The reaction among Democrats to Donald Trump’s return to power has been significantly more subdued than what we saw in 2016 after the mogul’s first shocking electoral win. The old-school “resistance” is dead, and it’s not clear what will replace it. But Democratic elected officials are developing new strategies for dealing with the new realities in Washington. Here are five distinct approaches that have emerged, even before Trump’s second administration has begun.
Some Democrats are so thoroughly impressed by the current power of the MAGA movement they are choosing to surrender to it in significant respects. The prime example is Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the onetime fiery populist politician who is now becoming conspicuous in his desire to admit his party’s weaknesses and snuggle up to the new regime. The freshman and one-time ally of Bernie Sanders has been drifting away from the left wing of his party for a good while, particularly via his vocally unconditional backing for Israel during its war in Gaza. But now he’s making news regularly for taking steps in Trump’s direction.
Quite a few Democrats publicly expressed dismay over Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, but Fetterman distinguished himself by calling for a corresponding pardon for Trump over his hush-money conviction in New York. Similarly, many Democrats have discussed ways to reach out to the voters they have lost to Trump. Fetterman’s approach was to join Trump’s Truth Social platform, which is a fever swamp for the president-elect’s most passionate supporters. Various Democrats are cautiously circling Elon Musk, Trump’s new best friend and potential slayer of the civil-service system and the New Deal–Great Society legacy of federal programs. But Fetterman seems to want to become Musk’s buddy, too, exchanging compliments with him in a sort of weird courtship. Fetterman has also gone out of his way to exhibit openness to support for Trump’s controversial Cabinet nominees even as nearly every other Senate Democrat takes the tack of forcing Republicans to take a stand on people like Pete Hegseth before weighing in themselves.
It’s probably germane to Fetterman’s conduct that he will be up for reelection in 2028, a presidential-election year in a state Trump carried on November 5. Or maybe he’s just burnishing his credentials as the maverick who blew up the Senate dress code.
Other Democrats are being much more selectively friendly to Trump, searching for “common ground” on issues where they believe he will be cross-pressured by his wealthy backers and more conventional Republicans. Like Fetterman, these Democrats — including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — tend to come from the progressive wing of the party and have longed chafed at the centrist economic policies advanced by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and, to some extent, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They’ve talked about strategically encouraging Trump’s “populist” impulses on such issues as credit-card interest and big-tech regulation, partly as a matter of forcing the new president and his congressional allies to put up or shut up.
So the idea is to push off a discredited Democratic Establishment, at least on economic issues, and either accomplish things for working-class voters in alliance with Trump or prove the hollowness of his “populism.”
Colorado governor Jared Solis has offered a similar strategy of selective cooperation by praising the potential agenda of Trump HHS secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as helpfully “shaking up” the medical and scientific Establishment.
At the other end of the spectrum, some centrist Democrats are pushing off what they perceive as a discredited progressive ascendancy in the party, especially on culture-war issues and immigration. The most outspoken of them showed up at last week’s annual meeting of the avowedly nonpartisan No Labels organization, which was otherwise dominated by Republicans seeking to demonstrate a bit of independence from the next administration. These include vocal critics of the 2024 Democratic message like House members Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Ritchie Torres, and Seth Moulton, along with wannabe 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Josh Gottheimer (his Virginia counterpart, Abigail Spanberger, wasn’t at the No Labels confab but is similarly positioned ideologically).
From a strategic point of view, these militant centrists appear to envision a 2028 presidential campaign that will take back the voters Biden won in 2020 and Harris lost this year.
We’re beginning to see the emergence of a faction of Democrats that is willing to cut policy or legislative deals with Team Trump in order to protect some vulnerable constituencies from MAGA wrath. This is particularly visible on the immigration front; some congressional Democrats are talking about cutting a deal to support some of Trump’s agenda in exchange for continued protection from deportation of DREAMers. Politico reports:
“The prize that many Democrats would like to secure is protecting Dreamers — Americans who came with their families to the U.S. at a young age and have since been protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by President Barack Obama in 2012.
“Trump himself expressed an openness to ‘do something about the Dreamers’ in a recent ‘Meet the Press’ interview. But he would almost certainly want significant policy concessions in return, including border security measures and changes to asylum law that Democrats have historically resisted.”
On a broader front, the New York Times has found significant support among Democratic governors to selectively cooperate with the new administration’s “mass deportation” plans in exchange for concessions:
“In interviews, 11 Democratic governors, governors-elect and candidates for the office often expressed defiance toward Mr. Trump’s expected immigration crackdown — but were also strikingly willing to highlight areas of potential cooperation.
