(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Yes, there is plenty that Democrats can smash [1] [] Date: 2026-06-25 I caused a great deal of commotion Wednesday with the unfortunately titled piece, “Why Democrats need their own Trump.” Many people understandably never got past the headline. The point wasn’t that Democrats need a Trump-like figure. It was that Trump has exposed just how much power the presidency actually has once you stop treating norms and traditions as untouchable. But others read the piece and made a thoughtful point: It’s easy for Trump to be Trump because all he does is destroy. Democrats need to build. That’s a fair critique. And I fundamentally disagree. Not about building. Democrats absolutely should build. They should build housing. Build clean energy. Build infrastructure. Build a health care system that actually works. Build an economy where regular people can once again build wealth. Grant DC statehood, and Puerto Rico if it wants it. But every construction site starts with demolition. You don’t build affordable housing on top of an abandoned factory. You clear the site first. The status quo isn’t neutral. It’s a machine designed to concentrate wealth, power, and opportunity into fewer and fewer hands. If Democrats want to build something better, they first have to stop protecting the machinery that created today’s inequality. Here are just a few: The Senate filibuster Citizens United and the campaign finance system it unleashed A Supreme Court whose structure has become untouchable through custom rather than law Corporate monopolies Private equity firms that strip productive businesses for parts Health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers that profit by standing between patients and care Corporate landlords buying up neighborhoods ICE Mandatory arbitration clauses that deny people their day in court Credit bureaus that can upend someone’s financial life with no accountability The revolving door between Wall Street and Washington Social media algorithms designed to maximize outrage instead of informing people Major media outlets owned and controlled by right-wing billionaires Private prison companies The list could go on for pages. And in fact, it did in my first draft of this story. None of those institutions or practices exist because they’re sacred. They exist because they benefit people with the power to preserve them. Calling them “institutions” doesn’t make them virtuous. It just makes them harder to question. As much as we need to build for the future, we also need to stop treating today’s institutions as if they were handed down on stone tablets. That was one of the Democratic Party’s biggest mistakes between Trump’s two terms. Democrats promised to restore institutions that millions of Americans already believed had failed them. That’s a hard sell when those institutions helped produce the inequality and frustration that made Trump possible in the first place. Related | Why Democrats need their own Trump Meanwhile, building takes time. Sometimes people can’t wait. During the 2025 New York Democratic mayoral primary, Andrew Cuomo campaigned on building enough housing to bring rents down over time. Zohran Mamdani promised to freeze rents immediately. Those aren’t competing ideas. As an unapologetic YIMBY, I think cities should build as much housing as physically possible. In the long run, supply has to meet demand. But Mamdani understood something Cuomo didn’t—people vote in the present. They need to feel that government is improving their lives now, not after a decade of studies, environmental site reviews, permitting fights, NIMBY lawsuits, and construction schedules. Related | Mamdani’s got Trump and Fox News big mad For as long as I’ve been around, the Democratic instinct has been to explain why immediate action isn’t possible. In 2008, Barack Obama promised immigration reform would be a top priority in his first year. It wasn’t an empty promise. He believed it. But then reality intervened. The Affordable Care Act became the priority. The White House deferred to Congress. Senate procedure dictated the timetable. Political capital had to be preserved. The assumption was that comprehensive immigration reform had to move through the normal legislative process. Those were all understandable decisions. They were also decisions rooted in a theory of presidential power that Trump demolished. Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press Trump couldn’t rewrite immigration law. Only Congress can do that. But he demonstrated that a president possesses enormous authority to reshape immigration policy through executive action. Obama accepted the conventional limits of the office. Trump tested every one of them. That’s the lesson Democrats should take from this era. Not the cruelty. Not the corruption. Not the contempt for democracy. Not the self-serving narcissism. And we certainly don’t need Democrats who destroy for the sake of destruction. We need Democrats who are willing to dismantle systems that concentrate wealth and power so they can build something better in their place. That’s not Trumpism. That’s refusing to mistake the status quo for progress. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/25/800060664/whitehouse/yes-there-is-plenty-that-democrats-can-smash/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/