Journalist, activist, & RootsAction.org co-founder visited to discuss his Common Dreams article “Establishment Democrats Are Blowing the Fight Against a Fascist Trump.”
This Journalist exposes establishment Democrats.
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Summary
In his Politics Done Right appearance, journalist‑activist Norman Solomon argues that Democratic complacency and donor‑class deference are paving the way for a second, more overtly authoritarian Trump term. He urges grassroots organizers to abandon “paralysis of analysis,” confront the Heritage‑backed Project 2025 blueprint, and rebuild year‑round, working‑class power.
- Fascism advances incrementally; each unchallenged outrage becomes the new normal.
- Democrats lost nearly 1,000 state‑legislative seats during the Obama years, crippling their ability to block GOP gerrymanders.
- Trump’s allies crafted Project 2025, a plan to purge civil servants and gut social programs, while publicly pretending distance.
- Rural America will suffer first—from post‑office closures to hospital shutdowns—if federal services are slashed.
- Real resistance requires treating elections as subsets of broader social movements, not vice versa.
Solomon’s message aligns with a progressive vision: center working‑class needs, tax plutocrats, and build a multiracial coalition confronting corporate power as fiercely as it rebukes right‑wing demagogues. Grassroots pressure—amplified by independent outlets like Common Dreams, RootsAction.org, and Politics Done Right—can push the Democratic Party to fight for economic justice rather than merely manage decline.
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Donald Trump’s post‑election hard‑right lurch already resembles an allegory that should alarm not only MAGA devotees but every voter who values pluralistic democracy. In a 21 21-minute Politics Done Right conversation, journalist‑activist Norman Solomon eviscerates the “paralysis of analysis” gripping establishment Democrats and urges a grassroots counter‑offensive. His critique—first published in Common Dreams as “Establishment Democrats Are Blowing the Fight Against a Fascist Trump”—lands with force because it marries data‑driven history to a moral call for action.
Solomon begins by reminding listeners that fascism rarely arrives overnight. He cites philosopher Jason Stanley’s insight that authoritarianism advances incrementally, normalizing each new outrage until resistance looks impractical. Trump’s embrace of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” blueprint exemplifies that creep. Although Trump publicly distanced himself from the document during the campaign, his appointees now implement its core demand: consolidate presidential power by purging civil‑service professionals, dismantling social‑service agencies, and eliminating restraints on corporate polluters. Solomon frames this not as partisan rough‑and‑tumble but as a structural assault on the people’s capacity to govern themselves.
The veteran journalist then indicts corporate Democrats for surrendering the terrain where authoritarianism thrives. Under Presidents Clinton and Obama, the party perfected top‑of‑ticket triangulation—enough Wall Street money to win the White House, but little investment in year‑round mobilization. The result was catastrophic: almost 1,000 Democratic state‑legislative seats vanished during the Obama era, handing Republicans the pen to gerrymander enduring majorities. Solomon argues that today’s leadership risks repeating the pattern by chasing suburban moderates while under‑funding Black, brown, and rural working‑class turnout operations.
The rural dimension looms large in the dialogue. Trump’s current budget, like Project 2025, would close Social Security field offices, starve rural hospitals, and shutter post offices—institutions that anchor fragile local economies. Studies of previous postal closures show measurable job losses and commercial decline, underscoring how federal retrenchment accelerates rural dispossession. Yet Democratic messaging often ignores these bread‑and‑butter harms, allowing the Right to posture as populist even while slashing the very services that keep small‑town America afloat.
Solomon also skewers the party’s donor calculus. When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer boasts that Democratic engagements are “dragging down Trump’s numbers,” he betrays a consultant mindset that mistakes polling decay for material persuasion. Solomon contends that voters need concrete promises—higher wages, union rights, universal health care—not warmed‑over talking points about defending norms. Corporate fund‑raising pressures, however, muffle demands for progressive taxation and aggressive antitrust enforcement. Until Democrats sever that golden tether, he argues, many disaffected citizens will continue flirting with pseudo‑populist strongmen who openly disdain democracy.
The conversation nevertheless offers a road map for resistance. First, liberals must treat electoral campaigns as subordinated to social movements, not vice versa. Every moral advance—from women’s suffrage to Medicare—sprang from grass‑roots agitation that later translated into votes. Second, coalition politics must stretch beyond blue cities. When Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez barnstorm Midwestern college towns one night and Appalachian union halls the next, they model the multiracial, multi‑generational mobilization capable of halting authoritarian momentum.
Finally, information warfare matters. Independent outlets like Common Dreams, community radio, and podcasts such as Politics Done Right form a parallel public sphere where corporate advertising dollars cannot veto dissent. Solomon urges supporters to “flood the zone” with shareable content that demystifies Project 2025, spotlights rural service cuts, and debunks GOP economic myths. The aim is not merely to “expose” Trump but to animate neighbors around shared material interests—clean water, fair wages, and bodily autonomy.
In this allegory, Merritt—the frog of fable—still sits in water that warms degree by degree. Corporate media frame each new Trump power‑grab as a ratings‑friendly spectacle; Democratic insiders counsel patience until the next quarterly poll. Solomon rejects such complacency. He insists that citizens act as moral protagonists, organizing within and beyond the Democratic Party to demand a politics that serves the many, not the mall‑owning few. The interview thus stands as a clarion call: authoritarianism will not defeat itself, and history remembers those who recognized the temperature rising and leapt first, pulling others to safety.
