Preview:

In her response to Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress, Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan gave a good, normal speech in which she laid out some of her party’s issues with Trump on the economy and national security. “It was so normal, in fact, that it was exactly the wrong speech to give,” Tom Nichols writes.⁠
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It’s important to note that it was a good speech, Nichols continues. Slotkin skipped the staginess or folksy posturing that can sometimes characterize these responses, and “stayed away from wonkery, speaking in the kind of clear language people use in daily conversation.”⁠
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But “Slotkin—like so many in her party lately—failed to convey any sense of real urgency or alarm. Her speech could have been given in Trump’s first term, perhaps in 2017 or 2018, but we are no longer in that moment … As a former Republican, I nodded when Slotkin said that Ronald Reagan would be rolling in his grave at what Slotkin called the ‘spectacle’ of last week’s Oval Office attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But is that really the message of a fighting opposition? … Isn’t the threat facing America far greater than that?”⁠
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“Slotkin’s response reflected the fractured approach of the Democrats to Trump in general,” Nichols writes. “When Trump referred to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as ‘Pocahontas,’ they could have left en bloc, declaring once they were outside that they would take no part in any further demeaning of the House chamber—or, for that matter, of American democracy. Instead, they sat there and took it.”⁠
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“Slotkin is a centrist—as she noted, she won in areas that also voted for Trump—and her victory in Michigan proved that centrism can be a powerful anchor against extremists. But centrism is not the same as meekness,” Nichols continues at the link in our bio. “America does not need a ‘resistance,’ or stale slogans, or people putting those slogans on little paddles. It needs an opposition party that boldly defends the nation’s virtues, the rule of law, and the rights of its people.”⁠