Democrat Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan recently appeared at the University of Chicago for a live taping of a liberal podcast. During the conversation, she outlined a political strategy aimed at President Trump and the people who served around him.

Slotkin said she wanted to examine major cases involving Trump while also targeting members of his inner circle whom she accused of enabling him. Her preferred approach would extend scrutiny beyond the president to those who participated in his administration.

“I want to look at these signature cases, and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him.”

The Michigan Democrat then turned her attention to young people leaving college and considering jobs in the Trump administration. Rather than encouraging public service regardless of party, Slotkin said she wanted prospective employees to associate such work with serious personal problems.

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“I want young people coming out of school to say, should I go work for the Trump administration? Like, that sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.”

“I want them to be like, Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that.”

That is quite a message from a member of a party that routinely labels its political opponents fascists. Slotkin openly described making young people afraid to join an administration because of what might happen to them later.

The strategy would not merely challenge Trump at the ballot box or criticize his policies. It would attempt to make serving in his administration appear so personally hazardous that recent graduates would decide participation was not worth the risk.

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Slotkin also called for what she described as a “radical reform and ethics package” intended to restore public trust in elected officials and judges. Her proposals included “banning corporate PACs,” imposing term and age limits on Supreme Court justices, and restricting stock trading by members of Congress and their spouses.

She further said Democrats should conduct investigations into alleged government misconduct and establish protections against future abuses of power. Slotkin framed those proposals as a way to prevent another president from using the federal government as she believes Trump did.

“We have to Trump-proof the government going forward, so that no president of any party can ever abuse the system the way he did,” Slotkin said.

Slotkin also played down the customary ideological split between moderate and progressive Democrats. For her, the more important question was whether Democratic lawmakers were prepared to use their political power against the Trump administration.

“I don’t think the divide is moderate versus progressive,” she said, “I think it is fight versus flight.”

As an example, Slotkin pointed to her work with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Democrat. She did not endorse his primary campaign, but she campaigned with him after he secured the nomination.

Slotkin said she and El-Sayed disagreed on certain issues, particularly foreign policy, while sharing priorities involving democracy and economic security. Their cooperation, in her telling, showed that Democrats from different ideological factions could unite around selected goals.

“We may come from different so-called wings of the party,” Slotkin said, “but we can work together as a team on the things that we both believe in.”

ON UCHICAGO CAMPUS: U.S. Senator from Michigan Elissa Slotkin hopes planned political prosecutions of republican leaders will scare young conservatives from getting involved in politics.

@ElissaSlotkin https://t.co/p7NBJpDcQW — The Chicago Thinker (@ThinkerChicago) October 17, 2026

The remarks reveal a Democratic strategy focused not only on opposing Trump, but also on discouraging people from working for him. Slotkin wants young graduates to view a Trump administration job as an invitation to unwanted trouble.

Democrats can keep shouting about fascism, but Slotkin’s own words expose the ugly contradiction. Making citizens fear political retaliation for serving an elected president is hardly the defense of democratic participation that the left constantly claims to champion.

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