Senator Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. (Photo by Paul Sancya – Pool/Getty Images)
On Thursday, US Senator Elissa Slotkin outlined a moderate economic agenda for the Democrats and asked her party to take the dissatisfaction that voters feel with their personal finances seriously.
The Democrat from Michigan was a CIA analyst and worked on international security matters at the Ministry of Defense before entering politics. During a far -reaching speech in front of the liberal thought factory center for American advances in Washington, DC, she relied on this background, while presenting herself as someone who was ready to tell her own parties demanding truths and to oppose political expectations, even if she often confirmed time-honored democratic positions.
“I believe that the greatest security threat for the United States does not come from abroad,” said the first time senator.
“It is the shrinking middle class here at home … this is the existential threat. As a national security professional, what do you do if you have an existential threat to your country?
We were talking about the first of three this year Slotkin said that she would give the most crucial priorities that she believes that they wanted to have addressed voters. She would later interpret visions for national security and democracy, she said.
Slotkin also gave the democratic response to President Donald Trump’s speech to the Congress this year.
After Slotkin defeated a Republican office instrument in a house race in 2018 in 2018 and won nationwide in a state of Trump, he was someone who can speak to the dissatisfied voters who sent Trump to the White House, and as a possible leader in the party’s reaction to the Maga movement.
“It is not just Trump voters who are frustrated with the government,” she said. “They are Americans across the board.”
She called for measures in a number of domestic policy to reverse a shrinking middle class and asked the Democrats to change their news on crucial questions.
“This trouble, this suspicion”
Democrats should prioritize the economic problems with which they “contacted them,” she said.
After decades of post-war growth, American life-class life is now out of reach than ever, she said. That inspired trouble, she said, which implied that this was a factor for Trump’s rise.
“This annoyance, this suspicion among the Americans, that there is exactly what I mean by an existential threat,” she said. “Because in a multicassic, multi -ethnic democracy like ours, when people don’t feel like the system is directed against them, they start people who do not look or sound different or sound different.
This criticism of Trump and some of his followers – that many Democrats expressly make a heart of their public person – is inadequate, she said. Instead, the party has to make a positive case for what it wants to do. And that should include a laser -like focus on the cultivation of the middle class.
“In order to attack this threat, we have to bring the government back to the foundations of what it should do,” she said.
Democrats should build a political platform about the goal, to expand the mid-range opportunities, aim to create and form jobs and at the same time restore confidence in the government by installing guardrails against corruption.
Jobs, education, health care and more
In order to create more bourgeois jobs, the government should reduce the obstacles to compact companies, said Slotkin. The legislator should simplify the regulations, taxes and licensing, she said.
The regulatory obstacles to the construction of housing construction should also be reformed in order to make the purchase of a house more affordable.
Certain industries that are crucial for national security, such as minerals, microchips or batteries, should be protected with a number of guidelines, including “targeted tariffs,” she said.
And the immigration system should be reformed so that immigrants take over critical roles on the job market.
According to Slotkin, telephones should be banned in classrooms, and social media companies should be faced with algorithms that lead to addiction to children and teenagers.
The national approach to the training of workforce should be completely rebuilt, she said. There are forty programs in 14 federal authorities, she said.
It would be more effective to “just chase it in the air now” and to consolidate these programs, she said.
In order to restore confidence in the government, the congress should also prohibit the trade in stocks and cryptocurrencies by its members, she said. And it should end campaign contributions from company spacs.
“The middle class has no lobbyist. You don’t have a great -pac. You don’t have a company -Pac,” she said. “But you should have the democratic party.”
“Holy Cows”
Slotkin, who was generally considered a moderate in her party, wanted to “honestly, because in the past we did not agree in the liberal think tank,” she said, and said that the democrats should “slaughter some holy cows” to enhance the ruthless persecution of an economic agenda to grow the middle class.
She had broad criticism of the image and effectiveness of the Democrats.
In the military and intelligence worlds: “If you see a problem, don’t just wait and let it faster,” she said during a question-and-answer session with Nera Tanden, the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress.
“It is a prejudices in the direction of acting, right? And I think sometimes Democrats have no prejudices in the direction. We have a prejudices against umbilical bubbles,” she said. “Democrats have lost part of their alpha energy. I keep saying that, part of this bravery, some of these energy for football cocks.”
She expressed support for time-honored democratic questions such as increased teaching, membership of the union, renewable energies and a public option for health insurance.
She listed five democratic “holy cows” that she would kill to promote her economic agenda, but she described her relatively vague and instead criticized the news and legislative approach of her party.
“The first holy cow that I want to slaughter: too often Democrats make no distinction between small companies and the largest multinational company,” she said. “And for this reason, many Americans hear us as clearly against the business. And while we are on the subject, we too often have the habit of success as Democrats.”
Democrats should also update an “elite” approach to climate change, which enables some to apply the problem as a “purity test”, she said.
The immigration reform does not have to be “comprehensive”, a goal of which she said that she had held her party from accepting incremental changes, but she said that the country still needed “big, brave changes to fix a broken system”.
The party should concentrate less on college as the goal for every student and instead invest in certifications and trading schools. And the Democrats should recognize that over -regulation, which should be higher goals, e.g. B. should be increasing the range of housing, she said.
