Speak for America, Democrats
Speak for America, Democrats
There is still much that President Biden and other Democrats can do during this increasingly alarming transition to Trump’s second term.
WITH EACH DAY’S HEADLINES EMERGING from the Trump transition team—some merely disturbing, others terrifying—the half of the country that voted against Donald Trump is left standing alone.
Who in the Biden administration is shoring up whatever guardrails remain?
Who in the White House is bothering, while the bully pulpit remains theirs, to educate the public about how the Constitution is supposed to operate?
Who among the Senate Democrats, during their waning weeks in the majority, is standing up for good government and the rule of law?
Trump is getting wall-to-wall coverage on his shocking cabinet picks, including Tulsi Gabbard (a Putin sympathizer) as director of national intelligence, Matt Gaetz (accused of engaging in bribes and sex with a minor) as attorney general, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist) as secretary of health and human services. Elon Musk is moonlighting as shadow-director of Trump’s new administration and as a diplomat (he met with the Iranian U.N. ambassador and was present for Trump’s telephone meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky).
Meanwhile, Trump is floating use of the military to conduct mass deportations, is pushing the radical notion of bypassing Senate confirmation and FBI background checks for all of his cabinet picks, and has hardly pulled back on promises to use his massive federal law enforcement power against critics and the disloyal. (Just recall this passage from one of Trump’s books, which was read into evidence during the Manhattan hush money trial that landed him a criminal conviction on 34 felony counts: “My motto is: Always get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades.”)
No surprise that current and former Department of Justice and FBI officials have reportedly been reaching out to criminal defense lawyers in anticipation of revenge investigations by the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, having promised to reinstate an executive order, Schedule F, that would convert federal workers to at-will employees, Trump sits atop ongoing efforts to probe the loyalty of career employees through tens of thousands of Freedom of Information requests for their emails and text messages. One federal employee texted CNN national correspondent René Marsh, “We are in a dystopian hellscape.” Trump also recently called for Biden to halt confirmation of federal judges—so he can secure those seats for himself.
Where is the sitting president amid all of this?
In a meeting that the media called “historic,” Biden hosted Trump at the White House for nearly two hours last Wednesday, complete with a photo op seated before a roaring fire, shaking hands and “pledging a smooth transition.” The president told the president-elect that he’d do “everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated.” This to the man who remains under federal indictment for trying to violently steal the election from Biden and those who voted for him just four short years ago. Special Counsel Jack Smith is in the process of closing that case in time for Trump to take office, bracing for a likely criminal investigation of Smith himself.
The federal workforce, the millions who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris (who has likewise stayed mum during this onslaught of grim tidings), and the U.S. Constitution deserve better.
But what, you might wonder, is a lame duck in the waning days of his presidency to do?
For starters, the White House could use its famous lectern adorned with the presidential seal to educate the American public about the rule of law.
No, the Constitution’s mandate that cabinet appointees get through Senate confirmation as a check on the president’s power is not designed to be optional.
No, the law does not allow Trump to invoke the military against peaceful protesters and “blue” cities (the Posse Comitatus Act forbids it).
No, Trump can’t just abolish the Department of Education or manufacture a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for Musk’s use as a playground—both houses of Congress would have to agree to do those things, including a supermajority in the Senate.
No, bullying the media into submission is not legal—it actually gets a special shoutout under the First Amendment.
No, Trump can’t just fire the federal workforce on Day One. Biden implemented a rule in April protecting federal workers from mass terminations, and although Trump could reverse it, Democrats in Congress could still at least try to push that into law.
THE WHITE HOUSE COULD ALSO USE this “teachable” moment to make clear to the millions of complacent and even jubilant American people who support Trump 2 what the serious legal, economic, and practical implications will be if Trump manages to do any of these things. They are potentially dire.
And the president still has the power in this moment to stave off some of the worst of what’s to come.
Biden could preemptively pardon DOJ, FBI, legislative, judicial, and other government employees who participated in the Trump investigations for any federal crimes that the likes of Gaetz and crew might cook up against them (much can be done to ruin lives before a court or a jury gets the chance to stop it).
Biden could declassify information bearing on the Mar-a-Lago case involving Trump’s taking and hiding of national security information from the White House in 2020, putting it before the public and leaving it protected for posterity in the National Archives.
Biden could publicly call on Republicans in the Senate—and remember, he was himself a senator for decades—to resist the temptation to abdicate their constitutional duty at Trump’s whims.
Biden could invite governors to Washington, D.C., for a summit to devise a plan to protect the states—and the nation—against the worst of what Trump has in store for us all.
In short, Biden, Harris, and congressional Democrats could be reminding anxious Americans that we are not left to fend for ourselves. That defiance in defense of the Constitution is preferable to resignation in the face of chaos. That someone with real power right now will do whatever he can to fight for them. For their futures. For American democracy itself.
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