Lloyd C. Gardner, a professor emeritus of history at Rutgers University, once told Salon, "I like to think of it this way: we no longer have an imperial president to worry about, but an imperial presidency. And the presidency is dominated, increasingly, by the intelligence community."

The Democrats have had ample opportunity to address these concerns but have chosen to mostly pave them over since Trump took office. The party overwhelmingly helped pass a bill in the Senate that increased the Pentagon's annual budget by roughly $80 billion, more than Trump originally asked, and brought the total annual budget to a breathtaking $700 billion.

The Democrats also have virtually no room to oppose the Trump administration's incendiary rhetoric and potential use of military aggression towards countries such as North Korea and Iran, after having ushered through a package that slapped sanctions on the two nations, as well as Russia. Sure, they can offer lip service against the president's saber rattling. But on a policy basis, they're right there with him.

Democratic leadership in the House has also resisted bipartisan attempts to force a vote on the role the U.S. has played in Yemen. The bill would revoke U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led coalition. The U.S. has already offered the coalition substantial support, which has come under fire for its indiscriminate bombings and targeting of hospitals, factories and schools.

The conflict is perhaps one of the easiest to oppose. It has rapidly become one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. Morally, ethically, the plan for any party should be quite clear: pour efforts into demanding a political solution and safe passage for human rights organizations to deliver aid to the millions suffering. The Democrats have not forwarded that line of action.

Yes, if the party did reverse course and choose to move forward with an anti-war agenda, it would face waves of criticism for its sudden opposition after eight years of support. Just look at how the NFL has been brought near to its knees for allowing its players to "disrespect the troops." Of course, such public-image concerns shouldn't stop any party or any individual from questioning our military industrial complex.

When Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in the early '70s, he exposed how both Congress and the American public had been lied to for years in order to protect U.S. global hegemony. It was a crest in a growing wave of concern about the unchecked strength of the executive branch and about its relationship with the intelligence community.

Eventually, those leaks and those concerns would lead the public to understand the grim realities of the Vietnam War. The discoveries only further fueled the mass opposition efforts by the public.

In the last eight years, we've had the same kind of leaks, whether it's Chelsea Manning's Iraq War logs or the Edward Snowden documents that revealed the intrusive mass surveillance of this country, as well as the world, by the National Security Agency.

Snowden and Manning are essentially viewed within Washington as "untouchables," vilified as traitors by both parties, rather than praised for revealing some of the darkest secrets of our nation's behavior.

And still, opposition in Congress and out in the streets has never truly coalesced into a mass, consequential movement. Again, our current state of affairs seems to have been normalized.

And yet, a movement for peace — or at least for a comprehensive plan to end or redirect U.S. shadow wars — is needed now more than ever. More than that, the fact that the Trump administration is immensely unpopular may provide the perfect space for such a movement tied to the current party of opposition to prosper.

While the Democrats seem interested in resisting Trump, they've expressed no interest in resisting his office and the martialism it represents. They're just waiting for one of their picks to reside in the White House and take the reigns of that same "imperial presidency."

Though many may see this as a harsh indictment of the Democrats, it's essential to correcting our course. It's quite obvious the Republicans, by and large, hardly care to even pretend to be concerned with the timeless wars abroad the U.S. has entrenched itself in. The Democrats, for their part, seem to have only aimed to offer the image of a slightly better alternative. In reality, they're not much different from the opponents across the aisle. It's a cheat, one they should be called out on.

Mobilization is needed, and so is the support for progressive candidates willing to end perpetual warfare and rethink U.S. strategy by coming to terms with the sources of terror. The country needs a party willing to stand up to those in Washington — who for so long have blocked such efforts — without fearing repercussions.

To begin that process, it's up to the public to forward difficult conversations and criticisms of unchecked U.S. foreign aggression. It is up to us to make the Democrats uncomfortable about it. Certainly they seem utterly comfortable with war at the moment.