Matt Gaetz announced today that he has withdrawn his name from consideration to be the next attorney general of the United States. It seemed his nomination had a minor problem.

Sorry, but it's almost impossible not to treat the whole sordid story as a joke. Gaetz was a completely laughable candidate from the start, so it's hard not to have a few final laughs as he exits. After all, the nomination of Gaetz didn't even last a full Scaramucci!

Kidding aside, I do have to wonder whether this was the plan all along. From the start, there was speculation that this was all very conveniently timed to allow Gaetz to escape what is reportedly a very damning report from the House Ethics Committee being made public. If Gaetz hadn't been nominated, this report likely would have been released last Friday. Gaetz reportedly has plans to run for Florida governor in 2026, and it would be easier for him to do so if the report stays buried.

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Do Democrats still have a "big tent" party, or have they now morphed to being a "small tent" party by insisting on too many must-pass litmus tests? That is a question Democrats should really be asking themselves now, after suffering a humiliating election defeat. That's the traditional way to put it, but at the risk of using an offensive term, what they really need to decide is whether they're going to allow what might be called "Cafeteria Democrats" to exist peacefully within their party or not.

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Although Donald Trump is known for tossing aside any political conventions or traditions he doesn't like, there's one aspect of his transition that seems rather jaw-dropping, although few have commented on it (other than by making jokes). Ultra-cynical observers of American politics have long denounced the wealthy (not to mention corporations) for "buying" politicians. If you've got enough money, then you can easily fund a re-election campaign... or fund a primary challenge if this carrot doesn't work as intended. From that point on, they have certain politicians "in their pocket," and can count on them to vote to support their interests.

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The circus has come to town, and performing in the center ring this week was the teeny-tiny clown car which disgorged a continuing parade of clowns, each more outlandish than the last.

Or, to put things another way: get ready for lots more circus/clown metaphors in the very near future. It's really the only possible way to describe Donald Trump selecting his cabinet. But we'll get to the individual clowns in a moment, because first we've got to take a broader view of what Trump's up to here.

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I have to say, the temptation to join the chorus of both laughter and horror over Donald Trump's cabinet picks is pretty tempting today, but I think I'll save my comments on that clown parade for tomorrow. Instead, I'm going to continue looking forward today, to extend my thoughts on the Democratic Party and what it should do moving forward. The last two days I devoted to possible presidential candidates in 2028, but today I'm going to concentrate on what Democrats should be emphasizing during both the 2026 (midterm) and 2028 campaigns.

Looking that far into the future in politics is impossible, I do realize that. A lot of any Democratic campaign is going to be commentary on what Trump has done as president, that much seems pretty certain. What I'm going to lay out is a very pro-family economic platform for Democrats to embrace next time around, which would compliment whatever Democrats are saying about Trump and the Republicans running Washington.

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Senators

I will begin by saying that this section is probably going to be somewhat incomplete. Almost all senators entertain thoughts of becoming president at one point or another, so I'm sure there will be some surprises when 2028 rolls around. Most of these, however, fail to gain much traction on a national stage and wind up pulling out of the race pretty early, though. To give but one example, does anyone today remember Michael Bennet's 2020 presidential campaign? I certainly hadn't, and I follow politics pretty closely. So there will likely be at least a couple Democratic candidates next time around that few outside of their home state even recognize.

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Yes, this is way too early. Insanely early. I get that.

But looking into the future with hope is what Democrats are going to have to start doing at some point, and I figured now -- while Democrats are in some pretty deep despair -- is a pretty good time to start doing it. So today let's think about the 2028 Democratic primary season, and run down the list of possible Democratic candidates. Hey, it's better than watching Donald Trump make cabinet picks, right?

In 2028 we will have a rare election, because both political parties will have open races. Trump is term-limited out of office (assuming the Constitution is still relatively intact, of course), and there will be no heir apparent on the Democratic side.

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We've all already seen this movie once, so we should kind of know what to expect. And sequels are usually much worse than the original.

Which is why today we're going to devote this column to pondering how bad things could really get in Donald Trump's second term in office (rather than sticking to our normal Friday format). Some things will probably not be as horrifically bad as Democrats now think, some things will indeed be precisely that bad, and some things will be even more horrific than anyone's imagining right now. And my apologies, because this is not an attempt at making a comprehensive list of predictions but rather just free association, what might be called initial thoughts.

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As the Democratic Party surveys the smoking wreckage of their electoral hopes and dreams, there will no doubt be a movement to figure it all out and try to fix whatever's wrong, in preparation for next time. The pundits are already busy tossing ideas out, and the party bigwigs will probably make some sort of official effort to understand it all at some point.

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And so we wait.

Everything's already been said, we just have to see what our fellow Americans think of it all, at this point.

Because I could think of nothing to write to add to this day, I instead reached back to the best wordsmith of our time and what she had to say after the previous election. What follows is the poem read by Amanda Gorman at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, on January 20th, 2021.

I will add as my only commentary: We're still striving to climb that hill, obviously.

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