America Is Not Westminster: Politico’s Shadow Cabinet Is a Constitutional Farce

Leave it to Politico, a publication owned by a European conglomerate with all the anti-American sensibilities of Brussels, to propose the most unserious and constitutionally reckless idea of 2025: a Democratic "shadow Cabinet" to mirror the Trump administration. In a breathless feature by Bill Scher, Politico calls on Democrats to adopt the British practice of appointing a parallel set of cabinet secretaries to serve as a counterweight to President Trump.

It would be laughable if it weren't so dangerously subversive.

The presidential election of 2024 ended with clarity. Donald J. Trump won the popular vote, the electoral college, and the certification. The American people rendered their verdict. Yet less than three months into his administration, a movement emerges not to oppose him within the mechanisms of constitutional government, but to mirror him outside of them. The Democratic Party, through what it calls "The People’s Cabinet," has constructed a shadow government, announced formally on April 4, 2025, but with roots extending to the aftermath of the November election.

What precisely is this "shadow Cabinet," and why is its creation both anti-American and anti-democratic?

To understand this, we must begin with a crucial distinction. The American system of government is not parliamentary. The president is not drawn from Congress, does not rely on a majority coalition for survival, and does not fall with the loss of legislative confidence. The president is a distinct and co-equal head of the executive branch, elected by the people through the Electoral College. No political party, whether in power or out of it, has authority to install a second executive team in exile.

And yet this is what the Democrats have done. The shadow Cabinet, born of an idea credited to North Carolina Representative Wiley Nickel, comprises a network of former officials, partisan experts, and political figures, including Martin O'Malley, Robert Reich, Julie Su, Heidi Heitkamp, and Mandela Barnes. These figures do not speak for a branch of government. They hold no authority vested by the Constitution. Their claim to public attention rests on their previous titles and present alignment with the Democratic Party.

The problem is not that they speak. All Americans retain the right to assemble and express their views. The problem is in the performative mimicry of government, the deliberate replication of the executive structure with the aim of creating a second, unofficial voice for the nation. In doing so, the Democratic Party implicitly questions the legitimacy of the president chosen by the voters. It suggests, subtly but deliberately, that there are two governments: one formal, one moral.

This is not loyal opposition. It is constitutional cosplay, cloaked in the rhetoric of public service.

Politico’s article attempts to dress this act of subversion in high-minded terms. It proposes a cast of recycled officials, progressive activists, and celebrity personalities, from Samantha Power and Lina Khan to Nikki Glaser and Bill Nye, as the faces of this alternative administration. The result reads less like a Cabinet than a casting call for a Netflix docuseries. These are not statesmen. They are media personalities auditioning for relevance.

Consider the British model to which this idea alludes. In Westminster-style governments, a shadow Cabinet exists because the governing party rules only so long as it holds a majority in Parliament. The prime minister can be unseated by a vote of no confidence. Shadow ministers are the recognized alternates, ready to assume power immediately upon that party’s collapse. The system expects and requires their preparation.

But America is not Britain. The Constitution anticipates only one executive at a time, and it vests the entirety of executive power in a single individual: the president. Cabinet secretaries, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, serve at his pleasure. They do not compete with others outside the system who claim similar titles.

Thus, when Democrats convene a parallel structure with their own secretaries of education, labor, justice, and state, they engage not merely in political commentary but in executive pantomime. The aim is not to advise the president, but to replace him in the public imagination. Their performances are not testimony, they are auditions.

Why is this dangerous? Because the unity of the executive is essential to constitutional order. James Madison, in Federalist No. 70, warned that a plural executive would lead to conflict, faction, and paralysis. The energy of the executive, he argued, derives from its unity. If the public is invited to divide its loyalty between a constitutional president and a partisan facsimile, the stability of governance erodes.

Some may argue that "The People’s Cabinet" is harmless. After all, it has no legal power. But politics operates as much through perception as through law. When a major political party organizes weekly press briefings, town halls, and media appearances in the name of an alternative administration, it creates a kind of constitutional counter-narrative. It tells the public, implicitly, that the real administration is somewhere else, waiting, watching, ready to reclaim what it sees as improperly lost.

This was evident in 2022 when Speaker Pelosi was given the honorary title of "Speaker Emerita" despite no longer holding power. That symbolic title complicated the role of her successor, Hakeem Jeffries, and muddied the party’s internal leadership. Symbols matter. They signal authority, and when deployed improperly, they dilute it. A nation cannot have two speakers any more than it can have two presidents.

Moreover, the problem extends beyond symbolism. Democrats in Congress are coordinating with progressive state attorneys general to pursue legal action against President Trump. Representative Laura Friedman has admitted that House Democrats meet weekly with these AGs to strategize legal resistance. In effect, they are constructing a shadow Department of Justice to supplement their shadow Cabinet. Here the mimicry grows even more alarming, for it moves beyond messaging into what may amount to legal sabotage.

The Constitution provides mechanisms to challenge executive action. It permits lawsuits, subpoenas, oversight, and elections. But it does not contemplate a scenario in which a political party, having lost the executive, constructs an alternative version to operate parallel to it.

What precedent does this set? If every losing party now fashions its own cabinet-in-waiting, with weekly briefings, policy pronouncements, and coordinated litigation, the presidency becomes a provisional role. The president would no longer be the sole voice of the executive branch but merely the louder of two contestants in an ongoing pageant.

To guard against this erosion, we must be clear: there is no such thing as a shadow president in the American system. There is no room for a second cabinet, no matter how cleverly disguised. Those who were not chosen to govern may speak, lobby, and campaign. But they may not pretend to rule.

In Federalist No. 68, Alexander Hamilton emphasized the need for a process that would ensure the president was chosen by men capable of analyzing the qualities necessary for the office. The Electoral College, though imperfect in modern eyes, remains the system by which the people act collectively. To second-guess that choice through a media-friendly shadow Cabinet is not just presumptuous, it is subversive.

What is to be done? Nothing legislative, perhaps. The right to assemble and to speak, even foolishly or arrogantly, remains protected. But political norms matter. The public must be discerning. Journalists, academics, and citizens must resist the temptation to treat the shadow Cabinet as anything more than performance. There is one government at a time. Those who wish to serve in the next one must earn it through votes, not vaudeville.

The presidency is not a costume to be tried on while the public awaits its next fitting. It is a constitutional office, bestowed by the people, bounded by law, and inhabited by one person at a time. America does not share power with pantomimes.

To pretend otherwise is not progress. It is regression, not to monarchy or to tyranny, but to make-believe. And the Republic deserves better than that.

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