Action 46: Petition To Create a Shadow Cabinet
Background:
Despite powerful and courageous words from individual members of Congress and non-partisan judges, the Democratic party has not settled on a coherent strategy for responding to the disastrous first weeks of the Trump-Musk coup. This has left the party appearing rudderless and in disarray and many Democratic and moderate independent voters despondent about the future of our country.
In this desperate moment, the American people crave reassurance that there is a well-organized opposition party with the intelligence, courage, and integrity to defend government “of the people and for the people.” We cannot rely on the courts alone to sustain the rule of law, as they are now doing. Protection of democratic values is, ultimately, a political challenge to which we expect the Democratic leadership to rise.
One Solution is to ask the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic members of Congress URGENTLY to establish a “Shadow Cabinet”, as is often done by parties out of power in Great Britain and Canada. Shadow Cabinet members would monitor the words and actions of Trump’s chief administrators, analyze and critique their policy pronouncements and decisions, and offer alternatives that would better serve the interests of our whole nation, not just those of the billionaire class.
The Shadow Cabinet would include counterparts to all Cabinet Secretaries and the Directors of all Independent Federal Agencies. They should have relevant professional backgrounds and standing in their fields. A shadow secretary, director, or administrator should be responsible for providing a Democratic perspective on current events in his or her area of expertise. The Democratic National Committee should raise funds to staff this effort, especially for facilitating coordination between Shadow Cabinet members as well as public communications across all media platforms. Furthermore, we recommend that these shadow leaders be supported through research, analysis and policy development by the nation’s leading progressive think tanks, to offset the harmful role of Project 2025 in guiding the Trump administration’s dismantling of the national government.
A Shadow Cabinet would enable the party to contrast the integrity, capability, and vision of a Democratic “government in waiting” with that of the current administration, at the same time providing regular public exposure for rising leadership within the Democratic party. Donald Trump’s nominees comprise the least qualified class of cabinet appointments in our nation’s history. Most know nothing about the departments and agencies they have been tapped to oversee. All they bring to the job is fealty to Trump and a desire, not to reform or even disrupt those departments and agencies, but rather to destroy them and with them our national government. America deserves better.
Updates since original post:
Ellen Booraem from Brooklin shared a link to an online petition to create a shadow cabinet. This was new news this morning! We need to launch all the lifeboats, so feel free to sign this petition as well as circulate the one we plan to send to the state party.
https://www.change.org/p/democrats-form-a-people-s-cabinet. Why bother doing both? Fair question!
Mike’s thoughts:
“I don’t see this as an either/or situation. Both approaches seem needed. I just signed the change.org petition and am going to a resistance meeting on Mt. Desert this afternoon to gather signatures for our petition. I believe we need to build grassroots support for this idea in order to get the national party to treat it seriously. The Indivisible group in Bangor has asked for a copy of our petition and will hopefully transmit it to their counterparts elsewhere. That is also why I am working with the Maine Democratic Committee and have reached out to friends in MA. No doubt the change.org initiative will get to the national committee much more quickly but our effort will hopefully build sustained pressure to follow through with strategic thinking and action. That is why our petition goes into a bit more detail on staffing the effort and coordinating it with progressive think tanks like Brookings and the Roosevelt Institute. This is war. Democrats need to be far more organized and strategic than in the past. Disorganization is a luxury we cannot now afford.”
ACTION: Print out, sign yourself, and collect additional signatures on the attached petition. When you have collected a reasonable number of signatures, send your petition by snail mail to:
Michael McMillen, 21 Carver Field Rd, Harborside, ME 04642.
He will forward copies of the petitions to state (ME) and national Democratic party officials. If you are collecting signatures in other states, forward your petitions to your state Democratic committee leadership and request that they forward them to the national committee.
CONTACT: If you have questions or need additional forms: Michael McMillen, mcmillen@me.com
207 326 8022 (land) 207 671 9515 (cell and text)
URGENCY: March 19
EXTRA CREDIT:
· “Shadow Cabinet”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_cabinet
· “Shadow Cabinet – A Positive Form of Opposition: by historian of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder on Substack: https://snyder.substack.com/p/shadow-cabinet
· Representative Jasmine Crocket interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezktl6S60A8
PETITION FOR CREATION OF A SHADOW CABINET
Return via snail mail by March 19, 2025 to:
Michael McMillen
21 Carver Field Rd
Harborside, ME 04642
or email to mcmillen@me.com
Return via snail mail by March 19, 2025 to:
Michael McMillen
21 Carver Field Rd
Harborside, ME 04642
or email to mcmillen@me.com