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.
I couldn’t disagree more! I think both sides realize Nader’s influence in this election, especially the Republicans. In the words of Mike White, Director of the Oregon Family Council on why he was collecting signatures to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in Oregon”We aren’t bashful about doing it. We are a conservative, pro-family organization, and Bush is our guy on virtually every issue.” In the words of, Steve Wark, the Bush supporter largely responsible for getting Mr. Nader on the ballot in Nevada, when asked whether the addition of Mr. Nader to the ballot would help the President’s hopes of victory in Nevada, “I would hope so. I didn’t do it for my own health.” The truth is in an election as close as this one the votes Nader takes away will matter. That’s why the Republicans invest so much to get him on the ballot in every battleground state–literally. To see the facts on this Republican help go to http://www.thenaderfactor.com/press/072304/
To Mark Schmitt,
That’s an easy one.
There are probably between 1% and 3% of voters nationwide who would actually show up on election day and cast a vote for a Ralph Nader if he ran as the Green Party’s candidate. There are probably a similar number of people who will *say* they intend to show up on election day and cast a vote for a Ralph Nader (or a ham sandwich or whatever), rather than just admit they’re not going to vote — so there’s also a certain Nader component in what we might call the “noise floor” of the poll.
The important thing is the real number of people out there who will actually vote for Ralph Nader, while small, is greater than zero. And if you ask enough people to get a meaningful sample of a population, you should be able to pick that up. The other thing to remember, of course, is that in a poll with a margin of error of +/- 3%, all the numbers between 1 and 6 (inclusive) are effectively *the same number*.
Nader could make more waves by adopting a more libertarian attitude to taxation, one that follows with his other kinds of populism.
I am afraid I disagree.
The real issue here is not whether Nader runs or not.
The real issue is, how many potential voters on the left does Kerry risk alienating by attempting to capture the swing soft belly.
Even if Nader is not there, many of these alienated voters may just decide to not vote, or vote Green, or who knows, Libertarian, if anti-war is a big issue for them.
This Nader-paranoia is taking the forest for the trees.
So, why specifically are some potential Kerry voters on the left considering not voting for him?
They consider that Kerry provides no real alternative plan on:
– the war in Iraq
– the war on terror
– Israel and Palestine
– the role of the US in International development.
And what they consider a too limited alternative on:
– universal healthcare
– worker rights
– tax regime
– gay rights, and many more.
Whether that is true or not is not the point. If, stopping for a moment to ostracize them, you spend the time needed to just listen to potential Nader voters, that will be their perception.
It is time to stop blaming them, or worse – blackmailing them, and to cater to them in the same manner that Kerry tries to cater to the swing voter. It’s time for a bit of marketing…
Otherwise, and regardless of whether Nader will be there or not for them, they simply won’t vote Kerry.
I think the ‘hide in the compounds’ strategy will work pretty well and has been predictable for many months. Bush will not be hurt very much if Iraq descends into total chaos. This descent will barely merit mention in the news. There are 2 reasons for this:
1 – Most Americans don’t care about Iraq very much, so new about Iraqi deaths won’t sell papers.
2 – Chaos is dangerous (especially to Western reporters), so most reporters will stay out of the way.
RE: “put our troops into safe compounds out of harm’s way”
I don’t think that will work. Without US troops on the streets keeping the peace, the situation there could rapidly descend into complete chaos. Bush is between a rock and a hard place there, and there’s no easy way out.
I haven’t seen a serious analysis of Nader’s appeal, even from a poll-oriented site like this one. Again and again, I see comparative polls where Nader appears to steal from BOTH Kerry and Bush… But the truth is that the appearance of Nader brings out voters who would not be voting otherwise… Perot voters, Greens etc. Nader does not steal from Kerry. Every minute spent on squashing him is wasted. Why not try to steal NADER’s voters?
Ruy, you command may well come true. Today’s First Read from msnbc.com said: “at what point do three-way trial heats in national polls become a moot point?”
Nader’s difficulties are good news. In the intermediate and longer run it will really help Kerry. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see Nader drop out of the race now that he also has money problems. Despite his pride in seeing himself as the indespensible man of the left, he’s not the kind of politician to run up a big debt and then walk away from it.
I am concerned, however, at this morning’s news regarding Iraq. Bush was smart in pulling off the “turnover” in advance of the 30th. My ears pricked up though when I saw on CNN that Bush is now saying that Iraqi security is up to the Iraqis.
That makes me wonder if Bush’s strategy de jour is to put our troops into safe compounds out of harm’s way. In that way he can claim to be “staying the course” without incuring the casualties that bring down his poll numbers. It wouldn’t do the Iraqis any good, but it would save the lives of American troops and improve his chances in November.
All of this should remind us that this election will be decided by events on the ground in theatres of conflict with militant Islam. For better or worse, those events are controlled by radical Islamists or George Bush. All John Kerry can do is seize on any opening or mis-step of Bush’s. Not a good position to be in and it should help to explain Kerry’s caution up to now.
If you can’t convince the pollsters to take Nader’s name off, is it possible to convince them to add a Libertarian/Constitution candidate (is there even one yet?) to the polls?
I was under the impression that even the Reform Party ballot access in Michigan, Florida, Colorado etc. was being questioned due to the fact that that the Reform Party did not hold a convention, as required (they held a conference call).
I think the technically accurate phrasing is “Nader might have access in seven states through the Reform Party, but has not yet been placed on any state ballot.”
Ruy,
Can you shed some light on what it is about the polls that causes Nader’s number to range from 3-6% when he is included in the trial heats? Is this just static in the polls — that is, would any third candidate with some name recognition be expected to get about that amount? Or do you think there is a latent Nader support that might be as high as 6% but that in the end will vote for Kerry? If it’s the former, doesn’t it raise some questions about the polls generally, if there is such a sizable factor that’s just meaningless?
/Mark