In 2024, the Democratic Party ran a campaign that explicitly embraced Washington’s tired national security orthodoxy. Presidential nominee Kamala Harris campaigned alongside hawkish former GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney and welcomed the endorsement of her father, Dick.

Meanwhile, the campaign refused to distance itself from the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel’s war on Gaza or its failed Ukraine policy. The party’s platform attacked Donald Trump, who, during his first term, brought the country to the brink of war with Iran, as being too soft on the Islamic Republic. The strategy ultimately proved ineffective.

Less than two months into Trump’s second presidency, the Democrats have apparently not learned any lessons.

There was certainly no discernible shift in party messaging to be found in Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-Mich.) response to the president’s address to Congress on Tuesday. The recently-elected senator — herself a CIA veteran and an alum of the Bush and Obama administrations — delivered a speech full of nostalgia for past Republican presidents and doubled down on criticism of Trump’s supposed abandonment of American exceptionalism and global leadership.