I was at work on a personal piece for next week’s posting when I was derailed in a most fortunate way. Here’s what happened. We had invited some of our favorite people to dinner – Adrienne Lieberman and her husband Andy Thomas, along with Mark and Mary Larson. We had managed to go deep into the evening without venturing onto the Trump/Musk ice floe before plunging into those frigid waters. It’s not that there’s even a millimeter of difference among the views of those at our table on The Subject but we just still want to leave room for movies, books, streaming shows, travels, children and grandchildren.
Then the conversation took the inevitable turn. Andy led the way. He’s British and grew up under their parliamentary system of government. He had just read a piece in Timothy Snyder’s Substack about the British tradition of the party out of power constituting itself as a “loyal opposition” by creating a shadow cabinet, containing a shadow minister for each cabinet position who could articulate for the press and the public the shortcomings of the government’s proposals while putting forth alternative ideas. In Andy’s words, “It would be made up of credible and committed people, with some objective understanding of their specific functions of government, in contrast to Trump’s ridiculously unqualified cabinet nominees. They would be preferably, though not necessarily, from the younger Democratic Party bench, to showcase the talent and build the experience of our next generation of leaders…”
One of the many aspects of the assault of the billionaires that has been weighing me down these past weeks is the absence of a loud and coherent voice from the Democrats capable of pushing back against the advance of authoritarianism. Snyder, my current cultural icon, and Andy have suddenly introduced a glimmer of hope in the form of a model for resistance. Enticing ideas born in one culture rarely translate perfectly into another culture, no matter how adjacent the two settings appear, but this one feels like a worthy departure point.
Andy has launched a campaign to call attention to the idea of the loyal opposition to our Democratic leaders in Congress, from whose ranks most, if not all, of the shadow cabinet members would be drawn. Here’s one piece of the letter he’s drafted to our own venerable Illinois Senators, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.
“…we need to get organized now, and this would be a great way to do it, We need to wrest back the initiative from Trump’s chaos machine, and as it starts running out of gas, shift the debate and the news cycle back to the real problems this country faces.
We need to show that we are the party that knows how to govern, unlike the GOP madhouse, and actually wants to govern. We need to show that we have a team of loyal and committed public servants, with a coherent and well-considered plan for running the country in the real interests of the American people, not just boy billionaires, Christian Nationalists and conspiracy theorists.
You and other senior party members need to unite. You should use your considerable political capital to referee the contentious process of deciding who should be the key players in the cabinet, And you need to take the heat that will certainly come from the other side howling about the ‘deep state’ fighting back to defend its privilege.
It would be a fitting capstone to your legacy, and a great parting gift to the party in its hour of need!
Please, do the Right Thing!”
I’ve followed his lead by forwarding Snyder’s piece to some Democratic policy making and fund-raising groups I’m aware of. If after you read Professor Snyder’s case for a loyal opposition (Here’s the link: https://www.rsn.org/001/shadow-cabinet-a-positive-form-of-opposition.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email), we hope you’ll be inspired to do the same.
