This is the fifth in a series of occasional posts about rebuilding democracy after Trump. You can read an overview of the series here.
Before we build, we visualize.
If Trump’s destructive legacy will give us an opportunity to rebuild America, we first need to envision what we want to emerge from the rubble he leaves behind.
This can be a difficult task. It requires stepping outside the world we know and disregarding its limitations to imagine something that does not yet exist—and could not have existed within the boundaries created by the politics of the past four decades.
Operating on the premise that catastrophes permanently shuffle the old political order, we can and should think about what a new party system supported by a new alignment of voters could bring about. There are historical models to guide us. We can look to the dramatic changes of the second American republic after the Civil War and the third American republic after the Great Depression.
Although we do not yet know the nature or extent of the destruction Trump will leave behind, he has been setting us up for multiple disasters. Economic disasters. Foreign policy disasters. Public health disasters. Natural disasters. All have been made more likely by the malevolent ineptitude of his administration.
Watching Trump undermine the foundations of our economic, international, and personal wellbeing can be anxiety-provoking—especially without a way to make him stop. A productive way to address that anxiety is to begin developing a vision of what a new America will look like when the country turns to us to rebuild.
As Trump hacks away at the foundations that provide the stability we depend on to live securely, we should start developing the blueprint for what we will put in place when that moment arrives. We will need it soon enough.
If we were to exchange ideas about what a progressive era would look like, you and I might come up with different images, especially if we were discussing it in any detail. And even if we were to agree completely, we’re bound to know people who have different priorities than we do, especially when we get into specifics.
These differences can and should be debated in the political process. The 2028 presidential campaign would be an appropriate time for this discussion. But before we can get to those particulars, we need to develop a blueprint—a general set of broadly shared principles for where we would like to move the country.
That’s our job right now.
Let’s start with the two drivers of change that led to the Trump reaction: economic inequality and the emerging majority minority America. Trump is exacerbating the former and resisting the latter. A progressive era would do the opposite. It would reverse economic inequality and embrace a diverse, multicultural nation.
In politics, sometimes the best way to clarify what you’re for is to explain what you’re against.
Trump sees American greatness in building walls, eroding civil liberties, throwing people out of the country, slashing programs that help the poor and middle class, and transferring wealth to the very top at the expense of everyone else.
This will have to be undone.
In a progressive America, elites will no longer get to play by their own rules.
In a progressive America, wealth will no longer flow to the very top.
In a progressive America, monied interests will no longer be able to block policies favored overwhelmingly by the public.
In a progressive America, government services will no longer be denied to those who need or have earned them.
In a progressive America, health care will no longer be a privilege for those who can afford it.
In a progressive America, elected officials will no longer be free to escape responsibility for their actions.
In a progressive America, the judicial system will no longer function differently for those with wealth and means.
In a progressive America, science will no longer be disrespected.
In a progressive America, government will no longer be the enemy of those without power.
In a progressive America, officials will serve the interests of those who elected them.
In a progressive America, marginalized groups will have a seat at the table.
In a progressive America, bridges will replace walls.
This list, though not exhaustive, articulates a set of principles around which to build a new foundation for the country.
And a new foundation will need to be built. Because creating a country where rights are expanded and government works for those who can’t afford to purchase access to it requires more than simply winning an election. It requires an earthquake.
An earthquake comparable to the one that enabled the expansion of rights after the Civil War.
An earthquake that made possible the establishment of social welfare policies after the Depression.
That earthquake, should it occur, would be propelled by the consequences of Trump’s reign of terror and manifested by a new majority voting bloc foreshadowed by the Obama coalition—a multi-generational, multi-racial, multi-ethnic alliance of voters. And this time—through suffering brought about by Trump’s policies—that coalition can stick.
As conditions deteriorate over the next several years, there will be ample time to assemble this coalition by educating voters that the source of their hardship is the concentration of power in the hands of a self-interested few—not one another. Amidst the desperation of crisis-era politics, the call for a dramatic break with the era that created these imbalances could find a receptive audience across segments of the population that the right has successfully divided through grievance politics.
Certainly, there will be many voters who will be unwilling to relinquish those grievances and join hands with others who do not look like them. Many will be unconvinced that they should. But winning coalitions do not have to recruit everyone. They just need to assemble majorities across a wide enough range of states to claim a governing mandate.
A deft candidate who understands the moment should be able to forge that coalition in an electorate primed to view the salient political division as the 99% versus the 1%. Trump prevailed by dividing the country along racial and cultural lines. Progressives can prevail if the country is united in economic common cause. As Trump’s divisive policies alienate the electorate, progressives have an opening.
The promise of a break with the past will need to be delivered by a messenger skillful enough to reach voters who rightly have lost faith in the ability of government to address their needs. They will need to ask voters to take a leap of faith that they can deliver after they are elected.
Then they will have to deliver. Forging a winning coalition that can endure for years depends on generating results.
But that is impossible to do in the system we currently have.
This is where the work of institutional repair begins. Having envisioned a progressive future, we need a plan to make it happen.
And that plan has to start with dramatic and widespread institutional change.
UP NEXT: Why institutional change has to precede policy change.
Love this! Even though there is, and will be, so much work to be done, you have laid out the basic principals of the change that needs to occur very succinctly and accurately. Thank you for this. I will just add that it cannot be just one messenger that is able to articulate this vision, but many.
Yes yes yes! The silver lining is that the current administration is doing the demo. It will be up to us to rebuild. You outlined great objectives and there are many strategies and tactics to realize them (tax the rich, end Citizens United, Medicare for All, protect voting laws, expand the Supreme Court, change laws to allow for accountability of corrupt officials and practices, etc.). And our future leaders should not be those who have enabled current abuses by timidity and lack of imagination.