While Trump shreds our Democracy can Democrats rise as a functioning loyal opposition?
By: Murshed Zaheed
Tags: Coronavirus, Elizabeth Warren, Trump Administration, Democratic Party, Impeachment

Right now Americans are mostly holed up in our homes. Folks are justifiably completely occupied with how to survive and navigate their lives through this unprecedented and devastating pandemic. Still in the middle of one of the darkest periods in our country’s history — the Trump regime not so secretly has been engaging in one of the most frightening power grabs in our time. Just in case you missed it on Friday night Trump fired the inspector general for the intelligence community reportedly as a potential retaliation for impeachment. He wasn’t done there. He also picked his own White House lawyer as a “watchdog” over congressional bailout package for coronavirus — mocking the concept of real accountability. Yet right now not a single Democrat is rising up to the occasion showing the level of urgency to match the unprecedented threat from the Trump regime.

As someone who has been engaged at every level of Democratic Party politics for well over three decades it hurts me to wonder out loud whether we currently have a functioning opposition party. I know I am not the only one feeling distressed. We don’t have to look any further by taking a look at this development from today and the subsequent reaction to all over social media:

For context, Rep. Jim Clyburn — a powerful figure among Congressional Democratic Leadership — who has been serving as House Majority Whip since 2019. Rep. Clyburn is the third most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives and has positioned himself as one of the marquee powerbrokers in presidential politics following his game changing endorsement of Vice President Joe Biden’s struggling campaign right before South Carolina primaries, setting up his current march towards inevitable nomination later this summer.

So when Clyburn indicated during an appearance on a Sunday cable news show that per his understanding the Democratic Leadership is not looking to leverage their congressional powers to look “back on what the president may or may not have done back before this crisis hit” it set of alarms. Rep. Clyburn stated that the Democrats will “be forward-looking” implicitly indicating that the Democratic Party has no real interest in investigating the Trump regime’s catastrophic lack of preparation for the COVID-19 pandemic wrecking unprecedented death and destruction in communities across the country. His statement looked especially tone-deaf and out of touch considering on the same morning a blockbuster AP Report came out showing the Trump’s government had “wasted” months before preparing for the virus pandemic.

So the question is fair to ask — whether the Democrats are up to the challenge of times to provide leadership as a functioning opposition party?

We need a level of leadership from Democrats that matches the urgency of the moment, that goes beyond deploying conventional tools and tactics. Most importantly we need a level of fearlessness that requires a sense of fearless tenacity and moral leadership of righteous outrage with a thick skin to completely disregard sensitive feelings of beltway pundits.

When it comes to constitutional dynamics among three branches of our governments — with the right wing having an iron grip on 2.5 of those branches — Democrats need to think beyond deploying conventional tools of oversights. In other words they need to provide lot more than just toughly worded letters, press releases, and social media posts which may have been just enough to take on a conventional right-wing Republican administration but no where close to being enough to confront the current existential threat our democratic institutions are facing from Trump and his cronies in Washington.

While I appreciate progressive Democratic stalwarts such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren continuing to diligently fire off letters and tweets targeting the Trump administration they are no longer effective tools of oversight without potent and meaningful follow ups. And, meaningful follow ups here need to be more than continuing creating a paper or online trail of accountability. What Democrats need to focus on is to relentlessly find ways with tactics that genuinely puts the current regime and its Republican enablers under pressure.

This means Democrats need to be courageous to play actual legislative hardball to actually use the paper or online trails they are tracking through with legislative levers they still control when they have leverage. For example, this is why it was critical for Democrats to hold up the so-called Phase 3 stimulus package for COVID-19 to extract their priorities when the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans were desperate to get a corporate bailout through Congress to please their donors from Wall Street.

It means Democrats should have exacted a price that should have included among other things full protection of elections (vote by mail), actual oversight provisions (ie subpoena powers), and paid sick leave for every worker in America.

Now that leverage is gone as Republicans will not be desperate for another corporate bailout, doubtful the Democrats will be able to find themselves in the same position during the deliberations on the next stimulus package. There are reasonable disagreements on whether or not they will have that leverage but regardless there is nearly unanimous agreement among progressive leaders that Democrats need to go big.

But, the key here is the Democrats still control one-half of the legislative branch and they need to start acting and operating like they are serious about using their powers to position themselves as a functioning opposition party. Here are some examples of what could the Democrats be doing:

This means those Senate Democrats who are firing off letters raising alarms about Kushner’s role in the Strategic National Stockpile should be working with their counterparts in the House of Representatives now to hold immediate, emergency hearings.

Indeed, House Democrats should be getting off their butts and looking for ways to hold remote, virtual hearings on accountability. I’d bet they get a massive online audience for setting up virtual, remote hearings via social media channels to hold Trump accountable in real time.

Accountability beyond toughly worded congressional products means working now to line up a schedule all Fall to get a full accounting from all Democratic governors including those from Michigan, Wisconsin and other key states on how Trump has completely mishandled the response to coronavirus.

Just firing off tough statements like Ranking Member of Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner issued in response to aforementioned Trump’s latest Friday night massacre is no longer enough. They ought to be exploring all channels available to them to push for accountability including working with relevant Congressional committees to set up live and remote hearings.

I keep going back to this quote from Sen. Warren last year from one of the Democratic presidential debates:

“Democrats win when we figure out what is right and we get out there and fight for it. I am not afraid, and for Democrats to win, you can’t be afraid either.”

Who is going to step up to match that standard?