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 agree. I think it’s kind of pathetic how the Bush Administration and their apologists in Washington D.C. (i’m talking about their cable news supporters too) thought that what happened to Berg would suddenly transform their situation. I see the opposite happening. People are making the connection with Abu Ghiraib. It’s sad really. I also think the Berg beheading had less effect because his father openly blames the Bush Administration for the death of his son.
Personally, more and more, I keep hearing people getting sicker and sicker of Bush. Their apologists are getting more defensive, etc.
For the first time since his (s)election, I sense he is toast. No more feelings that “he can” lose, or that “he might” lose. Now i’m definitely in the “he will” lose camp.
The Berg killing doesn’t necessarily distract from Abu Ghiraib. Most people don’t pay attention to the details, and they heard about the prison abuses in a cumulative way – drip, drip, drip. Then the Berg killing happens, and most people think “jeesus, it’s retribution for the prison stuff”, and then they might reflect that invading Iraq has just “opened the gates of Hell”. It’s all bad for Bush.
To me one interesting question about the latest, quite dramatic drop in Bush’s overall poll numbers is why they dropped just when they did.
I’d estimate the average poll number dropped from about 49% to about 44% — roughly 5% of the hardest percentage points we’ve yet encountered. Yet it did so over an event, the release of photos of prisoner abuse that would not, at first blush, seem to be the worst thing going on from a political point of view.
There are several possibilities here.
One is that it was simply the final straw, and that other things could as well have been that straw.
Another is along the lines I had suggested in some previous posts: that Bush’s overall approval numbers would not go down even on bad news from Iraq, so long as his approval numbers on handling Iraq were not distinctly more negative than his approval numbers. The underlying idea here is that shifting the focus to national security issues, as opposed to the economy, actually helps Bush, so long as his numbers on national security are relatively good. But once they go below water level, and particularly once they go below his numbers on overall approval, then those overall approval numbers will go down with them.
A still further explanation is that the prisoner abuse hurts Bush so much because they get at the only remaining defense he has had of the Iraq adventure: that we are the good guys bringing civilization and democratic ways to benighted Iraq. Most Americans respond positively to this view; it flatters us as a country and a people. The problem with the prisoner abuse is that it tears to shreds that image. No one can look at these pictures and feel that these soldiers are involved in something noble and uplifting. This fact has doubtless inspired many Americans to turn away with real revulsion from the Iraq war and its supporters.
I guess my own view about the true explanation is that it likely involves all three of the potential components I have mentioned above.
New Zogby Poll: Kerry 47 Bush 42. Bush approval down to 42%. Bring it on!
I’m a little skeptical about the HB&Staff ACT polls. Notice in the text that they don’t identify who they are polling (RV, LV, Adults, Democrats, etc). ACT and HB&Staff are certainly interested parties in this election as well. That they don’t reveal their poll questions also has me skeptical.
“Given George Bush’s lies about Iraq, healthcare, the deficit, etc. Whom would you vote for if the election were held today?” I’m guessing HB&Staff are not that crass in their polling techniques but it sure makes me question the results when they don’t provide the survey details.
There is a conflicting Oregon poll, by someone named Riley (is this a known pollster?), also through May 10, which has Bush at 44, Kerry at 39. Don’t know who is right.
Eldon, that poll was considered an outlier by many because they had the same size sample of Republican and Democratic voters, even though Democrats outnumber Democrats in CA.
This is all good news but the media and Bush won’t give up without a fight. November is an eternity from now and the Thug hate machine has just begun to fight. They will do *anything* to keep their power. It is going to get ugly.
How valid is the SurveyUSA poll in California, showing Kerry by only 1%? Seems hard to believe.
Now that’s a line I hadn’t heard before. The CIA did it to get REVENGE on Bush. George Tenet striking back just before he leaves town. He fell on his sword for Bush but nothing came of it.
I just hope Kerry doesn’t peak to early, got to have a simmer till the convention and then go strong to weather any hit from the NYC convention.
The Berg video has two main effects, one hurts Bush, the other helps:
1. It takes attention away from Abu Ghraib, and reminds us how bad the other guys are. This helps Bush.
2. It shows that al Qaida is still out there, and still killing Americans. The Iraq War was supposed to stop this sort of stuff. This hurts Bush.
The June 2004 Atlantic has a riveting graphic (pgs 54/55, paid online subscription only, unfortunately) which shows al Qaida is resurgent after 9/11. Kerry has an opportunity to publicize the ineffectiveness of the Bush response to al Qaida. This can turn the Berg incident in the long-term decisively against Bush.
