U.S. stock exchanges and financial markets have reported Trump-induced losses of over $5 Trillion (yes, Trillion !), with similar huge sums (estimated as some $10 trillion) reported lost internationally. Throughout the world, appalled and perplexed observers ponder how to react.
On the floor of the U.S. Senate on April 1, 2025, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker delivered a record-breaking 25-hour, 4-minute tirade against Trump that has evoked a broad range of responses.
Admirers saw Booker’s fierce attack on President Trump, on White House adviser AElon Musk’s D.O.G.E. (Department of Governmental Efficiency) and on Trump’s devoted M.A.G.A. devotees as a necessary and overdue Democratic response to mind-boggling White House excesses. Loyal Republicans dismissed Booker as a self-promoting blow-hard who demonstrated Democratic futility and despair.
A large and growing number of Democrats – dismayed by the many signals that today’s Democratic Party has lost effective contact with it’s traditional working class and highschool-educated constituency – hopes that Senator Booker can galvanize dispirited Democrats to new levels of political reality and impact. A revitalized and reconstituted Democratic Party is clearly called for, one reflecting the best of its past and one enabling us to enact important (and achievable) electoral victories. in 2026 and in 2028.
Hillary Clinton’s 2016 term “a basket of deplorables” – the most disastrous and counter-productive term in modern political history – convinced many working class and highschool-educated voters that the Democratic Party looked down on them and no longer focused on their modest needs. A resurrected party can once again demonstrate its ability to set desirable priorities, to identify preferable choices among alternatives and to ratify realistic and pragmatic trade-offs benefiting its historic and continuing public.
Current public opinion polls reveal – and political commentators agree – that the Democratic Party is widely seen today as being led by – and serving the interests of – W.E.I. R.D. (Western Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) individuals, their families and their peers.
Today’s properly reconstituted and reprogramed Democratic Party must present itself as the desired political vehicle that addresses the public’s most significant needs – public safety, employment, housing, healthcare and free effective public education at all levels.
We do know what Should Not be said: A) A slogan like “Defunding the Police” is madness and must be forgotten. B) A.O.C. and Bernie Sanders are counter-productive Ultra-Leftists who weaken the Democratic Party by providing ammunition to our opponents, and they must be dis-avowed. C) The new Democratic Party must be seen as thinking constructively, productively and pragmatically, and D) Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are now “ancient history” and must be forgotten. No useful purpose is served by recalling them in any way.
Our challenges are clear. Where are the leaders who can show us how to accomplish them ?
by Daniel Rose
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