Dems could smash Trump with this 'lost to history' power: Ex-White House aide
If the Democratic Party wants to hinder Donald Trump's brutal push to create a police state, then it needs to fight back with an unused political method, a commentator urged Tuesday.
Former Bill Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal argued in The Guardian that the only way to prevent any further damage from the president, whether it involves Immigration and Customs Enforcement rulings in Minneapolis or hinting that the midterm elections should be cancelled, lawmakers must strike with an "oppositional political center of gravity" — state resolutions.
Blumenthal called the approach to state resolutions something "lost to history, not wielded effectively for 113 years," but an option that hasn't been employed yet.
"Today, state legislative resolutions would have far more political weight than any poll, provide a galvanizing mechanism to drive public opinion, and solidify the states as defenders of basic American rights seeking to safeguard constitutional freedoms and the safety of electoral processes," Blumenthal wrote. "State resolutions would expose the brazen hypocrisy of the Trump administration as it tramples on the formerly sanctified principles of states’ rights and free speech, and as Trump poses a clear and present danger to free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028."
While the Supreme Court has consistently fallen in line with Trump over the last year — often not offering much reasons over their decisions to side with him — letting the president work without any imposition on his power, this alternative method could help mobilize the Democratic Party ahead of the midterms.
"Meanwhile, though lower courts have ruled overwhelmingly in state and city suits against Trump’s draconian tactics and policies, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has relegated many of those decisions to a legal twilight zone through the 'shadow docket,'" Blumenthal wrote.
"Their deliberately long-delayed rulings allow Trump the impunity to impose his authoritarian and unconstitutional methods without obstruction," he explained.
In 2025, of the 25 Trump emergency applications, the conservative majority high court ruled in Trump's favor for 20 cases and seven of those cases had no written explanation.
Should the Democratic Party find a way to shift the conversation and initiate a state resolution, then it could cause difficulties for the GOP, Blumenthal argued.
The move would be a significant step and "golden opportunity" for state legislatures to regain their power against Trump.
"The politics would be a significant mobilizing factor in the Democratic midterm strategy in elections to the House, the Senate and state legislatures," he wrote.
"In states with a Democratic trifecta (where Democrats control the governorship and both legislative chambers), there are 659 Republican state legislators. Within these Democratic states, there are also 38 Republican members of the House, most of them in swing districts.
"Forcing the Republican state legislators to vote on ICE would place them in a political vice between the intransigent MAGA base and the majority of the electorate. This existential predicament would envelop Republican House members as well," he added.
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