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.
How to explain the divergence of both Zogby and Rasmussen presidential numbers from all the rest???!!
Bush is clearly trying to solidify the base tonight.
Well, I kind of compare this Evangelical revolution of the Republican Party to McCarthyism. In your heart, you know it’s wrong. In your logic, you know it’s wrong.
At some point you know it will run it’s course and the bubble will burst. It will collapse onto itself. And it’s this impatience of the larger public (for the collapse) that is slowly, surely starting to express itself.
I don’t know who is going to win this coming election, but if it’s Bush–on a social/societal level–“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
-Ron-
First, many evangelicals, indeed many Christians are focused on what the Bible says, and they believe that the Bible says (at least many Calvinist do and to a lesser degree others believe this as well) that the prophesized times as discussed in Revelations is upon us- it is more commonly referred to as the end times. Two personal stories: 1) a born again Christian friend will vote for Bush b/c regardless of everything else he believes Bush represents this issue 2) Christians have learn to go in the closet about the more extreme aspects of their faith so they talk in code- a la Bush talking about Dred Scott as code for abortion issues. I grew up in this world- I had an aunt who would say thank you jesus after every other sentence. They believe as they say, “that the way the world is going man is not long for this world.” What does this mean politically? It means one is able to manipulate people with these strongly felt belief systems b/c one merely needs to use the language of faith. In fairness, Clinton does this with African Americans- he talks in the language of salvation as is often the case with the black church since the civil rights movement. Bush uses the apocalypitc language of the Bible and Revelations- if you don’t realize that’s part of this debate about terrorism, and a war without end, you should. This is a very religious country never forget that- it affects our lives in ways we dont even notice.
First time Poster. To understand why people will vote against their own self interests you should read “Don’t Think of An Elephant” by George Lakoff.
People vote their values and the right has done a much better job of articulating those values. The truth does not change many from voting their values.
Its short book and well worth it. Sorry if Lakoff’s book has been discussed here before.
Now this is a topic worth discussing — why are so many people supporting Bush? After all, you need to understand your enemy in order to defeat him.
CF’s family story is very telling; indeed that group of people, and their “perception of personal righteousness” (well put by CF) constitutes the Bush base. And there certainly are a lot of these people. To give a David Brooksian example, it is always shocking to lifelong urban liberals like me to learn that the largest selling passenger vehicle models in this country, BY FAR, are pickup trucks — the Ford F-150 to be exact, and the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, and Ford Taurus don’t even come close. I can only think of one single person I know who drives a pickup truck. Obviously there is a huge swath of this country with which I am not familiar, as is likely the case with most of us on this board.
Those people CF describes are not nearly enough to forge a majority, however, or even a plurality. To those have to be added lots of other groups of voters, many of them one-issue voters. To wit:
1. Abortion. Let’s face it: if being pro-life is the strongest value you have, then it makes perfect sense to vote for GWB. Not all of those people are bible-banging, head-nodding evangelicals; some just feel very strongly about this issue.
2. Tort reform. Physicians (and I am one) tend toward the Republicans in general, but this year, with the malpractice crisis, I think many physicians have become one issue voters. They are convinced that there will never be any relief from their outrageous malpractice premiums if a med mal lawyer gets to share the White House. Edwards outlined an excellent and interesting plan in the VP debate, so I don’t know that that perception is accurate, but nonetheless it is hard to blame docs for thinking that way.
3. Taxes. Some people just want more money in their pockets, and are convinced — rightfully so, let’s be honest — that the chances of taxes remaining low are greater with a Republican administration.
Then to these you can add the huge ranks of the not-very-informed, who may make decisions based on fragmentary pieces of non-information that would make you & me cringe. Some may simply feel that Bush is “kicking those terrorists asses” in Iraq, and his ridiculous conflated rhetoric supports that non-position. Some also feel that we need to rally behind the president in a time of war, a wholly natural sentiment that goes back 200 years. I will confess that even I had some positive thoughts about GWB at one single point in his administration: when he took decisive & appropriate action against Afghanistan. So even a hard-core, lifelong liberal like me had a soft spot for that sentiment.
Finally, one has to admit that while there is SO much to run against in this administration, Kerry/Edwards have not exactly done an optimal job of making their case. JFK does a lot of saying “we have a plan” without specifics — that does not turn people on. There are points he makes poorly (e.g.”Orwellian” environmental legislation) or not at all (GWB promised billions in relief to NYC after 9/11, and never gave a nickel! Kerry and Edwards should be shouting about that at every campaign stop!). Lastly, I’m beginning to see that Kerry’s reputation as a great closer is sort of an inverted interpretation of the truth: he is actually an intermittently very effective campaign who has a marked tendency to lose focus and become pathologically cautious whenever things start looking AT ALL positive. That makes him look like a “strong closer,” when in fact he is a sharp campaigner when behind, and a crappy lead-keeper.
