Should the Democrats Play Dead?
Not if they want to avoid the infamy that will follow from standing by passively while marauders assault American democracy and sell the parts for scrap.
I’ve been waiting for the right occasion to write something about the Democrats in what is still the opening weeks of the second Trump administration. It hasn’t come until now for a couple of reasons.
First, because Trump 2.0 has been such an overwhelming storm of destructiveness and constitutionally dubious power grabs that until this week it’s felt irresponsible to focus on anything other than the harm the right is doing, and gearing up to do, to the country.
Second, because the Democrats have been so utterly inert it’s frankly been hard to come up with anything to say about them one way or the other. Whether or not Trump and his henchmen succeed in turning the United States into a competitive-authoritarian system, it’s definitely felt like a one-party state since January 20.
It seems fitting, then, that I’ve finally been inspired to say something about the opposition party by one of its leading members literally advising them to do … nothing.
No, I’m not making this up. James Carville, the political consultant who helped to elevate New Democrat Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992, published a Guest Essay in the New York Times earlier this week with the following thesis:
With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead.
That’s right: A leading Democrat, whom I’ve long admired, thinks the wisest and “most daring” move in a democracy enduring an assault on the separation of powers, the transformation of federal law enforcement into the president’s personal goon squad, and the shredding of our international alliances is for the opposition party to go silent and pretend to be deceased in the hope that the aspiring dictator self-destructs all on his own.
After decades of observing politics, this has to rank as one of most pathetic things I’ve ever heard.
A Proclamation of Political Impotence and Superfluousness
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