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.
Schaller’s article is certainly provocative and his numbers are indeed “interesting.” In fact, one might say that this article shows the same attention to fact as his previous work. This is, after all, the same writer who stated on page 168 of his book “Whistling Past Dixe” that Mike Easley of North Carolina would face a tough re-election in 2008. Certainly true when one considers that re-election is impossible when Easley is term-limited from running again.
One of the interesting things about this article is that (different from his previous work) Schaller has expanded his target from the South (generally) and southern white males (particularly) to white males (generally). Of course, he does seem to make the assumption that most of “the down-home, blue-collar, white male voter” are Southern (or rural: he talks about Hillary Clinton dropping her G’s when speaking to southern or rural audiences).
Schaller does seem to still have his obsession with NASCAR — perhaps its a Schallersque code word for “southern.” I live in Charlotte, North Carolina (arguably the heart of NASCAR). I have never gone to a NASCAR race and have absolutely no interest in ever going to one.I do know this: the NASCAR marketing people equal or surpass any political demographic analysts around. That’s why I find it interesting that NASCAR moving from southern tracks to Schaller’s precious west and north.
In the Salon article, Schaller discusses Bob Graham’s sponsorship of a NASCAR team and its lack of effectiveness. He doesn’t mention Mark Warner’s NASCAR sponsorship in his governor’s race (although he does talk about it in other writings). He tries to have it both ways: NASCAR is the symbol of why Graham failed, but didn’t have anything to do with Warner’s success.
He doesn’t look at the difference in the nature of the races. Nobody knew who Mark Warner was. The use of NASCAR introduced him to Virginia’s voters as somebody who respected their history and didn’t mock who they are. Bob Graham was a known entity: NASCAR didn’t bring him anything.
But back to Schaller’s numbers (and I am going to accept his figures). Schaller says that 25% of Kerry’s vote in 2004 came from white males. Evidently because this percentage is significantly smaller than the percentage of white males who make up the total voters — paying attention to the total group is obviously a waste of time to Schaller.
But let us be honest here, Schaller is citing a crappy presidential campaign that failed to mobilize and convince a signifcant segment of voters. For that alone, Schaller believes the Democratic party should just ignore that segment in the future? Is it just me or is this muzzy minded in the extreme?
Schaller may have a point when it comes to presidential elections. The nature of the electoral college makes presidential electoral math significantly different from other races. Schaller — like most college professors — seems to think that presidential elections are all that matter.
He also seems to think (like a preponderance of Democrats) that policies are what motivates voters. And like most liberals he thinks that those policies should be driven top down. This leads to his assumption that going after the white male vote (southern or not) will result in the party endorsing policies that will alienate other groups(blacks, women, union members, etc) or at least impede efforts to grow party support among these groups.
The problem with Schaller’s views is that they are dead wrong. Schaller’s philosophy is the view of political elites (=policy wonks). While it is true that there are voters who vote based on a candiate’s stand on health care or civil rights or the death penalty, most voters make (1) their decision on whether to vote and (2) who to vote for based on their perception of the value a political candidate (or — more often — a political party) brings to them. These perceptions often are significantly different from those of the party elites.
Working on county or district levels, we find when we go out and actually canvass (not just lit drop) how different these perceptions are. We have worked with county party organizations — some in so-called bright red areas — to bring true constituent/party service to those voters who have not been voting. This has encouraged turnout and overwhelming support for Democrats. In other cases, we have successfuly switched voters that have been voting Republican because of wedge issues. How? By getting personal and showing them that Democrats understand the problems in their lives and will work to solve them.
The result has been signficant turn arounds in these areas and the turn arounds have included getting the votes of white, southern male (often rural) Democrats — and doing it without sacrificing the votes of other groups. This has helped the Democratic party take over county commissions, city council, mayor’s offices and legislatures.
These are the numbers that we find interesting. And we think that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would agree with us. There are 29 southern white male members of the House of Representatives and three southern white male members of the Senate. Pelosi wouldn’t have been elected nor Reid Majority Leader without these men.
A lesson for those interested in a “Democratic Strategy” can be found in the 2006 election of one of those House members. Heath Shuler won not through support of conservatives or liberals, men or women, Caucasians or African-Americans. Heath Shuler won because Democrats in the North Carolina 11th District finally had enough of Charles Taylor and worked together — papering over significant disagreements on policy issues — to get out the vote for Shuer and maintain discipline to win.
We would think that consideration of a successful Democratic strategy might start there than with the provocation of “So Long, White Boy.”
Carl D. Clark
Jennifer Gullette
Southern Political Information Network
http://www.southernpolitics.net
Is it really necessary to note that the day after a presidential election the winner must spend the next four years actually attempting to run the country and that, for that task, winning a narrow victory on a sociologically polarized basis (the educated, minorities, single women etc. on the one hand, and a white-based “heartland” coalition on the other) is a recipe for political polarization and cultural conflict of Clinton impeachment-era dimentions (anyone remember the Militia movement of the 1990’s?).
It’s one thing to get stuck in a situation like that against one’s will, and quite another to positively seek and invite it. Mercenary “gun for hire” political consultants may not give a crap what happens the day after an election – to them, winning is indeed everything. But for anyone who visualizes their goal as achieving an enduring and stable democratic majority, throwing all the joe six-pack’s and their wives off the boat is downright nuts. Even if we didn’t need a decent chunk of their votes to win the election, which is highly dubious, we need a substantial number of them on our side to effectively govern.
Michael Moore made the same observation 10 years ago and it’s just as silly now as it was then.
The only reason to write off the white men who do vote Democrat is if you can gain more votes someplace else by doing so. As the article pointed out, 90+% African Americans already vote Democrat so we’re not likely to gain ground there. When it comes to other demographics, I’d be interested in hearing what issue (besided illegal immigration) people feel there is a real trade off and real ground to be gained by sacrificing the votes of white men and the votes of other groups.
More importantly, as 2000 taught us, the Presidential election is about the Electoral College and most of the non-white electorate lives in the proverbial “blue states” while the “red” and “purple” states are more heavilly white. Granted, population trends tell us that the Latino/Latina vote is growing quickly in the Southwest, but is gaining a better chance at winning Arizona and New Mexico really worth guaranteeing yourself loses in so much of the rest of the country?
I’m not arguing that Democrats should focus all their attention on the white male vote, I just think we should cautious around talk of ignoring any constituency.