All of this contributes to much higher polling numbers than we would expect for the man who is arguably — yes, I will say it — the worst president in American history.
> In other words, the LV sample is 2 points more
> Republican yet produces a result that’s 2 points
> more Democratic.
There’s a simple explanation for this, but it is ecstatically optimistic.
@ JW at October 13, 2004 02:30 AM
If people know Kerry is better on the economy, healthcare, environment, etc. why would they vote for Bush?
It’s mystifying. The subject matter for Debate 3 is the Economy etc. Perhaps Kerry will nail Bush tonight on this issue and come away with a solid + 5 up. I was motivated enough to compose and send this email.
To: John Kerry campaign
RE: A debate talking point on the Economy that will attract undecideds and swing Republicans
TALKING POINT: KERRY/EDWARDS ARE FIGHTING FOR MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS BECAUSE THE GEORGE W. BUSH ADMIN HAS PUT THE ‘BIG SQUEEZE” ON YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN
( 2 MIN )
Frame with this ( 15sec. )
The Bush admin. is waging war on middle class and poor Americans. Let’s face the reality: If ripping off the public trust; if distributing tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and poor; if driving the country into deficits deliberately to starve social benefits; if requiring states to balance their budgets on the backs of the middle class and poor; if squeezing the wages of workers until the labor force resembles a nation of serfs – if this isn’t class war, what is? IT’S UN-AMERICAN. IT’S UNPATRIOTIC. AND IT’S WRONG.
Pitch with this ( 1 min. 15 sec. )
The Bush administration spending has created record deficits but they still found a way to give billions in tax breaks to wealthy Americans and lowered taxes for Corporate America because it refuses to deviate from it’s big-business agenda. And to fund this agenda the Bush admin is waging a war on MIDDLE CLASS Americans who are facing BIG SQUEEZES in HEALTH-INSURANCE, PRESCRIPTION-DRUGS, SALARIES/WAGES, TAXES, and ENERGY especially with oil now at $53/barrel
Under George Bush the federal budget surplus of 236 billion dollars in 2000 has gone to a deficit of 422 billion dollars this year. And, in trade and investment, the United States had a deficit of 166.2 billion dollars. What this means is that in just 4 years George Bush has lowered the standard of living for many middle class Americans and mortgaged the future of your children.
You of course won’t hear any of this from Bush and his new “Ownership Society” plan because the Bush admin. has created a “FANTASY world” to contrive false realities and mislead the public with lies and deceptions to disguise FAILURES on the economy, jobs, healthcare, education, the environment in addtion to Iraq and war on terror.
In Debate 2 George Bush stated that “Non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending was raising at 15 percent a year when he got into office and said today it’s less than 1 percent”. Well, once again George W. Bush told you another LIE.
The truth about non-defense discretionary spending over the past 3 administrations is this…
* Bush 1: 4.0% per year
* Clinton: 2.5% per year
* Bush Jr: 8.2% per year
Outside of the personal FANTASYLAND Bush seems to inhabit, the truth is simple: spending of all kinds has skyrocketed under his administration and the Republican Congress. It’s laughable for Bush to pretend to be a frugal spender because he is spending our children’s money as fast as he can print it.
Close ( 30 sec. )
I have a much better plan for the economy, jobs, healthcare and am on record saying that I will not raise taxes for middle class Americans. I will raise taxes on households earning more than 200,000 dollars per year while expanding tax relief and boosting health care credits to middle class and poor Americans. etc.
references:
1. This is the Fight of Our Lives by Bill Moyers http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/071804J.shtml
2. THE BIG SQUEEZE ON MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8344
3. Presidential winner faces ‘twin deficits’ battle http://tinyurl.com/4hovm
4. Bush’s BIG LIE on non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004884.php
JW,
I sympathy with your baffledness. Bush is a terrible, terrible, terrible President, and his administration is even worse. There are tons of theories out there, but the one that seems most reasonable to me is the idea of character in voting for the Presidency.
My guess is that we are reaching the end of a surge in using character to judge our leaders — probably starting with Carter.
And I should probably have ‘character’ in quotes because it is not really character, but rather self-identity, or as they say in the culturally conservative areas ‘values’.
As Mark Schmidtt of the Decembrist points out (go read if you have not), it is not your position on the issues, but rather what your position on the issues says about your character.
The campaigns have become highly skilled at manipulating voters, and taking advantage of media standards, and if I am right, they have found that selling a candidate by projecting character traits and ‘values’ that poll well, they have found they can sell empty suit candidates like Bush. The most similar thing I can think of is the marketing of a sports team, where they try to get you to identify with local team.
Obviously, there are other things involved, and American voters are a strange mix, often showing signs of great insight mixed with utter cluelessness.
