The Shadow Cabinet

There is a way out of the cave so we can see the reality.

As we anticipate Trump 2.0 and the associated hangers-on and wannabes, I want to talk about how we can deal with the onslaught of disinformation and corruption we are already seeing. In many countries of the world, the political party that is out of power forms a ‘shadow cabinet’ made up of a senior group of opposition spokespeople who shadow or mirror the positions of each member of the cabinet. The shadow cabinet exists to scrutinize the policies and actions of the government, as well as to offer alternative policies.

The political systems that officially employ the ‘shadow cabinet’ model are parliamentary systems, which means that the executive function of government is performed by members of the majority party in parliament, with the Prime Minister (chief executive) filling that slot because he is the leader of the majority party in Parliament. All of the cabinet ministers are drawn from Parliament. In these systems, the shadow cabinet is also drawn from members of the opposition party in Parliament. The shadow cabinet in the UK and some other countries is formally called “His (or Her) Majesty’s Loyal Opposition;” the adjective ‘loyal’ is used to acknowledge that while the role of the opposition is to oppose the government, it does not dispute the legitimacy of the government.

The United States has never created a formal “shadow cabinet,” but I think this is the time to do it. Here’s what I envision: well-informed and experienced Democrats at both the national and state levels would shadow the officials of the Trump administration, making themselves available to the media for comments and explanations whenever Trump administration officials do anything. In the UK, the members of the shadow cabinet often – but not always – become the actual cabinet members if the opposition party wins a subsequent election. This would be more difficult in the United States, but I still think the idea is worthwhile.

A couple of weeks ago I created a “shadow cabinet” for the Democrats (I did this with a little Google help to identify Democrats with special expertise in these fields, but you might have other candidates in mind). I’ve paired them with the people Trump has appointed:

Position 			Shadow Cabinet			Trump Administration
President			Pete Buttigieg			Donald Trump
Vice President		Stacey Abrams			J. D. Vance
State				Samantha Power			Marco Rubio
Defense			        Jason Crow				Pete Hegseth
Treasury 			Wes Moore				Scott Bessent
Attorney General 	Sally Yates				Pam Bondi 
Interior 			        Jay Inslee				Doug Burgum
Agriculture 			Heidi Heitkamp			Brooke Rollins
Commerce 			Gavin Newsome			Howard Lutnick
Labor 				Sherrod Brown			Lori Chavez-DeRemer
HHS 				Josh Shapiro				RFK Jr.
HUD 				AOC					Scott Turner
Transportation 		Gretchen Whitmer		Sean Duffy
Energy 			        David Turk				Chris Wright
Education 			Randi Weingarten		Linda McMahon
Veterans Affairs 		Patrick Murphy			Doug Collins
Homeland Security 	Val Demings			        Kristi Noem

Trump has appointed other people to various lower-level positions, and I’m not going to get into what their “shadows” might look like.

• Except I kind of like Jacob Saborov as the “shadow” for Border Czar Tom “deport everyone” Homan.

• We could even have a shadow Supreme Court to stand in for the six Trumpists on the court — I nominate Barbara McQuaid, Joyce Vance, Andrew Weissman, Melissa Murray, Mary McCord, and Dahlia Lithwick. They would provide the counter-decision when the Court bends the knee to whatever Trump wants.

Having a shadow cabinet would position the Democrats well for 2028. Every time Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a public statement or testified before Congress about the State Department budget or some diplomatic kerfuffle, for example, Samantha Power would be the go-to person for the media to contact for a reaction and fact-check.

We already do that for the State of the Union Address; an opposition party spokesman gives a speech no one listens to after the President’s speech. Wouldn’t you love to hear Shadow POTUS (SPOTUS?) Pete present his counter-SOTU Address for the next four years? It would drive Trump nutsier than he already is.

If Democrats do this, by the time 2028 rolls around, the members of the shadow cabinet will be well-known to the public. We don’t know what the GOP will look like in 2028, but I’m guessing that they will not be more focused on governing than they are now—which means there will have been no focus on governing for four years. The Democrats will look like the grownups in the room. The steady drumbeat of sanity from Team Normal will reassure Americans who will see the alternative every time they scroll their social media feeds or turn on their televisions.

What do you think about my selections? Who would you like to see in the shadow cabinet? If the Democrats aren’t already doing this, we need to tell them to do this.