New Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin Offers Both Parties Urgently Needed Fresh Ideas To Save Our Democracy

By Donald A. Collins | 30 June 2025
Church and State

Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin. (Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

As Trump’s endless obfuscations attack truth daily, there were huge arguments from the White House and in the media about the effectiveness of Trump’s June 21 assault on Iran’s nuclear development sites.

There is clearly strong agreement on two aspects of the Iranian Big Bomb Strike.

First, no one is denigrating this superb performance of our military in executing Trump orders.

Second, there is also wide agreement on the fact that Iran should never be able to have a nuclear weapon.

So the main disagreement is the best way to get there. Most sophisticated analysts agree that you can’t bomb your way there as we proved with Kim in North Korea.

On the briefing held on June 26 and prior, based on statements from Trump and his colleagues, the major present disagreement concerns whether these attacks created a situation which would allow Iran’s efforts.

While many experts commented that more time and observation was required to determine the extent of the damage, Trump continued on his usual pattern of seeking political gains before truth.

In fact any history of all of his major decisions, his power plays show utter irrelevance beyond his principal objective of improving his political position rather than seeking ways to improve life circumstances for all but those who bend to his will, even some US billionaires like those many billionaires who cower to Putin!  

The issue that launched him into the presidency for his first term was certainly immigration. Now we are amused in endless litigation and countercharges which both divided parties find stifling of real solutions.

Watching Jake Tapper on CNN June 26 when he interviewed the new Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, I was impressed by her thoughts about taking bipartisan actions that could prove ways to fix our ravaged Middle Class and save democracy.

You can hear her comments to Tapper here.

“Who is Elissa Slotkin? Key Insights on the Michigan Senator Responding to Trump for the Democrats”. Read an article By Joe Killer here.

Earlier in March she said about her Democratic response to President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress.

I am eager to speak directly to the American people next week. The public expects their leaders to be honest with them about what’s truly happening in our country,” Slotkin shared in a post on X following Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s announcement about her response.

“From economic stability to national security, we need to forge a path forward that enhances people’s lives in the country we all cherish. I look forward to outlining that vision.”

Wikipedia tells us about Senator Elissa Slotkin.

At 48, Slotkin is a former CIA officer with extensive experience in national security positions in the Pentagon, working under both the Bush and Obama administrations. She has emphasized her ability to work across party lines as a moderate Democrat. During her service in the military, she completed three tours in Iraq alongside U.S. forces.

During the Obama administration, Slotkin was responsible for briefing the former president on critical national security matters before being appointed assistant secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs at the Pentagon, as outlined in her Senate biography.

Slotkin was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 and has been reelected in 2020 and 2022. She built her campaign on a commitment to bringing her bipartisan approach to the Senate, which she attributes in part to growing up in a household with a Republican father and a Democratic mother.

“I strongly believe in bipartisan legislation. It’s always more effective when it’s bipartisan,” Slotkin remarked in a one-on-one interview with CBS News Detroit in October 2024.

“The notion that I would be so partisan that I couldn’t share Thanksgiving dinner with my dad doesn’t resonate with me. National security is not a partisan issue,” she continued.

Then on June 26 Slotkin offered what she calls a new vision for the Democratic Party.

“In her June 26th speech at the Center For American Progress (CAP) Action, Democratic Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin outlined what she called a new vision for the Democratic Party. It was a response to what she considers regressive Republican legislation.

She discussed what she calls an economic war plan. According to Slotkin, the greatest threat to the U.S. is not from abroad but instead is in the lost economic security and shrinking middle class.

“When you can’t provide for your kids, you feel anger, you feel shame, you lose your dignity, and you look for something or someone to blame,” she said.

Slotkin proposed several key plans to pursue. The first centers on creating jobs with stable benefits. She said her goal is to ensure every American can support themselves and their families on a single income if needed.

In order to stimulate job market growth, Slotkin stressed the importance of supporting small businesses and implementing fair tax codes.

The senator said she believes in strong industrial policies that guarantee a certain amount of critical products, such as pharmaceuticals, are made in the U.S., to make sure the country does not become completely dependent on foreign imports.

Here’s a clear, one-page bullet summary of the entire speech:

  • Introduction & Context
    • Speaker thanks Center for American Progress for the chance to speak
    • Notes timing after U.S. action in Iran, NY elections, and before a Senate vote
    • Sets up argument: biggest threat to U.S. is not foreign but a shrinking middle class
  • Core Argument
    • A shrinking middle class threatens democracy and national security
    • If we lose the middle class, we lose the American dream and the country itself
    • Calls this an “existential threat” requiring a national “economic war plan”
  • Why the Middle Class is Shrinking
    • Since WWII, middle class share fell by nearly 20%, its wealth and power cut in half
    • Inflation and inequality have made upward mobility harder
    • Government has not kept its promise to set conditions for success
    • Politicians focus on special interests, reelections, and culture fights instead of middle-class growth
  • The Economic War Plan: 5 Lines of Effort
    1. Jobs
      • Support small businesses as the backbone of the workforce
      • Differentiate small from giant corporations
      • Encourage fair taxation but also celebrate success
      • Reshore critical supply chains to secure national interests
      • Fix the broken immigration system to meet workforce needs
      • Ensure one good job with fair pay is enough to live
      • Protect the right to unionize
    2. Schools
      • Adapt education for AI-driven economies
      • Invest in trades, apprenticeships, and community colleges
      • Align fragmented workforce training programs
      • Control college costs with loan and price guardrails
      • Reform K–12 to prioritize science, math, critical thinking
      • Ban cell phones in classrooms, regulate social media’s harm
    3. Housing
      • Address housing affordability as a national emergency
      • Spur construction of 4 million homes
      • Cut outdated, overlapping regulations
      • Change zoning laws and measure success by homes built
    4. Energy
      • Pursue an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy
      • Balance fossil, nuclear, renewables, and emerging tech
      • Avoid energy shortages, rising bills, and politicized fights
      • Tackle climate change as a pocketbook issue, not a purity test
    5. Healthcare
      • Support a true public insurance option
      • Let people keep private insurance if they choose
      • Attack high drug prices with Medicare negotiation
      • Ban corporate PAC money and politicians trading stocks
      • Restore public trust by prioritizing people over industry
  • Closing Themes
    • Calls for Democrats to go on offense with a positive, actionable vision
    • Warns that a shrinking middle class is an existential national threat
    • Reaffirms commitment to an economic war plan focused on rebuilding opportunity and protecting democracy.

You can read her entire speech here.

While her enthusiastic ideas will be judged by many as hopelessly naïve, fundamental advice she offers can be the basis for positive issues to be pursued. It is clearly a time for real change and real citizen involvement.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us”, “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”, “On the Precipice of Political Disaster in 2024”, “Democracy at Red State Risk”, “Does Trump Go to Jail or to The Oval Office?”, “Trump: Pardon or Punish?: The Nixon Precedence Was Not A Trump Coup Denied!”, and “Common Sense: When will Trump be Impeached, Indicted, and Exited?”.

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