Like so many others who voted for Kamala Harris, then watched Donald Trump defeat her in a fairly convincing though not overwhelming fashion, I'm politically depressed.
Meaning, I'm still enjoying the personal life I was leading before the election. But when my attention turns to Trump, my spirits sink.
Trump looks like he's hugely enjoying the kickoff to his second term. He's keeping his promise to be a dictator on Day 1, extending that promise throughout his first week in office. I expect Trump will attempt to realize his authoritarian dreams throughout his entire presidency.
Meanwhile, while Trump holds center stage both because he's the newly elected president and because he's a skilled showman, Democratic leaders are barely visible. They pop up on CNN and MSNBC, plus the Sunday talk shows, to express their concerns about what Trump is doing.
Then they recede into their corner of the nation's political ring, wiping their brows with the exertion of issuing some feeble warnings about Trump's actions, while Trump struts around the center of the ring, arms outstretched, proclaiming victory over woke liberals and indeed anyone who dares stand in his way, including moderate Republicans.
I realize that the Democratic Party is licking its post-election wounds as it tries to figure out what went wrong with the 2024 election, how best to handle Trump, and who is going to emerge as leaders of the party.
However, I can't wait for all that to happen. I'm already tired of Trump having virtually free rein to spout his lies, exaggerations, and deceptions. I want to see a Democrat making forceful responses to Trump's B.S. that reach a really wide audience, not just political news junkies like me.
This is my great idea for making that happen. Obviously it isn't the only thing the Democratic Party needs to do, public communication-wise, but it would be a good start.
My dream is for Democrats to have a charismatic, personable, young, attractive person (I'm visualizing a woman like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) be the spokesperson of brief 3-5 minute videos that would be shared on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, Blue Sky, a web site, and elsewhere on the internet.
The videos would both describe and criticize actions by the Trump administration. The tone would be informal, blunt, honest, real, a mixture of ridicule and outrage. The goal would be to reach the broadest possible audience, with a special focus on those who don't have time or the inclination to read the New York Times or Washington Post.
An overarching theme would be "Yikes, can you believe what Trump is doing now? It's so crazy as to almost be unbelievable, yet it is. Listen up for what's going on."
The production value would be high, even though the look and feel of the videos would be akin to those of PoliticalGirl -- someone my wife found today after I shared with her my idea about what the Democratic Party should do. Here's a sample PoliticalGirl video.
What I'd like to see happen is the Democratic Party learning from its mistakes, some of which I see as: (1) appearing too old, even though Harris was younger than Trump; (2) failing to talk to people in ordinary language they resonate with, something Trump is skilled at; (3) not addressing the key concerns of most Americans in a simple easy-to-grasp fashion.
Currently there's no place people can go to learn how the Trump Opposition views his policies, many of which are much more extreme than what he expressed during the presidential campaign, where Trump kept saying that he didn't know or care much about Project 2025 -- which now, no big surprise, is the blueprint that he's following in his attempt to dismantle the federal government and form it into an extension of Trump's authoritarianism.
What I'm suggesting would be an entertaining and informative must-see for anyone who wants to know more about what Trump is up to, or dislikes what he's doing and wants to learn how a Democratic Party spokesperson feels about this.
Hurry!!!!
Posted by: Diane Millican | January 27, 2025 at 06:16 PM