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 have an idea for Ruy Teixeira.
Maybe the next time he wants to write for his Substrack, perhaps it will be about how crazy the Republican Party is and has become instead of continuing to attack other Democrats.
Because the reality is, as far as how makes policy for Democrats, it comes from the White House, the leadership in Congress and local elected officials like mayors and governors.
And nearly all of these people are either centrists or center-left. Very few are from the far left and the ones who are have very little influence or legislative accomplishments.
So bottom line is the people who Ruy Teixeira align with basically run the party. Continuing to criticize a faction which does not because some city council-member (who more than likely is a Green or a member of the DSA) says “Defund the Police” is not only waste of time but utterly counter-productive.
Because Teixeira’s faction has won the debate and largely has the power. Why does he continue to punch down? Because – and I agree with Ryan Cooper and I don’t very much – they want someone to blame for a bad mid-term election result that’s already “baked in”
Sorry, that’s not going to cut it. Especially when last year the more liberal Gov. Murphy of New Jersey was still re-elected while the centrist and Clinton-acolyte Terry McAuliff lost in Virginia (albeit by a very close margin).
While the Dems don’t need a far-left they do need liberals to win (something they forgot about in Virginia) like it or not. You want people to do the dirty work of politics, attacking them and then expecting them to work for you isn’t a very smart strategy.
Maybe the next time Ruy Teixeira writes for his Substrack, he should writing about the other party and how messed up they are.
And it’s not just Ruy, but other writers who are smart and whose work I enjoy and yet just are part of the same, same rut.
James Carville said it best recently. Dems need to stop their whining and attacks on each other and go after the Republicans for being crazy or being Russian-sympathizers. The “Trump-Putin” Axis, I like that term. Instead of defend, attack!
Or Ronald Reagan best put, we need to stop talking to each other, and about each other and start talking to the American people with the message they are waiting to hear.
Amen
Texeira is a political commentator.
What about all the left attacks on Biden over environmental policy, racial issues and immigration from members of Congress? We are not talking about a few people.
Biden’s caving on Title 42 shows that he is not governing from the center.
While Western Media hyperventilating that Putin’s Military Strategy is a Disaster in Ukraine, NATO is spending trillions of dollars to help Ukrainian families, millions are fleeing Ukraine to overload European cities & schools (Poland’s Hospitality won’t last), gasoline prices over $6 (Putin got Saudi Arabia signed off on OPEC + Curbs), worst Inflation in 40 years and with Russian & Ukrainian wheat about a third of all wheat exports cut off (Egypt will be hit hard, maybe causing riots), leading to the cost of bread doubling in America, America planning to send more LNG ships to Europe which will lead to heating bills doubling next Fall in America, which will guarantee the Republicans take over complete control of Congress in the Midterms and then if Trump runs (depending on his Diabetes) in 2024, he will get elected to another term, seems like a good political strategy by Putin. When the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO decided they wanted a confrontation with Russia, well they got it. America sent weapons to South Vietnam and Afghanistan for decades. As Jack Kerouac said- the War in Vietnam was a Conspiracy between South & North Vietnam to get American jeeps. Today the Taliban are driving around in Humvees. Ultimately, there will be “Berlin Wall,” between the most Eastern part of Ukraine and the Ukraine. In the meantime all sides are committed to keeping the War (Congress & American Reporters love Wars), going until hundreds of towns are leveled and maybe 10 million Ukrainians have left Ukraine.