“Several balanced messages of compassion for struggling migrants with a tough-on-crime tone. They said that they were willing to work with the Trump administration to deport people who had been convicted of serious crimes and that they wanted stricter border control, even as they vowed to defend migrant families and those fleeing violence in their home countries, as well as businesses that rely on immigrant labor.”
While the Democrats planning strategic cooperation with Trump are getting a lot of attention, it’s clear the bulk of elected officials and activists are more quietly waiting for the initial fallout from the new regime to develop while planning ahead for a Democratic comeback. This is particularly true among the House Democratic leadership, which hopes to exploit the extremely narrow Republican majority in the chamber (which will be exacerbated by vacancies for several months until Trump appointees can be replaced in special elections) on must-pass House votes going forward, while looking ahead with a plan to aggressively contest marginal Republican-held seats in the 2026 midterms. Historical precedents indicate very high odds that Democrats can flip the House in 2026, bringing a relatively quick end to any Republican legislative steamrolling on Trump’s behalf and signaling good vibes for 2028.
Would you please inform the national media of this, particularly ABC Radio News and its Bus girlfried, Ann Compton?
Chandler won because of name value, not because he’s a Democrat. And he is in for a far tougher fight this summer and fall.
I haven’t seen any discontent towards the GOP in my state, not in anywhere besides the metro areas. To most Americans, GOP = heroes on terror and purveyors who keep the homosexuals and liberals in line. Sad but true.
I’m in North Carolina (granted, the most solidly Democratic part of it, but still…) and I sense a shift. The small-L libertarians I know are peeling off in droves and I’ve heard several Republicans I know state that they were considering staying home on Election Day because they just don’t like Bush. He still has a good-sized number of partisans – particularly in the churches – but I think an Edwards candidacy would actually put North Carolina in play. Hard to tell whether Kerry would have the same effect, but if the military is becoming disillusioned with their state under GWB (I’m pretty far from the military bases, but the NG families I know are mighty unhappy), I wouldn’t be surprised to see them vote Kerry in larger-than-usual numbers.
For what it’s worth, by 2008 I fully expect both NC and Virginia to be legitimate Democratic targets.
Hi everyone, i live in the upper left too in a heavily democraic area but my brother lives in Wisconsin and he keeps me posted about attitudes and values out there amongst the new barbarians. he isn’t seeing a shift at all except a vague sense that the rebubs might favor the rich… his coworkers and neighbors, if they discuss politics at all, still express a sense of pride in what they see as a successful war against terrorism. i know the polls say people don’t care about the war but that might be because of the widespread misperseption that the war is over and we won. Democrats need a coherent principled foreign policy. right now we are allowing the Bush administration to put forth the idea of a war against terrorism. Our politicians aren’t attacking this concept or exposing Bush’s real agenda ( eventual domination of Syria, Libya, Iran etc.) No one would vote Republican if they new they were voting for Perle’s fifty years of war aginst Islamic oil-producing nations.
perhaps our alternative could be a foriegn policy of global co-operation to achieve environmental goals .This would include energy independence as well as humanitarian assistance to impoverished nations
I have been scaring and deptressing myself with kaplan’s book The Ends of the Earth, the journal of his travels through the chaotic and socially psychotic nations of west Africa, the middle east and indochina. We are in real danger from the religious fanaticism which is growing out of the poverty and cultural dislocations caused by overpopulation, deforestation, and over-rapid urbanization. Also a recently published pentagon study defined global warming as a national security issue. We need to provide leadership in building sustainable communities as the cornerstone of our foreign policy becasue this is the only effective way to decrease trerroism and prevent wars for resources.
Especially after the Chandler victory in a Repub district in the Repub south of KY.
Not so sure about Partnership for America. Might not resonate. Sounds to much like domestic partnerships which leads to civil unions to gay marriages. But on the right track.
It is a great idea of running against Reaganomics when Reagan even rasied taxes three times. Bush is putting forth these same failed voodoo trickle down theories that where debunked by Clinton when he rasied taxes on the top 2%. This will resonate with the people. It wasn’t that long ago that everyone had jobs and were getting better jobs than they had. Must also point out that the Repubs at the time were against it and it worked and they are against it again becuase it will work. The Repubs don’t want to see this policy enacted and work a second time. Because the public will see that supply side economics doesn’t work. We must start attacking this.
Agree completely with the transit idea. Our governements(state, local, and federal) should also have fleet services that use alternative fuel vehicles/renewable means of energy. Some municipalites have done this. They ordered a fleet of some type of hybrid car in CA somewhere I believe. One step would be to move all the transit systems towards hybird/alternative/renewable energy. Should be a major push towards these environmentally safe and terrosim safe technology.
chris-
nice set of ideas, especially on the support of transit.
I don’t have any of the math worked out, but some of these can be encompassed in the “Green Tax Shift” idea promoted by some environmentalists.
