TJ Walker argues that Trump's government moves show an efficiency the Democratic Party hasn't matched, and says progressives need to rethink how they use government power to actually get things done.
Chapters
What the left can learn from Trump's brutal efficiency. According to the New York Times, writer Mark Dunkelman argues that despite the harm President Trump is doing, he is revealing something progressives need to confront. Trump is making government move quickly. Dunkleman notes that Joe Biden's major climate and infrastructure projects often stalled in execution, pointing to billions for electric vehicle chargers that produced fewer than 60 news stations. Kind of pathetic when you think about it. By contrast, Trump's deportations, tariffs, even military actions may be harmful, but they are carried out very swiftly, just like knocking down at the East Wing. He gets stuff done. The larger point is that progressives have become conflicted about government power. They want strong authority to regulate corporations and build green energy, but they fear that same authority on issues like abortion, policing and minority rights. Dunkleman argues that the Trump era should push progressives to rethink their theory of power to protect rights, but also empower someone in government to move projects forward without endless delays. He says the left must regain the capacity to build things again, from housing to transit to clean energy, and learn to wield power as effectively for the public good as Trump wields it for his own agenda. So what's the real lesson here? Smart politicians learn from any other politician across the spectrum on how to get things done. And the Democratic Party does have some politicians. They had better study every single thing Donald Trump does. Not to copy him step by step, but to see that he actually gets stuff done. You might not like what he does, but he has proven that government can take actions and accomplish stuff. The biggest problem most Democratic officials have with voters is voters fear. Like, okay, you talk nice, but you don't really ever deliver anything. Let's dig a little deeper here. The theme from this column in the Times also tracks or complements this narrative of abundance that Ezra Klein, the columnist and podcaster for the New York Times, has been pushing in his own book, which, by the way, is a great book. Abundance and it's a lot of the same themes here is the Democrats have to use government to create more abundance for society. That has to be done by doing things like creating green businesses and creating housing that's actually affordable. And so many Democrats look no further than California and San Francisco and New York are so obsessed with rules and procedure and fairness and organized labor and hurting somebody's feelings. All were the issues individually. But you put those all together and it ends up strangling or handcuffing anyone who actually wants to create new housing or create a highway or create some form of infrastructure or create electric chargers because it makes it really easy to kill any project. Someone comes up with a good idea at 14 years later, you've got a situation like you do with the Big Dig in Boston or the big failed mass transit train in California, where everything is tens of billions of dollars over cost and it hasn't been delivered. And that's on the Democrats. The Democrats cannot blame Republicans on the cost of housing in California or New York. Republicans are not running things there, by and large. So I think the author here is on to something that you've got to learn from your enemies. Not to follow them, not to do exactly the same thing. But if they have certain tactics that work and you're a politician, you got to realize you're not there as a philosopher. Your voters don't ultimately care whether you are a purist with your philosophy. They care about what you deliver. Say what you will about Donald Trump, he might not have delivered lower prices, he might not have delivered lower inflation, but he really has delivered on a number of objectives that he said he would do. He said he would crack down really hard on minorities. He'd say he'd make America great again, implying for white people born in certain places. Wow. Has he done that as far as using the power of government to crack skulls, occasionally to use the military to take over Democratic cities? I mean, he said he'd do that, and he's done it. He said he would impose tariffs. He has done it, folks, like it or not. And I don't think there's any evidence that they've helped our economy or our relations around the world. But he gets stuff done. And it's not simply because he's willing to break any law and ignore any judge. That's a part of it, obviously. But there's more to it than that. In this column in the Times, which I would recommend you check out, argues that the left faces a Robert Moses problem. Robert Moses was a power broker in New York City that built most of the infrastructure of New York City as we know it, major roads, parks, highways. But he was also somebody who just bulldozed over minority communities, destroyed communities, did whatever he wanted, wasn't particularly Democratic, but, boy, did he get stuff done. The author's not suggesting, and I'm not suggesting the Democrats have to go that far. But at some point, you go too far. On the other side. It's one thing to say let's give all the power to a Robert Moses, strong authoritarian figure to do whatever he wants, and to heck with listening to anyone in any community that doesn't want to see their community destroyed. That's one clear extreme. But the other, and no one's really arguing that other than some version of Trump world. The other extreme version, though, is frankly, what we have today, which is, hey, let's all sit around and talk about green energy and electric chargers and inexpensive homes and great jobs. But the second anytime wants to actually build something, let's file. Let's make it really easy to file 10,000 lawsuits to stop the thing because we wouldn't want one interest group to have its feelings hurt. That's the other extreme. And I don't think it's a caricature to say that's essentially where the Democratic Party has been in places like New York City and in California for the last few decades. So interesting fuel for thought as the Democratic Party really tries to figure out what its identity is. I mean, one of the beauties of being out of power is it's going to be easier to change your positioning, your values, your party platform than ever before. Because people are looking for a change. They know that what they've got isn't working. A lot of Democrats, even though they won a few special elections this year, realize, okay, we know our brand is tainted. We know voters don't love what they think of when they think of a Democrat. We know that certainly in a lot of swing districts all over the country, our biggest problem is not the quality of the candidate, the communication skills, the education level, the intelligence, even the financial backing of our candidates. The biggest problem in the majority of swing districts in the United States for a Democratic candidate is the fact that there's the word Democrat in front of them. It is a tainted brand, primarily because of the perception that Democrats can't do anything. All they can do is call someone a racist, a sexist, a bully, and quite often it does need to be said. But that can't be the only thing your party does when they are in power. You've got to build affordable housing, you've got to build new universities. I mean, when's the last time we've seen in a Democratic state, I'm not talking about Texas and Austin, but in a Democratic state, truly build from scratch a brand new world class university. I'm trying to think of the last one and it's been a long, long time, certainly not in this century.
