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SHOVE THE PRESIDENCY DOWN TRUMP’S THROAT  
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Jason Linkins
January 18, 2025
The New Republic
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_ Liberals spent the president-elect’s first term trying and
failing to kick him out of office. This time out, they need to turn
the White House into a prison. _

, Gage Skidmore

 

The most recent entry in the “good advice for Democrats” canon
comes from occasional TNR contributor and xxxxxx writer Jonathan V.
Last, who wrote
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“The job of the Democratic party comes in two parts. First: Do not
help Republicans. Not in any way. Second: Make Donald Trump own every
bad outcome that happens, anywhere in the world.” True enough. The
only problem here is the lack of an organized Democratic Party
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to actually serve as an aggressive opposition party. We could use one
of those!

Nevertheless, there is a lesson here for liberals that we should
perhaps heed while Democrats in Washington debate how supine they want
to get
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for the incoming administration. During Trump’s first term, much of
the mainstream left organized itself around the idea that “this was
not normal” and that surely our over-regarded system of norms would
save us from Trump. And so deep investments were made in various quick
fixes—an impeachment effort and the Mueller investigation chief
among them—that seemed to offer the hope of prematurely canceling
the Trump presidency, without much regard for how difficult it is to
actually oust a president (or for the decades of evidence suggesting
that our justice system routinely fails to hold the rich and powerful
to account, more broadly).

A second Trump era offers the opportunity for a change of course—a
second reckoning of sorts. I think that Last is on to something when
he suggests that Trump’s opposition should force him to “own every
bad outcome that happens, anywhere in the world.” I’d actually
take this a step further. Rather than exert so much energy trying to
thrust Trump out of the presidency, liberals would be well served to
spend their time thrusting the presidency upon Donald Trump. Instead
of searching for illusory quick fixes for the existence of the Trump
administration, start demanding the Trump administration fix
everything quickly.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the sample size of one
Trump presidency and his four years out of power, it’s that Trump is
a bog-standard rich white guy whom the justice system is largely
incapable of bringing to heel. He has powerful friends (oligarchs,
Supreme Court justices), deep pockets, and a well-tempered ability to
joust in the media. By now we’ve watched ol’ Donny “wriggle out
of this one”
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on multiple occasions; he seems to thrive if you put him at the center
of something he can deem to be a witch hunt—even when those hunters
bag their quarry, as prosecutors did in his hush-money case
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But Trump has historically faltered when he’s been forced to contend
with the actual pressure of the presidency
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and its myriad responsibilities (see also: the Covid-19 pandemic
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because his ideas are bad
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and he doesn’t have a deep and abiding interest
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in public service to really make a sustained effort to confront, let
alone solve, the biggest problems we face.

President Barack Obama found the presidency to be an exhaustingly
taxing job
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so much so that he famously went to somewhat mind-blowing lengths
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to limit the nonpresidential decisions he had to make in order to stay
keen enough to handle the toughest of the choices on his plate. Trump,
by contrast, mostly showed up late to work and watched cable news
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all day. Had the coronavirus not emerged as a global threat, he might
have made it through his first term having not felt the pressure of
the job at all. In his second term, it should be the task of liberals
to force Trump to swallow a daily spoonful of the very real job stress
that Obama struggled so mightily to endure.

To get there, liberals need to get into the business of identifying
the problems that real Americans face (which honestly, is something
they could stand to relearn how to do) and more forcefully blame Trump
for those problems’ continued existence. They need to raise a hue
and cry over everything under the sun that’s broken, dysfunctional,
or trending in the wrong direction; pile line items on Trump’s to-do
list, wake him up early and keep him up late. Every day, get in front
of cable news cameras and reporters’ notepads with a new problem for
Trump to solve and fresh complaints about the work not done.

What pitfalls lie ahead? It looks like there will be rough economic
headwinds in the form of a potential housing crisis
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and a labor shortage
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starters; another potential public health crisis looms in the form of
bird flu
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(and probably his own Health and Human Services secretary). There is a
real possibility of a market-slaying tech-bubble burst
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on the medium-term horizon as well. There will also be pitfalls that
arise from Trump’s own policies, beginning with the fact that his
mass deportation scheme will likely torch the domestic economy
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Beyond that, there will be the typical crises of American
life—economic predators, polluters, corporate scofflaws, and public
health concerns—that Trump has either shown no interest in helping
abate or has personally empowered via the decisions of his
plutocratic-minded Supreme Court appointments. Democrats should
already be planning to hang all the foreseeable albatrosses around his
neck, and gaming out how they’ll swiftly nail Trump to the wall for
the crises that catch him by surprise.

For certain, Democrats can be grateful if he actually makes good on
any of his “I alone can fix it” promises. (Or rather, they can
take credit for having goaded Trump to get off his ass and do his
job.) But as I’ve suggested before,
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in advice that Last echoes above, Trump should truly be left to solve
these problems on his own. He’s claimed a mandate and congressional
majorities, so let him (and his fellow Republicans) figure it out,
with Democratic votes on offer only if massive policy concessions
supporting Democratic Party interests are included.

Not for the first time will I point out that none of what I’m
suggesting Democrats do is outside the norm of typical American
politics. I’m merely suggesting that Democrats compete on the same
political playing field that Republicans already occupy, instead of
waiting for some more favorable terrain to reveal itself. (Which, by
the way, it won’t.) Democrats need to have an aggressive and
coordinated media strategy involving all of their members, surfacing
derogatory information about Republicans, enumerating the problems
they’ve failed to address, and filling the news hole with fresh
complaints. They need to show real backbone and take pride in their
refusal to participate in enacting the GOP’s policies.

Right now, in these heady moments prior to his second inauguration,
Trump’s second term could not be going better for him. Over these
last remaining loose and responsibility-free days, he’s been able to
imagine himself achieving epochal accomplishments—annexing Canada or
buying Greenland. Trump has been free to bask in the unknown
possibilities of what’s to come. Immediately after he’s sworn in
for the second time, that fantasia will fall away and he’ll be
responsible for solving a planet’s worth of problems.

It’s always been something of a mystery
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why someone who was making it in America as an idle rich celebrity
asshole abruptly changed course and decided that what he really wanted
to do with his life was to become responsible for an entire nation and
its problems. Howard Stern famously warned Trump
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prior to his first run that he “only had about 10 good years left
before he starts to drool on himself,” and it was best he spend it
at leisure rather than subject himself to the constant slings and
arrows of being president. There’s no doubt in my mind that the
version of Trump in the parallel universe where he took Stern’s
advice is a lot happier. In this universe, liberals would do well to
find creative ways to make Trump regret his choices.

_This article first appeared in Power Mad, a weekly TNR newsletter
authored by deputy editor Jason Linkins. Sign up here
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* Trump
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* Democrats
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