The Trump agenda: What's legitimate, what's illegitimate
And the challenges of coming up with an opposing message
The Trump administration has moved extremely quickly since taking office on a number of fronts. Some of these are policy-focused, involving massive cuts to federal spending, changes to international trade, etc. Some specifically target democracy, the rule of law, the independence of the justice system, the chain of command in the military, and more. Some are somewhere in between. It can be tricky to sort out what is the legitimate domain of the presidency and what isn’t, and what is the best way to respond to the illegitimate parts.
Opposition Democrats are clearly struggling with this issue. On straight up policy issues like the budget, Democrats seem to be keeping their coalition together. They produced every vote possible to oppose this week’s House budget resolution (including that of new mom and second-term Rep. Brittany Pettersen from Colorado), and the party looks likely to remain resolute in not providing any votes for Republican spending measures.
But opposition to the aggressive democratic erosion is more mixed. Some, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are being very forthright about the threats to the system and trying to articulate the problem. Meanwhile party elder James Carville is saying to sit back and let the Republicans self-destruct. A lot of Democratic officeholders are somewhere in between.
I truly don’t know what the right course is here. I mean, I know what feels right, but in terms of what can actually affect events, protect democracy, etc., I think it’s fair to say that we’re in uncharted territory. And as a public-facing scholar and educator, to the extent I have any influence at all, I see it appropriate and necessary to speak up for democracy but inappropriate to advocate policy positions or votes.
All this is complicated by the fact that, as we’ve learned from recent elections, threatening democracy itself is not disqualifying. People voted for Trump last year knowing full well that he instigated a violent insurrection at the Capitol rather than leave office four years earlier. It’s likely most of his voters didn’t like that, but they just had other issues they thought more important.
That said, we’ve not seen American democracy so directly threatened in modern U.S. history. Voters don’t necessarily think in abstract concepts like that, but if Trump keeps talking about a third term, describing himself as a king, ignoring court orders, punishing reporters who don’t cover him positively, and more, people start to put that together. People also notice when the President, his cabinet, and Congress turn the federal government over to the unhinged, unpopular, and unelected centi-billionaire who bankrolled Trump’s campaign, along with his vast team of 19-year old tech brommissars assigned to oversee every federal agency.
This is something opposition Democrats could help voters put together, of course. Similarly, Democrats are being nudged toward greater resistance by citizen action at town hall meetings (watch this space for a new Power & Flour podcast on the topic), protests at Tesla dealerships, and more.
But even more subtle things about government functionality start to add up after a while, too. Plane crashes and near-misses have obviously caught people’s attention, although I don’t know how many average voters are actually connecting those with Trump administration decisions. But there are less dramatic things that are starting to occur thanks to administration pressure, including:
a shortage of flu shots for next year, combined with increased threats from measles, Ebola, avian flu…
the closing of Social Security offices, which serve thousands of people each day, and mass firing of Social Security staff, likely resulting in late Social Security checks
equipment and facilities being unavailable at Yosemite and other national parks because DOGE fired the locksmiths
Amazon delivery fees skyrocketing because of US Postal Service closures
Maybe people don’t like concentration camps?
Stuff like this starts to add up. There’s a reason most political leaders avoid massive cuts to government programs. The idea of reducing government spending is always popular in the abstract, but it turns out people actually interact with government more than they realize, and the more times those interactions get thwarted, the angrier people get.
But ironically the biggest threat to Trump’s highly unorthodox agenda will be the orthodox stuff:
The economy may be taking a turn for the worse, and widespread government layoffs and threatened tariffs are only accelerating that.
The drastic budget cuts Republicans are proposing will almost certainly include cuts to Medicare and Social Security, or at least widespread discussion of those cuts on the House and Senate floor.
A recession and threats to services that older Americans rely on is death to a governing party, which is why nearly all of them in the past have worked so hard to avoid them. The Trump team is doing all this with eyes wide open, and fast.
Now, it’s definitely disturbing when a governing party behaves in a way that we know from past behavior invites massive pushback from voters. One could read this as evidence that Republicans don’t expect to face another competitive election again. I think the answer is less sinister: they’re counting on the new math of Trump era voting, in which doing “unelectable” things doesn’t actually make you unelectable. Trump, if anything, doubled down on his extreme stances in 2024 and was rewarded with a win.
Democrats are acting like any unpopular thing they say will cost them the next election. Republicans are acting like election results are a crapshoot and they might as well do what they want now regardless of its popularity. Either view is defensible, but it’s hard to imagine that the two major parties have interpreted U.S. politics so differently.
Professor Seth, you write that it is "appropriate and necessary to speak up for democracy but *inappropriate* to advocate policy positions or votes." Here, I'm thinking, we *want* your expertise-guided opinion on policy and how that might guide us in guiding our elected representatives. So why hold back?
Seth, Seth, Seth.. your commentary this morning is filled with misinformation and misconceptions that sometimes go beyond the pale. The least of which is your credibility as a “public facing scholar and educator.” Come on now if someone from USC or Sanford had said that it is one thing but Denver College and those institutions are on completely different playing fields. That aside, let’s me address you five bullet points.
First, shortage of flu shots, are you kidding me, CVS, Walgreens, BCBS are giving them away. It is not our Oresidents fault that the concoction this year was not very effective.
Second, closing SS offices, where??? What you are referring to was the closure of a division at the SS HQ campus in Baltimore. Divisions in agencies get closed all the time.
Third, National Park locksmiths, geese we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel, why does the government need lock smiths when every government office should have a phone book and a telephone to call up a local locksmith if they lose the keys to a building. How often does that happen, nearly never I would guess as most buildings have multiple keys and access points.
Forth, post office closures. Again where and if some podunk post office is closed there is another one in the next town over.
Fifth, concentration camps, I am not going to dignify that with a response, you are just over the edge on that one.
Seth, you are falling deeper and deeper into the dark side, you need to get a grip, and I say that because I care….