In W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” the 20th-century poet describes a world “slouching towards Bethlehem,” symbolizing a descent into upheaval and uncertainty.
In this first interview of our new series, “Slouching Towards,” contributor Jack Masliah explores how the Northeastern College Democrats are grappling with their party’s electoral failure — and if they are prepared to meet the moment.
Bledar Velic is a fourth-year political science and economics combined major and is the current president of the Northeastern College Democrats.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Masliah: Back in October, I sat down for an interview with you in your capacity as the president of the Northeastern College Democrats. Much has happened since then, and I want to get an idea, just 40 days in, of what has surprised you.
Velic: What has surprised me the most has been the role of Elon Musk. I really thought that Trump would get sick of him, because he seems really annoying. Trump is very big on personality and already got rid of Vivek [Ramaswamy] for being, in a sense, an annoying personality.
Masliah: What worries you?
Velic: It’s hard to say because we’re in this very flash bang era where they’re trying to ram through a bunch of stuff and really test the power of the executive. And it does seem like in the long term, a lot of the things that they’re trying to do they won’t be able to do … because of our shared separation of powers and the Constitution.
Masliah: But Congress — both chambers which are controlled by Republicans — does not seem the least bit interested in using their power as a counterweight against the executive. And with the judiciary branch, are you convinced that if Trump is ordered to stop, by the Supreme Court for example, that he will?
Velic: I think that if he doesn’t, it would spell doom for him.
And I think that ultimately, there’s still a lot of people in the process that would stop him if the courts rule against. That’s not to say I’m not scared. Clearly the most worrying thing is just the gutting of the bureaucracy itself. A lot of positions are just being ctrl-f deleted.
Also, to be clear, I have zero faith in even the most moderate Republicans turning against him. I have zero faith in Republicans doing anything about it. But I do think that the justice system [will] stop him.
Masliah: It’s hard to overemphasize how angry the current Democratic Party base is right now. Congressional Democrats stand at an abysmal 40% approval rating with voters within their own party. These are really, really bad numbers, historically speaking. What is the reason?
Velic: It’s the lack of clear leadership from the party.
This is where my frustrations lie too — we’ve scuttled to the middle so much that we’ve lost the ability to advertise for something consistently. When you think of 2016, Trump’s plans have been the exact same the whole time. He hasn’t really changed his message, but the Democratic Party has evolved and changed, and we’re becoming more moderate.
There’s a lot of confusion and a lot of, “Who the hell’s gonna lead us now?”
Masliah: I think a lot of this anger comes from a disconnect between what the Democrats were saying during the campaign and what they were doing. For example, Kamala Harris called then-candidate Trump a “fascist.” In my book, if you’re calling someone a fascist, then you should be going all out during the elections, and I don’t think they did.
Velic: It’s so hard to go back over this stuff. I think they did realistically all that they could in the moment. I do think that the Democratic Party and Biden should have taken [the dangers of a second Trump presidency] seriously.
In Biden’s case, he should have put his ego aside, have talked to the Democratic candidates and seen what the field would have looked like.
Masliah: There are those, myself included, that believe we’re headed toward a constitutional crisis, that we will inevitably see nationwide protests, perhaps national strikes, things of this magnitude.
Senator Chris Murphy recently told The New York Times that “It’s very possible this thing [the American Democratic process] could be completely rigged by the summer or fall.” With what we have seen already and where things are heading, is there a part of you that wonders if these things [the 2026 midterm and the 2028 general elections] will still be free and fair two years from now?
Velic: It’s really hard to screw with all this stuff and get away with it. There’s a lot of eyes [on the elections]. Also on the Trump side, a lot of his federal government would have to keep their mouths really tight, and that’s really hard — this is a very leak-prone administration already.
For example, in 2020, Trump was in power and he couldn’t rig it. He lost. So I’m very certain that it’s both very hard to do these things, and [that if he tried], it’d be exposed very quickly.
Masliah: He didn’t succeed, but he certainly tried (Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury with conspiracy to defraud the United States, witness tampering, conspiracy against the rights of citizens and attempted obstruction of an official proceeding). If [former Vice President Mike] Pence, a single individual, would have done what Trump had asked of him, we would’ve been in a constitutional crisis. You have hope that he’s going to be stopped somehow by some system, but the system is made of people — and need I mention the types of people that are running the show right now?
Velic: I’m not saying that someone will step up and that we have to believe in them. But the loss of legitimacy is really important for any kind of power position. There might be protests, and it’ll become such an overwhelming cascade of bad things that they [won’t be able to] control [the backlash].
They’ll have to hand it over because they know they have no legitimacy. You mentioned Pence, but it was also [former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark] Milley who was not willing to go against the Constitution.
Compelling the army to do something that’s unconstitutional — which is made up of a lot of headstrong individuals that are bought into the system — no one’s gonna be willing to carry out those orders.
Masliah: Much of this interview can be distilled down to one question: Are the Democrats meeting the moment? In your position as president of the Northeastern College Democrats — are you meeting the moment?
Velic: I’d give the Democrats a 50-50 at the moment. Some are [meeting the moment]. Again, [Chuck] Schumer is not seeing the optics of how old they look, but others like [Kathy] Hochul — who I go back and forth on — are stepping up and they’re being very aggressive and very loud about it.
They’re seeing these instances where the story can be made, and they’re jumping on it, and they’re making a platform for that, and there’s a lot of people with good instincts.
Masliah: And as a club, are you informing, preparing and organizing?
Velic: Since it’s still like right after [the election], there’s not really much we can do in terms of organizing, a lot of that stuff is still being built out. But, we’re doing a good job, I think, of informing our members, of giving people hope and a sense of community — [to make the] Democratic Party not just into something people identify as, but [into] a place, like our club. I think that we’re setting ourselves up for a good position.
We’re very connected with local campaigns around here. In that sense, we’re doing a pretty good job, and we’re meeting the moment — we’re building a base that’s educated, engaged and ready to organize when the need arises.
I’m also working to restart the College Democrats of Massachusetts with some other college members. It gives us great ability for these college groups to come together and have collective power at the state level, to put pressure on state Democrats and then also to mobilize elsewhere — to go to New Hampshire, go to Pennsylvania with all these collective ideas.
Masliah: Many anti-Trump voters fell into a state of depression following the election. This has been followed by a sense of shock and numbness. What would your message be to those that have canceled their news subscriptions and buried their heads in the sand? To those who believe that the country is lost, and there is nothing to stop a descent into oligarchy or dictatorship?
Velic: I would say that’s exactly what they want you to do. There was this really viral Ezra Klein clip where he clips that Steve Bannon line, “muzzle velocity.” They want you to feel this way, like Trump can just do whatever.
And he can’t just do whatever. And we have to watch these developments and talk, and just through word of mouth, talk to other people and be like, he can’t do that. Isn’t that kind of crazy that the president can just do all this stuff? And [people will] be like, “No, he can’t.”
And so you spread these things: [That] he is trying to build an image of a king or just [how Trump is] spamming everything out and having everyone forget about all the things he’s doing. If we make sure we’re paying attention to everything and catching everything and watching as it all fails, we then become more informed.
Everything starts at the individual level.
Jack Masliah is a fourth-year political science and philosophy major. He can be reached at [email protected]
