Democratic Leadership Council bigwigs Al From and Bruce Reed have an article in today’s Wall St. Journal, “Get the Red Out,” that rolls out a couple of fresh ideas for a Democratic resurgence. Along with their more predictable proposals and pot shots at Michael Moore and Joe Trippi, From and Reed propose a “Heartland Project,” which would include “family policies that give parents more time to raise their kids right,” a provocative idea that merits further exploration. They also advocate a new message strategy that gives more emphasis to the Democrats’ outsider status, as they “take up the reform mantle” and become “the party of change, protecting our principles, not our programs.” All Democrats may not be able to unite behind the DLC’s positions on Iraq policy, same-sex marriage and other issues, but Reed and From are thinking creatively about the Party’s future, and their ideas merit thoughtful consideration.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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November 22: RFK Jr. May Be Denied Confirmation for Being Formerly Pro-Choice
There are no actual Democrats in Trump’s Cabinet so far, but he’s hoping to appoint an ex-Democrat to run HHS. As I noted at New York, RFK Jr. is in trouble for not abandoning abortion rights far or fast enough.
Donald Trump’s shocking nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head up the vast Department of Health and Human Services led to a lot of concerns about his suitability and ideological compatibility with the MAGA folk that would surround him at the Cabinet table. Kennedy’s reflexive hostility to vaccines puts him at odds with many Republicans. His complaints about Big Pharma, agribusiness giants, and use of pesticides by farmers have earned him some enemies who are very influential in the Republican Party. And his denunciation of processed foods as child-killing evils has to personally annoy the Big Mac aficionado of Mar-a-Lago.
But even if none of those longtime controversies surrounding the former Democrat make him radioactive among the Senate Republicans who would have to confirm him for HHS, he’s also in considerable trouble with one of the GOP’s oldest and most important allies: the anti-abortion movement. Suspicion of him in that quarter is natural, since Kennedy for many years maintained a standard Democratic position favoring abortion rights, though it was never an issue that preoccupied him. Then, as a presidential candidate who drifted out of the Democratic primaries into an independent bid, he was all over the place on abortion. He made remarks that ranged from unconditional support for the right to choose even after fetal viability to support for a three-month national ban to various points in between.
At a minimum, anti-abortion activists would like to pin him to an acceptable position, but they also seem inclined to secure concessions from him in exchange for declining to go medieval on his confirmation, as Politico explains:
“Abortion opponents — concerned about Kennedy’s past comments supporting abortion access — have two major asks: that he appoint an anti-abortion stalwart to a senior position in HHS and that he promise privately to them and publicly during his confirmation hearing to restore anti-abortion policies from the first Trump administration, according to four anti-abortion advocates granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. And Kennedy, according to a fifth person close to the Trump transition, is open to their entreaties.”
He’d better be. Despite Trump’s abandonment of the maximum anti-abortion stance during his 2024 campaign, the forced-birth lobby remained firmly in his camp and has maintained even more influence among Republican officeholders who haven’t “pivoted” from the 45th president’s hard-core position to the 47th president’s current contention that abortion policy is up to the states. Indeed, you could make the argument that it’s even more important than ever to anti-abortion activists that Trump be surrounded by zealots in order to squeeze as many congenial actions as possible out of his administration and the Republicans who will control Congress come January. And there’s plenty HHS can do to make life miserable for those needing abortion services, Politico notes:
“At a minimum, anti-abortion groups want to see the Trump administration rescind the policies Biden implemented that expanded abortion access, such as the update to HIPAA privacy rules to cover abortions, as well as FDA rules making abortion pills available by mail and at retail pharmacies. … The advocates are also demanding the return of several Trump-era abortion rules, including the so-called Mexico City policy that blocked federal funding for international non-governmental organizations that provide or offer counseling on abortions, anti-abortion restrictions on federal family-planning clinics and a federal ban on discriminating against health care entities that refuse to cover abortion services or refer patients for the procedure when taxpayer dollars are involved.”
Anti-abortion folk could overplay their bullying of Kennedy and annoy the new administration: The Trump transition team has already vetoed one of the Cause’s all-time favorites, Roger Severino, for HHS deputy secretary, though it may have been as much about his identification with the toxic Project 2025 as his extremist background on abortion policy. It probably doesn’t help that objections to Kennedy for being squishy on abortion were first aired by former vice-president Mike Pence, who has about as much influence with Trump 2.0 as the former president’s former fixer Michael Cohen.
As for Kennedy, odds are he will say and do whatever it takes to get confirmed; he’s already had to repudiate past comments about Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, including a comparison of his new master to Adolf Hitler (a surprisingly common problem in MAGA land). Having come a very long way from his quixotic challenge to Joe Biden in 2023, Kennedy really wants to take his various crusades into the new administration, at least until Trump inevitably gets tired of hearing complaints from donors about him and sends him back to the fever swamps.
Wrong DemDude. Please go check out Josh Marshall, Atrios and Kos. Let the DLC join the Republican Party where they belong. I know you think that since we only got 49% of the vote we can’t possibly win without them, but the Republicans won because not enough Independents and Swing voters went our way THIS TIME. They decided to stay the course mostly because we’re at war. Four more years of what we all know are politics of disaster will bring those Indies our way NEXT TIME (maybe even in ’06). We almost beat a sitting President in a time of War. That’s remarkable. The corporate owned SCLM keeps pushing the moral values “mandate” that currently sits at 50.62% according to Mr. Teixeira’s post from above, and people like you are buying it. Stop it. I’m with Kos – I’m a Reform Democrat leaning hard left and don’t want to do business with the DLC any longer.
Pounder – That attitude is as misguided as the DLC/CDM bashing of liberal Democrats. Like it or not, they are a sizable portion of the Democratic base. We have to find ways to work together, or we will suffer even greater losses. We need a bigger tent, not a smaller one. Conservative and liberal Democrats have got to stop the sniping at each other.
there is nothing the DLC can offer that I am interested in. We have done it their way and lost, and then lsot soem more. they simply want to preserve whats left of their failed organization.
Real reforms are not going to come from these guys.