king?”
It’s been almost wholly focused on two special congressional elections in Florida. More on that Quixotic adventure below…
Meanwhile, here’s what national Democratic leadership needs to start doing:
1) Starting the day after November’s election, at the latest, Democrats needed to draft the democracy answer to the Republican’s Project 2025 (aka Agenda 45 now). Democrats need to not only fight Trump’s bad ideas and actions one by one. Before that, (or as soon as possible, since they missed the natural starting point) they also need to help the country get a grip on the unlawful chaos the Trump regime is letting lose now and probably will continue for the next four years.
It’s the responsibility of the party is to gather useful information about what Trump is up to on a public website. They need to compile and track the Trump regime’s orders and actions, along with actions taken by Team Democracy, noting results and possible future actions.
Resources and volunteers to maintain the website would be relatively easy to come by. I bet there’s a brilliant undergrad or grad student or two to track and monitor each one of Project 2025’s and Trump’s bad ideas, what’s wrong with each and what’s being done, updated daily—working with professional project oversight.
So far, no media outlet or institution that I can find is publicizing close to all the awful edicts Trump has made along with helpful information. No one has emerged to say they are checking to see that all of the unlawful acts get needed action.
It’s not even clear if the White House is continuing to record all of the wannabe dictator’s pronouncements on its own site. The 319 total there hasn’t changed for a month, while new orders have been announced.
Democrats have to keep watch and keep up, if this country is going to save our rights and our Constitution from Trump today and in coming years.
The words “scattershot” and “haphazard” have been used more than once both to describe how Trump is attacking our freedoms so quickly and frequently. They also describe how Democrats are reacting. Media are responding in the same hit-or-miss way. Democratic leaders need to portraying and describe the fight against the big authoritarian picture.
People directly and immediately affected by Trump’s reign also need help, and Democrats must care about that and them.
Will Rogers’ disorganized party needs to get the necessary information about the enemy’s actions organized. The public, officials and even the media need to be able to easily find out what’s going on with our government every day, so they can deal responsibly with it. Actions being taken and planned need to be communicated and shared. What ever happened to the 1960s and 70s slogan: “Information is Power.” People need to be informed by Democrats in an orderly way of what is going on.
2) The Democratic Party needs to completely revamp its strategic marketing in quantity, quality, content and variety with the help of outside consultants. Having young people in leadership roles has not moved the DNC out of awkward, old-school ways. The age of candidates themselves is one thing. But there is no excuse for practicing old, stumbling marketing devices from the 1950s.
Putting multi-colored, fuzzy, limited bold messages in hundreds of emails saying the same little things about a few local elections to an email list—including promises that donations will fix everything— is not a correct, modern, effective way to win hearts and minds—or elections. The DNC website could have been made by a grade school class.
3) A Glimmer of Hope! Just as I finished writing this column, I read good news. The Democratic Party began to engage in a creative public education effort about what’s going on. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some other congresspeople took it on themselves to hold town meetings in red districts where elected Republicans may not want to face complaints from constituents. Now the DNC has decided to hold meetings with constituents in Republican-held districts in all 50 states, starting with nine.
A rally in Arizona on March 20 sponsored by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez drew 15,000 people, the largest political rally in Arizona’s history. Democrats sent what appeared to be their first emails requesting donations to support more rallies afterward this past week.
April Fools Day, 2025 will be significant. The Democratic Party put most of its focus, time, money, resources, even its battle to save democracy in the small baskets of two races for congress in very red districts in Florida this year.
If the Republicans win the two open districts that day after all this hype, the Democrats’ efforts against Trump’s attempted rule will have been a giant waste and a terrible distraction from the real, direct fight for democracy against the Trump regime. If one does, good, but no majority this year.
If both Democrats win, one more Democrat will have to win a yet-to-be-scheduled special election in New York to gain a simple House majority. Trump will also have to start asking the House to sponsor and vote on his commands, which he hasn’t so far, for the votes to make much difference to our democracy’s survival. The Democratic efforts will just be a lightly smaller waste and distraction from the fight to preserve our democracy now in that case.
The hope now is that fundamental pressure from the grassroots will push more of the local, state and national Democratic leadership to step into their proper coordinating and communicating roles for the sake of this country. We’ll know there’s hope as soon as we get donation requests and information from the DNC to support a total campaign against Trump’s autocratic ideas, plans and actions.