This election season’s message is painfully simple — Democrats must show up as the adults and run as the parent and grandparent ready to deal with what remains of this adolescent mess.
Perhaps it will feel familiar to many, a rush to arrive and survey the damage, knowing someone has to take over, organize, and clean. It will not be the fundamentally unequipped, the delinquents, the kids. Once again it will be us, the Dems.
To the extent this administration adheres to any one ethos, it’s not about making anything great. It’s much more “because we could!” accompanied with a vacant smile, dopamine-lit eyes, someone reflexively acting in self-interest in the moment, no thought about tomorrow, or others, living second to second, fully adolescent, still impressed only that he can do it, never wondering if he should.
That is the Trump administration and all movement MAGAs — think Pete Hegseth.
In the same way that adult family and friends have for ages shown up at the car accident, the police station, the doctor’s office, and taken over, Democrats must move from here to November, and beyond, holding to one core value, both as principle and character trait: “time to hand it to grown-ups.”
It is a job as thankless as it is obvious, and all too familiar.
Democrats cleaned up after the George W. Bush administration’s coddling of Wall Street nearly drowned the world’s economy in a sea of CDOs and swaps. In 2021, Dems took over like a well-run PTA to ensure the world’s most-necessary vaccine got distributed and a society rebooted amidst an epidemic killing millions. Democrats must move forward again today, ready to simply deal with the daylight after this administration’s dark run. The job will be semi-familiar, though never close to this level, and yet the path to office and power, the path to opportunity to limit and clean, has never been clearer.
The “issues” barely matter anymore.
One can look at literally almost any action this administration takes, whether it is the Iranian war, the now unconcealed racism and misogyny at the root of the anti-DEI rampage, the grift-gift, decimation of the healthcare system to cover tax cuts to billionaires, doesn’t matter — it’s all done with teen glee, caring only about today and themselves, not the consequences for us or even themselves. And it’s time to call it what it is, the inevitable result of wrongly empowered kids, entirely free of adult predisposition, never mind supervision.
They made football and video game memes amidst war, fired general officers for being women or Black — lacking all shame. Like kids everywhere, they do it “because they can.” Any Democrat wanting to make a difference in stopping this or eventually helping to clean it up had best come forward infused with utter earnestness and candor. “It is time to stop, grow up, and clean up.” Projecting any politics is malpractice.
It sounds simple, and yet it is also so damned powerful. The true gravitas granted by being “an adult in the room” acts as nuclear kryptonite to these super-kids. See Megyn Kelly’s reaction to simple “adulting,” when she recently referenced Hall of Fame Adult Pete Buttigieg and many other Democrats, catastrophizing like the mean-girl cheerleader willing to burn the town to a pile before allowing a rival prom-queen, promising to vote Republican even if Trump dropped a nuke because:
“That’s when I think Democrat, that’s what I think. That’s smug, arrogant. I’m better than you. I look down my nose on you. Even though you’ve done three tours of duty. … That to me, I could never vote for, never.”
Perfect Trumpism, never sounding more high school, never more afraid of a teacher, a parent, someone judging what just happened and saying, “No, we should not be openly attacking the world, threatening genocide, embracing racism, paying off billionaires, now knock it off and go home.” And that’s because Kelly does, in fact, know that adults would step in and be better than this — much better. There is no reaching Kelly with any message.
But she’s hardly the norm. Real people, real grown-ups still exist and terrify the GOP.
Maturity must be the platform.
I am not currently advising any single candidate, but the message to all Democrats out there now is to drop all political pretense. Instead, message out with a candid, “I care, and I will help fix it.” Look at Mayor Mamdani in New York City and his approach — young, yet an adult in charge. Rising Texan star, precocious James Talerico, has some of the same juice; it’s about approach, not age. Senators Chris Murphy, Mark Kelly, and Amy Klobuchar (Speaking of Minnesotans) long carried this message while also being the type everyone relies on when things get bad.
That is the message from this point forward. Adult supervision, the games are over, grow up, accountability is coming, and then assuring the world, “We’ve got this now.” That is everything needed for a world needing saving.
Sad that it’s so simple, isn’t it? But simple doesn’t mean easy, indeed — in this case, it’s the exact opposite.
But this is where we stand. It doesn’t matter why it’s third down and 15; it just is. Life plays out this way for grown-ups every day, from intra-family to international. Inevitably, as bad as things get, whether it be troops in Iran or a drunken fight at a prom, testosterone-powered and poisoned rides eventually end. A typical Hegseth “because we could, brah!” butts up against a global “no more.” The party ends, daylight comes, sober assessments get made, plans formed, find a first down and move the ball — that’s what adults do.
It is also the Democratic platform from now until grown-ups govern — as compelling as it is needed, as true as it is sad. The simpler, the more mature, the more powerful. Stand ready to take over for the kids playing the most dangerous games. They hate that we know better and really hate already knowing that resolutions require consequences and rules. It will be extremely hard. Kids hate getting caught.
But the world has literally never needed us more. Fortunately, they’re not asking for superheroes, merely adults.
Jason Miciak is a Rawstory Columnist at Large, former associate editor of Occupy Democrats, author, and attorney. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at [email protected], still seeking a few more beta readers for his latest soon to be released novel.
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