A major failure of Democratic Party leadership, the article argues, is its refusal to confront the political amnesia that has allowed Donald Trump to enjoy impunity despite years of corruption, dishonesty, cruelty, and lawlessness. Trump, it says, has filled the vacuum created by that silence. His daily lies, boasts, and fantasies have polluted the political landscape, while Democrats have too often failed to rebut them.

The writer says Democrats need a compelling “REMINDERS” platform for current campaigns that can be directed at Republican candidates who continue to back Trump at the congressional and state levels. The piece is part of a broader intra-party debate over whether Democrats should focus on forward-looking policy offers or on relentless accountability messaging—a tension that has persisted since the party's 2024 losses. A sample list follows:

1. Trump was a failed gambling czar and used bankruptcy as a competitive tactic, as he openly described it, to stiff creditors, employees, and consumers. He also used hundreds of undocumented workers on construction projects, exploiting them with low wages and poor working conditions.

2. Trump is described as a serial sexual abuser of women, with dozens of credible accusations and legal actions brought by victims. The article notes that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, helped arrange a payment to Stormy Daniels to conceal a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. It also says Democrats have been largely absent on this issue since 2019, while focusing heavily on far smaller offenses by others. It references a February 24, 2020 open letter to women in Congress.

3. Trump derided and minimized the spread of COVID-19 for weeks in early 2020. A Columbia University report, the article says, conservatively estimated that between 130,000 and 210,000 deaths were attributable to delays by the Trump administration. The author asks whether Democrats have made enough of what he calls Trump’s lethal incompetence.

4. Trump’s tax cuts for the super-rich and large corporations produced huge deficits and reduced funding available for public services, public works, and jobs in communities across the country. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is set to see many of its individual provisions expire, remains a live policy debate. Democrats, the article says, should identify the specific needs those communities were denied because of Trump’s tax giveaways to the wealthy.

5. Trump is called a climate denier. The article says that whenever wildfires, floods, or heat domes linked to climate disruption occur, Democrats should remind voters of Trump’s claims that global warming is a “hoax” or a “scam,” and even label the disasters “Trump Hurricanes,” “Trump floods,” and “Trump wildfires.” It also says he has cut budgets for FEMA and other disaster-response agencies and has refused to pay firefighters a living wage or expand OSHA’s authority to protect their safety.

6. The article says Trump acts as an extorter-in-chief, cutting FEMA aid, mass transit assistance, and other federal spending for Democratic states to punish them for resisting him, including by refusing to give his administration control over state election data and machinery.

7. Trump has never backed away from his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. The writer argues that Democrats are too inconsistent in condemning what he describes as Trump’s efforts to steal future elections, and says party leaders rarely use the word “steal” against Trump even as he repeats it about 2020. The article cites Jonathan M. Winer’s The Wrecking Ball Comes For the Midterms.

8. Trump is described as a major racist against African Americans, Hispanics, and many other groups, citing harsh immigration enforcement, selective military firings, cuts to safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps, derogatory language about “shit-hole” countries, unlawful deportations, and the admission of only white South Africans as “refugees.”

9. Trump has pardoned hundreds of convicted violent criminals and fraudsters aligned with him, many of whom have since committed crimes. The article contrasts this with the 1988 Republican use of the Willie Horton case against Michael Dukakis—a tactic widely studied as a model of how a single opponent vulnerability can be weaponized in national campaigns.

10. Trump’s claims about “law and order,” the article says, do not apply to corporate criminals. It says he has dismissed more than a hundred pending Justice Department cases against corporate wrongdoers, virtually shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and thrown out SEC cases, especially those involving his cryptocurrency allies, from whose activities he and his family have personally benefited. The article says corruption is the defining feature of the Trump era.

11. Trump’s cruelty to children is said to be boundless. The article says he supports stripping down Head Start, cutting children’s services budgets, exposing children to unregulated toxic pesticides, and refusing to propose a real child tax credit. It argues these policies harm both conservative and liberal families.

12. Trump enabled the “DOGE” operation led by Elon Musk to sweep through federal agencies in 2025, closing vital programs and forcing tens of thousands of civil servants out of public service, according to the article. It says the effort was carried out by criminals unleashed by Trump’s hateful, vengeful, unstable leadership. It also says millions of poor people and children abroad will die because of the closure of USAID, which provides medicines, vaccines, food supplements, and safe drinking water. The article adds that the agency costs less than a week and a half of the current Pentagon budget, which Trump wants to expand by another $500 billion.

13. The writer says Democrats should highlight Trump’s hostility to solar and wind energy in favor of oil, gas, and coal companies. It quotes the article’s call for psychiatrists to weigh in and cites a Statement from Medical Professionals in the Congressional Record—Senate on April 30, 2026.

14. Finally, the article says voters should be reminded of Trump’s repeated insulting remarks, including calling fallen service members “losers and suckers,” referring to Americans’ financial situations with indifference, saying “I like this inflation,” and claiming in 2016 that “American workers are overpaid.” It says Democrats should force Republican candidates to disavow such statements in debates.

The article acknowledges that Democrats must also define what they stand for. It says party leaders, who dislike progressive mandates, have rejected cohesive proposals such as those offered by Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, and by the writer. It cites Reich’s “What Democrats Must Pledge to America” dated December 5, 2025, and the author’s column “LONG OVERDUE DOMESTIC COMPACT FOR AMERICA” dated August 29, 2025.

Most GOP candidates, the article concludes, are running on loyalty to Trump and should therefore be held accountable for the full record of what it sees as his destructive agenda, including support for his Cabinet secretaries. The writer closes by warning that political amnesia is easy to exploit and says the Democratic Party has a history of losing, including by allowing Trump’s Republican Party to win in 2024.