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.
Ruy has to highlight those polls which are flawed or else people will simply hang onto them as truth and become deflated… he is doing the right thiing…
A Democratic Pollsters’s Response
It’s tough to cut through the spin at this stage of the election cycle. But, in the spirit of at least trying, check out Mark Blumenthal’s — a respected democratic pollster — analysis of Gallup and MoveOn.org on his very new (and excellent, by the way) blog.
Check it out:
http://mysterypollster.typepad.com/main/2004/09/moveon_vs_gallu.html
Rory
“The ad is terrific – it looks good, it reads well, and the numbers are damning. But while I’m no friend or sympathizer to the Christian Right, it’s possible that part of the story about that ad (and the news flurry about MoveOn and other 527s will continue) will be the mocking tone of the final paragraphs’ description of George Gallup, Jr’s Christian bent. It’ll be too easy for many to dismiss it as more “godless liberals” – and speaking as one, I’m tired of being dismissed.”
That’s exactly what happened on O’Reilly’s show last night. No talk of the actual ad, just the attack in the last two paragraphs. Moveon should have been a little more careful.
what are the implications of the fact that Gallup gets to choose the questioners at the 2nd (town hall) debate, according to the debate agreement posted on c-span?
MoveON made the right decision bringing this to the attention of major newspapers and mass circulation to reach the most readers — even if the NYT audience might be more educated and liberal than most swing voters.
But I can’t help but notice the emphasis of Ruy’s analysis has changed dramatically. IN the summer, Ruy would point to the internals and show the framework of issues and voter perceptions that could lead to pro-Kerry matchups by November. This was important for encouragement when Bush was radically arrogant, incompetent, or intolerant in his actions as POTUS — done in our name with our money– or worse, when he seemed to be getting away with his frauds and on the verge of four more hellish years. This was also important background for strategizing — not just at national and statewide levels, but also among key demographics, and also at the precinct level (organizing) and individual level (debates among aquanitances, letters to the editor, talking points).
I think DonkeyRising should return to elucidating what the internals of good polls say, rather than focus our energy on polls that are so clearly flawed.
There’s only six weeks left! The race may swing on the undecideds. We need to know who they are, what their issues are, and how they can be convinced that Bush is Wrong and Kerry can help to stop the bleeding and turn America on the right path again.
Folks: volunteer — your local campaigns and party HQs need you.
Pundits: what are the internals saying — the story being the sea of numbers? These armies of volunteers need to know what buttons to push!
The ad is terrific – it looks good, it reads well, and the numbers are damning. But while I’m no friend or sympathizer to the Christian Right, it’s possible that part of the story about that ad (and the news flurry about MoveOn and other 527s will continue) will be the mocking tone of the final paragraphs’ description of George Gallup, Jr’s Christian bent. It’ll be too easy for many to dismiss it as more “godless liberals” – and speaking as one, I’m tired of being dismissed.
Surely there’s a way for MoveOn to get the point across without sticking its foot in its mouth this way; they have the upper hand logically and ethically, but when “God, gays and guns” are wedge issues, they’re just widening the wedge.
The latest IDB poll shows a dead heat for both LV’s and RV’s. But Gallup is now reporting a 8 PT lead for LV’s and a whopping 11 point lead for RV’s! All in a three way race with Nader.
Look, it cannot just be the LV model in this case!!! The RV’s are even more out of whack than the LV’s in Gallup.
Have they thrown all caution to the wind? After all, who knows what commandments Gallup Jr. has received from On High with regard to the closing months of this race?
This is where I am afraid we democrats go wrong.
Harris, Fox News (RVs), and the latest IBD/CSM polls all have Kerry up. If the shoe was on the other foot and only 2 or 3 polls showed Bush up the republicans would be out in force, with a straight face, loudly crying that not only were these few polls right, but that they under represented Bush’s actual lead, and that all the rest of the polls were biased.
The democrats need to take a page from that book. Forget saying Kerry is only about 3 points down as Moveon has done. He is UP for crying out loud! Where is our swagger?
Ruy,
Karen Tumulty on Lou Dobbs Tonight called you, and people like you, a liar. She said your analysis doesn’t matter because you are only looking into the polling process because you don’t like the results.
I think you should write her and let her know what you think.
Just a thought….
Thanks for the link to Moveon.org for that story.
On target, and no doubt influenced by Ruy’s good work.
Has this website made any predictions about the electoral outcome? Percentage vote for each candidate, etc?? Thank you.
Good for MoveOn! More needs to be done. Kerry campaign spokespersons need to trumpet the mesage of Gallup’s sell-out on the cable and network outlets every chance they get.
People need to write in to USA Today and to CNN, both of whom, I understand commission polls from Gallup and then attach their logos to them, and let them know that Americans are on to their game of shilling for Bush.
Of course they will play up their polls. Its all about the competition of the media market place. If this is allowed to go on unchecked, this convergence of partisan interest with giant media companies using polling companies to tilt elections, then our democracy is truly in mortal danger.
Wow, that ad is incredible! I’ve heard Gallup’s numbers regurgitated too many times on the nightly news. Perhaps if you expose the “juggernaut” as being full of hot air, the people will believe the “juggernaut” is full of hot air, and then vote accordingly.
All this time while EDM was debunking the numbers I was wondering how to anyone could get the truth out. Thank you Move On!