If I am right, though, this surge in the relative importance of ‘character’ is fading — probably a result of Bush’s unfathomable incompetence, as well as a natural cycle and the media finally catching on to how they are being manipulated.
Note to EDM staff: Could you please edit this down to a few comprehensible sentences?
JW: the attitude of our fellow citizens does indeed seem perverse based on the results of Ruy’s post. I don’t pretend to understand it, but logically it must be rooted in some emotional or “faith based” perception about Bush’s Iraq disaster: somehow voters are unwilling to repudiate Bush for his manifest foreign policy incompetence. This despite the fact that our Glorious Leader has essentially promised a continuing “agressive” and “offensive” stance in bringing the war on terror to “completion”. We are in the midst of a great national crisis, and huge numbers of voters cannot think straight.
In response to JW’s question: because GWB speaks in an idiom and employs a language folks like us not only don’t understand but don’t recognize when we hear it.
Several months ago my household was on the receiving end of a family visit from my mother-in-law’s promise keeper baptist minister brother and his wife from upstate New York. Their vacation consisted of parking themselves in my living room and watching Fox for three days. Curious about this phenomenon, I hid behind a bookcase and spied on them. (Hey, it’s my living room.) Whenever GWB spoke onscreen, I observed them entering into what I call their zone, nodding their heads and saying “amen” every time GWB said, well, anything at all.
We tend to think of this kind of thing as culturally quaint, even amusing. It’s not. It’s an aggressive, potent, organized political force that’s on the rise in America, not the wane. And they know they’re right. They just know it. GWB is confirming what they know they know using their own language. So, to respond to JW, this ongoing conversation — the one I saw in my living room — is not about the environment, healthcare, or the economy. It’s about perceptions of personal righteousness.
The fact that the poll numbers are where they are should tell us how pervasive this particular phenomenon is, not how uninformed or ignorant Americans are.
> Despite choosing Kerry on a majority of the domestic
> issues voters typically care about (e.g. healthcare,
> environment, economy, etc.), the respondents’
> response to the voting preference question put the
> candidates neck and neck, or, worse, put Bush
> ahead.
My impression is a significant number of “Shrub” voters like him not because of his track record but because they think he is “one of them” i.e. an evangelical social conservative. It seems the GOP campaign is 100% focused on stroking the erogenous zones of this particular constituency at every turn, since (e.g.) Iraq or the deteriorating federal economy won’t matter to these people at all. Alas, Kerry does not have this luxury. His supporters will rally around him as long as he looks like a credible Bush-beater e.g. by giving a strong performance in the debates.
—
BTW, I must confess I am awfully nervous about tonight’s debate. If the overall consensus tomorrow is Kerry lost (even if it’s only on points), it might be difficult for him to counter the coming avalanche of negative “flip-flopping liberal peacenik” attack ads.
MARCU$
JD — I guess the obvious answer is that despite Kerry’s advantage on the myriad domestic issues, many voters still view national security and the “war on terror” as paramount, the issues where, for some unfathomable reason, Bush maintains a lead. Which raises the question of whether it’s possible to weight the issues polls using some sort of voter ranking or prioritization.
The numbers of Democrats and Republicans posted by Soto appear to be unweighted raw numbers. The presidential race percentages are weighted.
The “unlikely voters” consist of 75 Democrats and 62 Republicans. “Unlikely voters” (based on past election behavior) are predominantly from lower socioeconomic levels, and predominantly Democrats. If the 55% Democrats that this sample of unlikely voters contained is significantly less than normal (I don’t know whether that’s the case), the weighting process would naturally cause the LV poll result to be more Democratic than the RV poll result.
Nonetheless, if you want to make any sense out of the “likely voter” numbers, you’re back once again to the mystery of how various polls define “likely voters”….
Sometimes when you’re working backwards from the desired result you don’t have enough time to make everything consistent.
“In other words, the LV sample is 2 points more Republican yet produces a result that’s 2 points more Democratic.” (Ruy Teixeira)
Maybe, after the quick rise and fall of the Security Mom we should create someone else: The Kerry Republican…
Undecides and women continue slow drift into Kerry column. Plus Dems kicking Pubby butt on registration. If Kerry does well in this final debate, Team Bush will need to change the dynamic, fast. This week or early next is when Rove drops the dirt bomb on Kerry.
What’s baffling to me are other domestic issue polls I’ve seen which also include a “Who would you vote for if the election were held today?” question. Despite choosing Kerry on a majority of the domestic issues voters typically care about (e.g. healthcare, environment, economy, etc.), the respondents’ response to the voting preference question put the candidates neck and neck, or, worse, put Bush ahead.
How can this be? I have been utterly bemused by this election; the fact that this is even a contest at all seems so surreal to me. I keep expecting to see some character from a Fellini movie walk through my living room or something when I listen to the talking heads on the TV talk about Bush’s supporters.
