Not-so-cold November mailbag

Lots of questions about the future of the Democratic party and the second Trump administration

Life is like a box of chocolates. Trump started out with a series of surprisingly professional national security picks, then put a second-tier Fox News personality in charge of the defense department. Elon Musk is maybe going to be shadow president, or maybe being bought off by being put in charge of a fake agency. Matt Gaetz is being nominated for attorney general so he can dodge House Ethics Committee charges. We are cursed to live in interesting times.

And yet, in keeping with the ethic of trying to “normalize” coverage of Trump, the plan here at Slow Boring is to wait until it’s clearer what the incoming administration is actually doing before we write a lot about it. We know for certain that Congress needs to deal with a bunch of expirations next year. Trump spoke to House Republicans Wednesday morning, which would have been a great opportunity to clarify the approach he thinks they should take, but he didn’t mention the expirations at all, mostly just bragging about how great the election results were. At some point, the White House or Mike Johnson or someone has to come up with something, though.

Meanwhile, keep looking out for Common Sense Democrats as an emergent meme. I’ll keep writing about my take on what this should look like, but that’s just one man’s take. I do believe a larger movement is emerging.

For now, though, some questions.

Paula: We obviously need very significant changes in the Democratic Party and/or more independent voices on the left of MAGA side. But very concretely, how can someone actually get involved in helping to actualize some of those changes? Too many columns are written to change the behavior or perspective of DC insiders but what we really need is fresh voices. By definition though most of those outsiders don’t even know how to begin engaging with politics. Outside of running for office directly, what can everyday people do?

One truth about American politics that people don’t like to hear, is change often really is pretty top-down. Donald Trump won a high-profile primary and then a general election, remained an influential figure during four years out of office, and then won another election. His persistence at the top has caused his distinctive ideas to become more and more widespread in GOP circles. There was no bottom-up process through which anti-trade Republicans captured local county party committees and then, through decades of tireless work, won the White House. The change started at the top and filtered down.

Things didn’t always work this way.