Je me Souviens!

We’re still only a few months into the Second Trump Administration, and despite the fact that I don’t think any of us were particularly optimistic, it continues to outpace most expectations in terms of the scale and speed of the destruction. Elon Musk—an unelected, ketamine-addled billionaire—is gutting vital Federal agencies, ignoring the Congressional power of the purse, and condemning millions of people to death across the world. The Executive Branch is asserting demands for authority absolutely incompatible with any kind of democratic self-government, and the Republican Party mostly seems to agree with this. We’re deporting people to gulags in El Salvador for the sake of photo ops, and shredding literally a century of anti-corruption policies, openly and gleefully. It’s governance by shakedown. It’s not good.  

In another blow to Democratic fortunes, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer caved in to pressure and helped the GOP pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open for six more months, despite the fact that Republicans have been openly boasting that they intend to continue violating the law. This forecloses any ability for Democrats to try and constrain the Trump Administration for at least six months. In the wake of this capitulation, there’s been a lot of talk about next steps and new strategies. People are furious at Chuck Schumer, and there are demands for new leadership, as well as arguments for various legal strategies, rhetorical tactics, and electoral gambits that might help Democrats claw their way back into power in 2026 and 2028. But I’m not a politician, nor am I a political consultant. I don’t know how to win elections, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But I do want to talk about an aspect of our strategy and platform that I think is absolutely essential, and that hasn’t been getting enough attention. 

The province of Québec, in our northern neighbor of Canada, has a motto: Je me souviens. “I remember.” It’s a promise—and a threat—from a province that has always prided itself on its distinction, its unique cultural and historical heritage. Today, when our government is engaged in despicable and unjustifiable saber-rattling against our Canadian friends, it seems appropriate that we take it up as a motto of our own. 

At a time when the Trumpist corruption and degradation of our government, our values, and our society continues at a frightening pace, I believe it is imperative that we remember. It is essential, if we want to rebuild something worthwhile someday, that the Democratic Party, or forces associated with it, begin work now on an explicit, open, and public program of accountability and reconstruction. It is essential that we begin building the legal framework and accumulating the political capital to ensure that, when we win the White House again, we are prepared to uphold the law against the myriad people who have been blatantly violating it. It is essential that we maintain a ledger of what has been broken, and by whom, and that we are seen to be doing this.

It may seem premature to begin planning for how we will overturn the Trump/Musk Coup when it remains ongoing. It may seem foolish, to do this planning in public, and to trumpet it to the skies. But I believe that such a program will be an absolutely key part of any Democratic revival of fortune going forward, for three reasons. 

Losing begets losing

As Josh Marshall has written, the fight we are in now is as much one to shape public opinion as it is over the levers of political power. Or, to put it more precisely, we are attempting to shape public opinion so that it will influence what levers will and can be utilized. The problem is, we’re losing. We lost the election. We lost the shutdown fight. Democratic voters are angry with their representatives, and they don’t think they look like they’re fighting. Democrats are speaking out against the Trump regime, they’re protesting, they’re voting against it, they’re suing in court, but all of these are reactive strategies. Fairly or not, I think so much of the perception of politics comes down to the perception of strength. Jumping up and down, screaming that Trump is a fascist, begging Republicans to do something about it? That looks weak, even if it’s true, because there’s nothing we can actually do about it right now. It puts us in a position of constantly—and impotently—responding to the latest outrage. We need a new message, one that can project confidence, one that makes Democrats seem like active agents, instead of just passive responders. I think we could do a lot worse than, “There will be a reckoning for this someday”, especially if it’s combined with specific actions.

We are what we pretend to be

Contrary to how many people talk about the Democratic Party, there’s no secret room where everything really gets decided. Arguably, there isn’t really a Democratic Party, as a unitary organization or institution. The policies and priorities of the next Democratic administration will be decided by the Democrats, by the gestalt of the next two years of primaries, discussions, debates, and discourse—by the representatives we elect and by the decisions that many different individual stakeholders and power-brokers will make. If we win in 2028 on a platform of banning trans teenagers from sports and lowering egg prices, there’s not going to be anyone who can make us do otherwise. Every structural incentive in American politics will be to move on, to put aside past grievances, and to let “normalcy” return—just like we did in 1976, 2008, and 2020. I think that would be a grave mistake. If we want to build a political party that is committed to accountability, that has the political willpower to prosecute and investigate the people ruining our country right now, we need to start building it, and we need to start building it now. 

Restoring deterrence

One of the fundamental discontinuities in American politics right now is that private institutions know that Republicans will use the power of the state to punish them, and that Democrats won’t. Hence, for billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerburg, for universities and law firms, for private businesses and corporations, there is very little reason not to capitulate to the demands of the Trump Administration and collaborate with their lawbreaking. Why shouldn’t Jeff Bezos do what he can to get the government to favor Amazon? If he upsets Trump, he knows that the result will be personal vengeance directed at his business. If he upsets Democrats, he can expect very little. We need to begin giving people reason to think that there will be consequences for what they do. Since Ford pardoned Nixon, we’ve spent decades reinforcing the assurance that elites are above the law. We’re in this situation because Donald Trump attempted a coup d’etat and went unpunished. We’re in this situation because Elon Musk flagrantly violated laws for years and faced no consequences. Why should he believe that his gutting of the Federal government will be any different? Democrats need to make it clear that this will change. And sure, it’s unlikely to scare Musk or Bezos. But every time one of their employees is told to approve something blatantly illegal, they should know that somebody is watching, and remembering. 

Call it the Trump Accountability Project, or the Second Reconstruction, or Project 2029. Make note of what’s being done to the American Republic, and by whom, and what you’re planning to do about it. This cannot be secret, because what we are attempting to do is mobilize public opinion in favor of reform. We need to be open about what we’re doing. We need them to be scared. We don’t have much power right now, and even in the best-case scenario, we won’t until 2027. But we need to start planning for that day if we don’t want to be here again four years later. 

I’ve said this a number of times. We’re embarked on a vast battle over the future of the American Republic, in which the executive and much of the judiciary is acting outside the constitutional order. That battle is fundamentally over public opinion. We’re in a constitutional interregnum and we are trying to restore constitutional government. The courts are a tool. Federalism is a big, big tool, the significance and importance of which is getting too little discussion. But it’s really about public opinion. And that means it’s about politics. The American people will decide this. That’s what this is all about. Waiting on the courts is just a basic misunderstanding of the whole situation. 

Toward a Theory of Civic Sede Vacantism, Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall 

The decisions we make today will shape those that we make tomorrow. We’re in a moment of profound instability right now. The Democratic Party is hollowed-out and rudderless, shocked by defeat, and the Republican Party has been turned into the personalist cult of a senile madman. We—collectively, the voters of the American electorate and members of the Democratic Party—have an extraordinary opportunity to build something new. But that’s going to require looking backwards. 

The Republicans think that they’re going to get away with what they’re doing now. They think shutting down USAID and gutting the Department of Education is a fait accompli, that whatever we and the courts say, it’ll be too late; that if the President simply starts acting like a dictator, he can be one, because nobody has the power to stop him. It’s our job to show them otherwise. 

Don’t look away. Watch. Remember. Plan. 

Je me Souviens!  

Featured image is Defend Our Right to Peaceful Protest, by Alisdare Hickson