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Millions of Americans will look to their leaders for guidance and assurance once President Donald Trump’s pro-billionaire policies begin choking the last gasps of economic mobility from our communities.
So while Trump busies himself rolling out Manifest Destiny 2.0 instead of lowering the cost of living like he campaigned on, Democrats must obstruct these efforts with a plan and a purpose.
Every. Single. Day.
We start by taking a page from U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s late 2008/early 2009 playbook who, alongside then-House GOP Whip Eric Cantor, hatched an obstructionist strategy in secret to deploy unified Republican resistance to any action proposed or supported by then newly-elected President Barack Obama. McConnell touted the coordinated obstruction as the sure-fire path to resurrect the GOP, and why not? If you obstruct every effort by the party in power to implement its policies, you can then campaign successfully on the promise of overcoming the gridlock you have personally created.
McConnell’s strategy led to massive 2010 GOP midterm gains in the House and Senate and locked in state chamber majorities for decades. It also laid the foundation for Trump’s meteoric political rise, enabling the creation of the MAGA movement to energize a loyal Republican base.
The strategy worked because Republicans kept the message to voters simple: Where are the jobs?
U.S. Rep. John Boehner held a press conference on the first Friday of every month – coinciding with the release of monthly jobs data – to ask this question. Meanwhile, House Republicans passed numerous so-called “jobs” bills knowing full well that their obstruction-first strategy deemed them dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate, effectively creating a paper trail that established their commitment to job creation without ever requiring any proof of sincerity.
Democrats, it’s our turn.
Not only are grocery prices not coming down, but Trump’s style of government by executive order means tariffs – especially the 25% levied on foreign steel and aluminum – will boost costs to U.S. consumers through pass-along pricing on everything from vehicles and household appliances to bicycles and beer.
This engineered financial squeezing of the American people should headline every press conference, podcast appearance and press gaggle until the masses understand that the administration they elected to ease their economic suffering never had any intentions of making anything in this country great again except its war chest and the bottom lines of its billionaire donors.
In 2009, Republican obstruction succeeded because it focused on the manufactured notion that Obama’s elitist policies cost Americans jobs and wealth. The approach appealed to hard-working, cash-strapped voters then, and it will resonate with them again, but only if we flood every channel available.
Trump has no economic plan.
Prices on everyday items continue increasing.
Tariffs on foreign goods will drive up the costs of everything from fruit and liquor to housing starts and commercial developments.
Most importantly, though, Trump floods the zone 24/7 with lies, and we cannot leave anything to chance. If we start picking and choosing which lies to challenge, we risk another 50 creeping onto podcasts and into Instagram posts – like kudzu invading your garden – making them more difficult to debunk.
Democrats need to marshal all the conviction, toughness and fight they can muster to remind voters that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and whether you call it obstruction or resistance, our bold actions in the coming weeks and months are the strongest line of defense remaining between the American people and a tyrannical state hellbent on defrauding them of their inalienable rights.
Douglas Wilson is the founder and principal of political and public affairs company Alexander Wilson Consulting LLC. He served on Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris’ presidential campaigns.
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