Simply put, we try to move the burden of taxation off things that are good for people to produce (i.e. income) and towards things we do not want them to produce. (i.e. pollutants)
It is time to raise the gas tax, and it is time to require superior fuel economy among ALL vehicles (not just cars, SUVs are currently exempt). Much of the increased revenue from new gas tax revenue would fund better public transport throughout the country.
Indeed, this is one of the major sticking points of the ongoing debate over the re-authorization of the TEA-21 transport bill before Congress.
See more here:
http://www.transact.org/transfer/trans04/1_26.asp
I agree completely about broadening the goal, and I see a potential added benefit of doing so. It has seemed, and I’m not certain if there’s any actual data to support or refute this, that there has been the beginnings of a re-enfranchisement of disillusioned voters getting worked up enough to come back into the system to vote, contribute, or even campaign. The major turnout in primaries and caucuses thus far would seem to support this. I think a lot of credit needs to go to Howard Dean’s campaign for bringing these folks out of the woodwork into the fold, and I think that’s something that we need to acknowledge and embrace going forward.
My point is that to continue this, fostering an optimism for the Congressional seats as well as the White House could add a greater sense of personal empowerment in races where individual votes carry even greater weight. It could also add the psychological incentive to previously disenfranchised voters (or non-voters) that their efforts can have an impact on more than just the one front.
It’s an uphill climb, what with the DeLay redistricting machine and all, but if the tide indeed is changing, perhaps it can wash a few more away…
Agree completely that offering a complete, easy-to-understand set of principles would do wonders to both nationalize the Congressional elections and allow D’s to demonstrate vision. Rather than debating names, what should those principles be?
My offerings:
1. Tax policy should reward work, not wealth;
2. Rebuild our tradional alliances (stolen from W ’00);
3. Use environmental laws to both protect the environment and stimulate business regulation;
4. Spend the Highway Trust Fund to build effective mass-transit systems;
Thoughts?
DR has a link, in the Political Strategy section, to a new Greenburg atricle titled “Contesting Values.” I think it is outstanding. It definitely ties into the discussions we have been having about themes and values.
I love the idea of running against Reagan and Reaganomics. I also agree with his idea that Democtats need to stand up for our values. We have let Repubs be the party of values. Dem have values too: democracy, equality, diversity, and protection of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
We will never win back Congress and have a mandate for change unless we tell the voters what we stand for. The Repubs have stood for tax cuts, limited government, and strong defense. Dems need to stand for restored democracy, equality of opportunity, support for families, and strong world leadership through international cooperation.
I agree with franklyO about the desirability of an overarching theme for Congressional Dems. In a couple of posts I suggested “American Values, American Dreams,” but I never got any feedback.
Regarding, the suggestion for a “New American Covenant,” Didn’t Clinton already use something like that? I personally find that sort of overtly Judeo-Christian reference discomforting given the post 9/11 environment. It sounds too much like Bush’s “crusade” comment. The last thing we need to do is suggest to the Muslim world that we think God is on our side. However, I am a raging secularist, and I am sure things look a bit different in Texas.
FranklyO stated, “there is a wave of disgust …” I certainly sense something like that here in my little, upper-left, corner of the universe: Portland, Oregon. However, Portland is not by any means a representative sample of the country. This is an overwhelmingly Democratic city. I am curious about the impressions of others around the country?
New American Covenant?
–morris
Morris Meyer
Democratic Congressional Candidate
Texas 6th District
http://www.meyer04.us
Frankly0, I completely agree. As a suggested theme, why not “Partnership with America”? It sets up a nice contrast with “Contract for America”, which always sounded like a business contract to me. Conversely, “partnership” implies more of a community sense, of working together to solve the nation’s problems. In other words, more in line with Democratic policies.
Just to follow up: in 1994, the Republicans came up with the infamous “Contract for America.” The Dems need a like theme and gimmick.
Given the numbers, and the way this election is likely to play out, I think there is a very good prospect that Bush can be ousted by a relatively sizable margin.
What I wonder is whether the Democrats might not try to do think even larger and do something even larger: take back the Congress.
In many ways, it seems that there is a tide of anger and disgust sweeping much of the nation over the policies and actions not only of Bush, but of the entire Republican party, which is at base so little different from Bush himself.
In many ways, 2004 could be the obverse of 1994, when a large part of the public decided to throw the bums out — though back then they were the Democratic bums. I see no reason that the Republicans in Congress are not susceptible to the same kind of revulsion, in no small part due to their own abuse of power, and their smug expectation that that power can never be taken away from them.
But if the Dems are going to make that happen, it is time to sound that theme, and get the voters themselves thinking about how they can decimate the Republicans, one Congressman at a time.