Dear Democrats: Congratulations. I mean that the way a man means it when his neighbor wins the lottery and still owes him for half the fence.

You took the House. You took the Senate. At last count you held 54 Senate seats to 44 for the Republicans and at least 231 House seats with more still coming in. ^{1, 2} You won a Senate seat in Texas. You sent Susan Collins home from Maine after nearly three decades. ^{3, 10} The President's approval sits at 38 percent and 89 percent of voters called the cost of living a major or crucial factor in their vote. ⁴ You read that room correctly. Credit given.

Even the President's reply was a gift. "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!" he wrote on Truth Social. ⁵ For once I think he has identified the issue. You beat a man who was not on the ballot. That is your whole trouble in one sentence.

A Governing Philosophy in One Word

The confetti was still on the floor when the new majority announced its program. Rep. Robert Garcia, in line to run House Oversight, posted "LAWYER UP." Sen. Ron Wyden went with "Subpoenas." Rep. Delia Ramirez told a list of Trump officials to clear their schedules. Sen. Ed Markey promised that "they are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we'll be printing." That is the co-author of the Green New Deal clear-cutting for paper. I admire the commitment. Hakeem Jeffries had already promised to "run Pete Hegseth out of town." ⁶ Bloomberg Government reports that impeachment and subpoenas are both being weighed and that nothing is off the table. ⁷

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a fine hobby. It is not a vision. It is not a mission. It is not a plan. I have run job sites for thirty years and I have never seen a crew frame a house by hating the guy across the street. Sooner or later somebody asks what you are building.

You cannot pour a foundation out of spite.

The hobby has a shelf life too. The 22nd Amendment retires your reason for getting up in the morning on January 20, 2029. Then what?

Wanted: One Leader, Pulse Preferred

I will concede the obvious. Two men from New York are about to hold gavels. Jeffries is in line for Speaker. ¹ Politico reported days ago that Chuck Schumer had no clear challenger, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said a Democratic Senate "certainly justifies another term as leader." ⁸ So technically somebody is in the chair.

A gavel is a tool. A leader is someone people would follow without one. The Hill is already reporting new Senate winners vowing to reject Schumer. ⁹ TIME describes a caucus of moderates and self-described democratic socialists, some of whom ran against the very centrists now expecting their votes. ¹⁰ A former DNC staffer gave ABC News the plain version a year ago: "We are a party without a leader, and so there is no one to set the tone." ¹¹ Winning covers that problem. It does not fix it. Ask ten Democrats this morning who speaks for the party and you will get a list. Schumer's own election eve pitch was that his side felt "nauseously optimistic." ³ That may be the most honest slogan of the cycle.

So here is my hope, offered sincerely. Find someone with at least a pulse. Rally around that person. Then do more than challenge the mating habits of a chameleon.

I chose that animal with care. In August in Austin the DNC passed a resolution to abolish ICE and a second resolution to reform it, on the same day. Chairman Ken Martin then explained that neither one sets the party's platform. ¹² A chameleon at least picks a branch.

Your Calendar, As I Read It

You will be busy while the search committee meets. Nobody has to announce a bill for me to read a voting record, so here is the rest of your to-do list as I see it coming.

First you will want men back in women's sports. In March 2025 the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act died 51-45 in the Senate without a single Democrat voting to advance it. Two House Democrats backed the House version. ¹³ Americans are not stupid. They can tell who won the race and why.

Then the border. Border Patrol encounters fell from 2,206,436 in fiscal 2022 to 237,538 in fiscal 2025, the lowest level since 1970. ¹⁴ Your national committee looked at that and voted to abolish the agency that enforces immigration law in the interior. Nobody in your leadership says "open the border." Nobody has to. Take away the enforcement and the door opens itself.

While you are at it, watch the budget on two line items. I hope you will not spend too much money retrieving the foreign criminals Trump deported. Sen. Chris Van Hollen already flew to El Salvador in April 2025 to push for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man the administration called MS-13, a charge his lawyers dispute, and whose removal the government first described as an error. ^{20, 21} I would hate to see that turn into a frequent flyer program. I also hope you will go easy on replacing the wall with welcome centers for illegal aliens. Joe Biden halted wall construction on his first day in office, so the instinct is well documented. ²² I have bid a lot of jobs. Demolition plus a lobby and a gift shop does not come in under budget.

Then the surgeries. In December 2025 the House voted 216-211 to criminalize gender transition procedures for minors, and three Democrats voted yes. ¹⁵ The American Society of Plastic Surgeons now says to wait until 19. The American Medical Association says surgery in minors "should generally be deferred to adulthood." ¹⁶ When the surgeons are telling you to slow down, you do not get to claim the science. Debilitating is my word for it and I stand by it. A child cannot consent to a permanent loss.

Then the criminals. Laken Riley was a Georgia nursing student who was murdered. ¹⁷ The law carrying her name requires federal detainers for undocumented immigrants arrested for or convicted of burglary, theft or shoplifting, and it covers assaulting a police officer. It passed the House 263-156 with only 46 Democrats on board and the Senate 64-35 with only 12. ¹⁸ Most of your caucus looked at that bill and voted no. The people who pay for that vote are innocent and unsuspecting. They always are.

The Case for the Defense

Fairness requires the other side of the ledger and it is not empty. Oversight is Congress's job. Garcia's list includes Trump family business dealings, immigration enforcement and the Epstein files. ⁶ House Republicans ran the same play on Joe Biden. Nobody gets to be shocked.

Democrats did run on something, too. Schumer told his members last December to focus on health care, housing, food and energy. ¹⁹ TIME lists ending the Iran War, undoing the tariffs and lowering the cost of living among the party's goals. ¹⁰ Voters rewarded it.

They would also say I have the rest wrong. Critics of the sports bill warned of intrusive physical examinations of girls. ¹³ Opponents of the Laken Riley Act point out that it reaches people arrested and never convicted. ¹⁸ The American Academy of Pediatrics says it makes no blanket recommendation for surgery on minors and that these decisions belong to doctors and families. The AMA still backs gender-affirming care, and only a small share of transgender teens seek surgery as minors. ¹⁶ The House bill carried up to ten years in prison for parents and doctors. ¹⁵ No Democratic leader has proposed opening the border, and the party's own chairman says abolishing ICE is not the platform. ¹²

Those are real arguments. Here is the problem. "Lower costs" is a wish. Every politician since the Founding has opposed high prices. Name the bill. Name the number. Tell me who pays. Two years of subpoenas will not take one cent off a grocery bill, and a party that cannot say what it will do on the days it is not issuing subpoenas has rented this majority. It does not own it.

A Modest Request

So enjoy the morning. You earned it. Then try something new. Come up with a solid agenda that pursues more than Donald Trump. Tell us what you are for in one sentence that does not contain his name. He leaves in a little over two years. The country stays.

Hating a president takes one second. Governing takes a plan, a leader and a pulse. You have two years to find all three.

With my congratulations fully intact,
Alan