Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan openly outlined a strategy to target President Trumps allies and intimidate future conservative staffers during a recent appearance at the University of Chicago.
According to the Gateway Pundit, Slotkin joined a live taping of a liberal podcast on campus, where she made clear that her focus extends well beyond the 45th president himself. I want to look at these signature cases, and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him, she said, signaling a desire to punish not only the nations chief executive but also those who exercised their constitutional right to serve in his administration. From there, she turned explicitly to the next generation, declaring, I want young people coming out of school to say, should I go work for the Trump administration? Like, that sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.
Slotkin then made plain that her goal is to instill fear in young conservatives considering public service. I want them to be like, Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I dont want, and so let me avoid participating in that, she said, adding bluntly, I want that deterrence message sent. For a party that routinely smears its opponents as fascist, the idea of using legal and political pressure to blacklist political dissidents sounds far closer to authoritarianism than to democracy.
The Michigan Democrat also embraced sweeping structural changes to the federal system under the banner of ethics and reform. Slotkin called for a radical reform and ethics package to rebuild public trust in elected officials and judges, including efforts to ban[ ] corporate PACs, impose term and age limits for Supreme Court justices, and restrict stock trading by members of Congress and their spouses. She further insisted that Democrats should aggressively pursue investigations into alleged government misconduct and introduce safeguards against future abuses of power, framing Trump and his supporters as the justification for expanding government oversight.
We have to Trump-proof the government going forward, so that no president of any party can ever abuse the system the way he did, Slotkin claimed, casting her partisan agenda as a neutral defense of institutions. She downplayed ideological differences inside her party, arguing that the real divide is about willingness to wield power against Trump and his movement: I dont think the divide is moderate versus progressive, she said, I think it is fight versus flight.
Slotkin cited her collaboration with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Democrat, as proof that the partys factions can unite when it comes to consolidating power. Though she noted disagreements particularly [on] foreign policy, she emphasized shared priorities on democracy and economic security, concluding, We may come from different so-called wings of the party, but we can work together as a team on the things that we both believe in. For conservatives watching Democrats openly discuss blacklisting Trump supporters and Trump-proofing the government, it is increasingly difficult to ignore that those shouting loudest about authoritarianism are the ones most eager to weaponize the state against their political enemies.
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