Democratic senator sounds alarm on the party's failures: ‘We don't act as a team'

The Guardian

12 hours ago

A Democratic senator has sounded the alarm about her own party's failings, urging colleagues to 'slaughter some sacred cows' if they want to combat Donald Trump and win back power.
Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan castigated fellow Democrats for losing their 'alpha energy' and 'bravado', being 'scared' to enforce immigration rules, taking an 'elitist' approach to the climate crisis and having 'a bias towards navel gazing'. She painted a bleak picture of a leaderless party pulling in different directions.
'Democrats are very disparate,' Slotkin told an audience at the Center for American Progress thinktank in Washington DC. 'We're like a solar system with no sun. We got a lot of planets, some with their own gravitational pull, we've got a lot of stars but there's not enough cohering us.'
The senator added: 'You can't retake the town of Mosul without a plan but then also a coordination effort by all parties to specialise and do things. Everyone has a different role to play … My concern is that we don't act as a team and, when we don't work as a team, we turn our guns on each other and it's so, so, so fruitless.'
Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served three tours in Iraq, is a first-term senator widely regarded as a rising star in the party. In March, she delivered the Democrats' rebuttal to Trump's joint congressional address.
The 48-year-old used her speech on Thursday to unveil an 'economic war plan', proposing that the government addresses problems such as rising costs and declining trust in institutions rather than exacerbating them.
The plan focuses on five areas: creating well-paying jobs, modernising education to prepare for future economies, making housing affordable through increased construction, pursuing an 'all-of-the-above' energy strategy to lower costs, and reforming a broken healthcare system by introducing a public option and tackling drug pricing.
'As a CIA officer and Pentagon official by training, I believe that the single, greatest security threat to the United States is not coming from abroad,' she said. 'It's the shrinking middle class here at home.'
When people cannot provide for their children as they themselves were provided for, she argued, it breeds 'anger and suspicion among Americans'. This frustration can be unifying for Democrats including 'moderates, progressives and everything in between'.
Slotkin argued that government failed to uphold its 'Great American Deal' by not ruthlessly expanding the middle class, instead being swayed by special interests and political expediency. She proposed rebuilding systems around jobs, education, housing, energy and healthcare rather than simply 'nibbling at the margins'.
She also advocated for political reforms, such as banning corporate political action committee donations and congressional stock trading, to regain public trust and refocus politicians on the needs of the middle class.
The senator urged Democrats to take a pragmatic approach willing to 'slaughter some sacred cows' to achieve results. She called on her colleagues to distinguish between small businesses and multinational corporations and avoid 'vilifying success'.
Slotkin, who hails from a border state, said there must be acknowledgment that the immigration system is broken. 'Both parties have been a mess on this issue. Republicans say border security should substitute for an immigration policy and are rounding up people in a way that goes against American values.
'Democrats are scared to impose real rules. So let me slaughter another sacred cow. We need to move past the talking point on comprehensive immigration reform … We need big, bold change to fix a broken system but at this point that can be one bill or spread across five bills. I will work with any adults I can find who are actually interested in making some kind of progress on immigration.'
On education, Slotkin called for mobile phones to be banned from every K-12 classroom in the US and advocated for investment in certification programmes, community colleges, trade schools and apprenticeships as well as a radical overhaul of federal workforce training programmes.
'Killing another sacred cow: in America you don't have to go to college to be successful … Making a living using your hands is a worthy path. Some Democrats give that lip service but it's time to put our money where our mouth is.'
She called for an 'all-of-the-above energy plan', including natural gas, nuclear, batteries, renewables, and new technologies, rejecting the 'elitist' climate change approaches of some fellow Democrats that create 'purity tests'.
Slotkin represents swing state Michigan, which Democrat Kamala Harris narrowly lot to Trump in last year's presidential election. She was speaking two days after progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani stunned the Democratic establishment by beating moderate Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral primary.
Asked for her reaction, Slotkin replied: 'The message that came across loud and clear to me was number one, people just like in November are still really focused on costs and the economy and their own kitchen table math. And they're looking for a new generation of leadership. Those were to me the two big takeaways.
'That's why, again, it reinforces for me we may disagree on some key issues but understanding that people are concerned about their family budget – that is a unifying thing for our coalition. The message, at least for me, was clear.'
She rejected the common observation that Trump supporters were voting against their own interests. 'Their interest was in believing that someone was going to do something different and, while I don't believe Donald Trump for one second on what he's been selling, he at least was offering something different, and we need to hear that.'