Elissa Slotkin just promised to destroy the careers of every young conservative who works for Donald Trump.
Now the New York Times just told Democrats exactly what to do with that power.
What the column proposed for Trump officials this week does not stop at criminal prosecution.
Democrat Lawfare Against Trump Officials Gets a New Playbook
Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie's op-ed – entitled "Trump Cannot Be the End of the Story" – is not an abstract think piece about democratic norms.
It is a shopping list of what to do with power if Democrats win next Tuesday.
The first item: create new federal legislation allowing private citizens to sue executive branch officials personally for damages in civil court.
No conviction required, no criminal standard – just a lawsuit, a jury, and a bank account to drain.
Bouie specifically names White House official Stephen Miller as the target, writing that if Miller cannot be held "criminally accountable," Democrats should create a mechanism to have his bank account "drain[ed]" through civil litigation instead – not a legal argument, but a blueprint for financially destroying a political opponent when prosecutors cannot make the criminal case.
He also proposes a constitutional amendment to limit the presidential pardon power and, without waiting for one, suggests Democrats disregard the pardons Trump has already issued – the January 6 defendants, the Trump allies, anyone on the list Bouie and his side dislike.
"Even in the absence of an amendment," Bouie writes, Democrats should "begin to think creatively about Trump's pardons."
A presidential pardon is constitutionally final, and Bouie's proposal to file criminal charges regardless would be unprecedented in American history and directly contrary to Article II – the document the Founders put the pardon power in precisely because they understood that political prosecutions were a tool of tyranny.
Bouie calls this reconstructing democracy.
From Elissa Slotkin to Barron Trump Democrats Are Announcing Their Targets
He is not alone.
Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin traveled to the University of Chicago earlier this month and told the audience she wants to prosecute "signature cases" of Trump administration corruption – explicitly to send a message of "deterrence" to young conservatives thinking about careers in public service.
When confronted with the backlash, she claimed the only reason people were upset was that she is a woman.
https://twitter.com/ThinkerChicago/status/2111560599167795418
Left-wing podcaster Jennifer Welch spent last week calling for Barron and Tiffany Trump to face trials, and former CNN anchor Jim Acosta cheered her on from the same stage.
Florida Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon demanded that former Attorney General Ashley Moody be "locked up and punished in jail."
When CBS's Face the Nation asked whether that sounded like weaponizing the justice system, Nixon called it holding "corrupt politicians accountable" – and named no crime, cited no law, offered no charge.
This is lawfare as a closing argument, delivered in public, on camera, one week before Election Day.
The goal is to bankrupt officials, end careers, and put the Trump family on trial – until the next generation of conservatives decides that working for a Republican president is not worth the cost.
What Democrats Plan to Do With Power After the 2026 Midterms
Bouie frames all of this as a plan to "begin the reconstruction of American democracy with the rule of law in mind."
Reconstruction, in his telling, means Congress creates new laws to sue Trump officials personally, courts ignore pardons the Constitution says are final, and prosecutors go after people whose only crime was taking a government job while Trump was president.
Every proposal targets one group: conservatives who worked for Donald Trump.
The Biden DOJ spent four years going after Trump's allies, raiding Mar-a-Lago, and prosecuting his supporters – and Democrats are now promising to take it further.
The Left spent four years warning that the real threat to democracy was coming from the Right, while building exactly the machine they claimed to fear.
With six days until the midterms, voters know what a Democratic majority means: not legislation, not governing, not policy – legal destruction of the people who beat them.
Sources:
- Brianna Lyman, "NYT Columnist Wants Democrats to 'Drain' Trump Allies' Bank Accounts to Save 'Democracy'," The Federalist, October 29, 2026.
- "The Democrat Party Platform Is Throwing Conservatives in Prison and Slotkin Just Said It Out Loud," The Federalist, October 19, 2026.
- Jon Brown, "Democrat Senator Sparks Outrage for Threatening 'Lawfare' Against Trump Staffers," Christian Post, October 22, 2026.
- Amy Curtis, "After Calling for Lawfare to Scare Conservatives From Politics, Elissa Slotkin Plays Victim," Townhall, October 20, 2026.
- Matt Vespa, "Liberal Podcaster and a Former CNN Reporter Want to Lock Up Tiffany and Barron Trump," Townhall, October 27, 2026.
- "Democrats Want to Bankrupt Trump Allies and Scare Off the Next Generation of Conservatives," The Blaze, October 26, 2026.