I thought that perhaps the public was uneducated on the issues and if they only knew where Bush stood on the issues, that would reduce his support significantly. However, this is belied by polls such as this one which suggest that the public has at least a basic knowledge of where the candidates stand on the major issues.
So, if people know that Kerry is better on the environment, healthcare, economy, etc. Why would they vote for Bush?
(1) My answer to the ‘go figure’ would be to guess that the Democrats who KNOW they will vote are for Kerry, while those who are RVs are uneasy and often leaning towards Bush. Democrats as a whole might be pro-Kerry but nonLV Democrats might lean by a few extra points in another direction; nonLV Repubs might be about the same as LV Repubs, thus shifting the total in an opposite direction from Party distrib. (???? guess)
(2) I just heard Andrew Kohut from Pew on Cspan talking to a group of women for Kerry. He explained that non-landline voters are less than 10% by far of eligible voters and vote in much smaller numbers (he estimated less than 3% of total turnout). Since they aren’t ALL Democrats, he felt the impact on the election balance is miniscule, but could matter if margins are razor thin. He seemed to understate it, and overstate his certainty, but it is worth taking into account
(3) What is with this business (Oct 9 NY Times op-ed) about the Kerry/Edwards logo conveying weakness and confusion? The argument, by a graphic arts designer, sounded quite convincing, if overly certain. One point was that if you close your eyes and look at the logo all of a sudden, the first name that appears is Edwards, because the typeface is the same size and the name is longer. That is something graphic designers in both the campaign AND the press should have picked up a long time ago. Also, the 5 rows of ten stars in the flag point was also convincing. Well, when you have a record like Bush’s it takes a lot of finagling, that’s all I can say. I know “Mark” criticized me for being too pessimistic, but I really think it’s necessary especially in a context like this to keep it real. Keeping it real can mean different things, and to me it means what is REALLY true whether anyone is willing to admit it or not.
(3) Here’s a knockout punch for Kerry: seizing upon the fact that Bush couldn’t specify a single mistake in office, he asks the 2004 version of ‘are you better off than you were four years ago?’ but in the answering question period. “Mr. President, not only is the situation in Iraq a total mess, but your track record on jobs, the deficit, the environment are terrible. Don’t you EVER admit to or even recognize any mistakes? How can anyone lead if they don’t correct mistakes? You know, FDR, our greatest president of the last 100 years, especially our greatest crisis president … (then the summary of FDR during the 30s, his famous remark of trying a policy and if it fails, admitting it frankly and trying something else) “If we can’t get a president willing to try someTHING else, the only solution is to get someONE else”. (This would be in one of the rebuttals, instead of repeating a previously made point in a debate or rattling off a list of names. He also at some point needs to explain that 1.9 million jobs growth, after huge job losses, not impressive, and is lower than Clinton’s AVERAGE growth per year over eight years. And references such as to “Orwellian” environmental policies are accurate, but over too many heads.
(4) I’m still worried about the effect of the fallout from the Matthew Bai piece. I DISAGREE STRONGLY with bruhrabbit that it is a good description of Kerry. He is MUCH more willing to use military force than that article implies, and he’s said so quite specifically MANY times. The article distorted his stance, then people like Dick Morris went over the top (in his “Nuisance Nonsense” in the NY Post — he’s a walking insult to slime), guiliani, and Bush. This is full court press, and it won’t let up. I have written to the NY Times insisting that they allow on the op-ed page a VERY lengthy rebuttal from someone who understands Kerry’s actual position, who is highly respected but not merely an operative from the Kerry campaign, someone like a well-regarded poli sci person. This pressure should be VERY HEAVY on them. AND ON Kerry to respond to the spin of that article as wrong in a speech of the length and centrality of his NYU speech. He needs to make completely clear, not just in a few lines from campaign people but in a whole speech that his position is being distorted, HOW it is being distorted, and what it IS.
He failed to really counter the flipflop spin very effectively, although he had the makings of a good answer. It takes more than a two minute spiel on the Patriot Act to counter 6 months of rote Bull, uncountered in media or campaign signficantly until at least well into Sept.
(5) I still believe the machine wants to engineer a “mandate” for Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Otherwise we will have had a president who was never really elected and a war that the people voted against. The powers that pee are using the ‘justifying the lying’ media as plan (a), with the flipflop spin supplemented as needed with the nuisance natter.
Plan (b) — EXCELLENT ARTICLE in the OCT Progressive Magazine — is the old fashioned way, stealing the election at the polls. Their planning systematic ‘challenges’ in swing states like nevada to voters’ eligibility INDIVIDUALLY. This is unprecedented. Much else in the article.
Here comes the slime….Here comes the slime….I say now …………