Truth and Reconciliation

Dave Weigel interviewed Tim Walz, who’s campaigning in Wisconsin in support of Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford, who is running against a candidate who has millions of Musk dollars behind him. Weigel asked an interesting question:

Let’s ignore the “Ezra Klein Space” for the moment and talk about putting the engine back in the car. What would that look like?

I think it begins with a frank discussion of the breakdown that occurred. Democrats embrace the legitimate role of government and acknowledge, as Walz says, that important departments like Education could be changed to do a better job. That acknowledgment shouldn’t take the form of “Republicans had a point, actually” but rather that “any government department can function better, and we’re going to take this rebuilding opportunity to make them better.”

After that, we talk about punishing those who broke the law in order to wreck those departments. For example, the dismantling of the US Institute for Peace, which isn’t a government agency, happened because DOGE convince their security service to switch sides or lose all other government contracts. The DOGErs who did this need to face criminal charges and punishment. We don’t need a repeat of the Merrick Garland situation — instead, we need a solid promise from Democrats that this time we’re going to go after lawbreakers swiftly and forcefully. This will serve as an example to potential DOGErs, who will think twice about being the tip of the spear for some rich dude who wants to destroy government to get sweetheart contracts and tax breaks.

We need to restore Congress to the role that it was supposed to serve. Our reforms should take the form of legislative packages that address each of the different agencies where Musk and Trump ran rampant. Those pieces of legislation should pass through Congress individually, with the responsible committees working from a template that was shared during the election by Democratic candidates. Those templates should be very simple bullet points, not long policy papers.

Finally, the courts need to be respected and put in their proper place. The Supreme Court isn’t a bunch of little kings. Apparently, Congress can specify that pieces of legislation aren’t subject to judicial review. We should do that liberally. Also, we need to pass ethics reform for the courts, and plan on packing the Supreme Court if necessary.

Every single thing I stated above is too radical for most of the Democratic establishment in Congress and in the ranks of consultants. They will fight it, hard. That’s why we need to get started now so we won’t have another replay of Biden 2020, where we just expect the garbage of the former Trump administration to take itself out.