One of Bush’s few remaining areas of strength in the polls is the War on Terrorism (hate that phrase, just like War on Drugs). How better to measure his effectivenes than the post 9/11 al Qaida terrorism upsurge.
Results. Results. Results. Swing voters tend to be results oriented. That’s why they are swing voters! They don’t have a strong ideological lens. They go with what works.
–tin-foil-hat: on–
I think the CIA manufactured the Berg video, not at the behest of the Bush campaign, but to attack it. They really, really don’t like this Administration. And, unlike us, they really do have data to back their feelings up. They just can’t show it to us.
–tin-foil-hat:off–
Good concise write-up of the aforementioned new CNN/Time poll from Ryan Lizza:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=1661
Let’s be vigilant. This is when Rove and crowd bring out the most brutal attacks. Remember what they did to McCain in S. Carolina. What horrible rumors will they start about Mr. Kerry?
I don’t see why anyone would expect the Berg video to help Bush. I suppose they imagine that this just proves “how barbaric the towel-heads are” so of course everyone will vote for Bush out of fear.
I haven’t seen the video. But if you see the video, does it make you feel safer? Does it make you feel like we are getting a handle on the terrorism problem? If not, the incumbent isn’t going to benefit.
The line from get-your-war-on about the War on Terror really rings true: “Remember when we had a problem with drugs so we declared a War on Drugs and now you can’t buy drugs anymore? It will be just like that!”
Kerry in a landslide.
I saw a couple of posts on the warblogs about the Berg video being a major public breakthrough. Lots of quotes from TV types and editors about viewer/reader feedback, and all of it was “more Berg, less Abu Ghraib.” Also, lots of high search traffic numbers for the Berg video, although, given how hard it is to find an unedited version on a mainstream news site, search engines are the only way for the morbidly curious to see it.
But, if the upsurge in public interest in Iraq and the War on Terror is real, I’m not so sure the conservatives are right that the Berg killing will galvanize the public and make them forgive the Abu Ghraib abuses (and the screw ups in Iraq too). Rather, I’d expect a lot of people who’ve only been half paying attention (if at all), and who may have given the administration the benefit of the doubt on terror or simply not considered it much, are going to think, “after everything in Iraq, all the dead soldiers and civilians, all the money, all the mixed up reasons and leaks and coverups and who said what to whom, all the gunmen and bombings and mutilated Americans … after all that, weren’t we supposed to get these f***ers?” If the Berg killing does anything other than simply reinforce the existing polarization, it’s gonna cause a LOT more re-evaluation by those folks – and they’re not gonna decide they want another four years of this.
After all, when you poll 1000 people nationwide, only a couple dozen actively read blogs or internet news or political commentary or watch Fox or CNN more than a few minutes a week. Most Americans still get their news from local tv, the network nightlies, the front page of a newspaper, late-night talk or the water-cooler. Even on-line, its mostly MSN or Yahoo frontpages, larded with wire stories where they only read the headlines.
The thing about the Berg video is that it is coming at the worst time for Bush: it upsets the inattentives and makes them want to support their government’s efforts to retalitate and get justice, so they decide they want to do something about it. But when they try to learn more, all they will hear now is Abu Ghraib, insurgencies, State-DoD infighting, and declarations of failure by military leaders and defecting neo-cons. And that will be very bad news for the Bushies indeed.
I wonder what they’re saying at a Republican version of this site. Bush took Kerry’s lead by doing a press conference, and he lost it without any significant moves by either Bush or Kerry.
I mean, really.
I was pessimistic about the polls a couple of weeks ago and Ruy told us to stay cool that Bush’s low approval numbers would eventually show up in the head to head matchups with Kerry. I think Ruy is being proven right and that we finally have the Bastard where we want him. I hope I’m not crowing too soon but I think this is the beginning of the end for Bush. I certainly hope so.
You said it SqueayRat! Amen.
I’m so tired of the idea of a War on Terrorism. It’s as if WWII was the war on blitzkrieg, or a War on Drugs. Just venting.
As Kos pointed out the other day, the reason Bush’s numbers on the War on Terrorism are sliding so fast is that he and everyone else in Administration have insisted that Iraq is the new front in the WOT. So when his Iraq approval tanks, so does his WOT approval. Serves him right for being a liar.
Most shocking thing about the new CNN/Time poll if I’m reading the story correctly is the public’s view of Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism:
“But even in the fight against terrorism — one of Bush’s strengths in many polls — this poll showed a split over whether Bush is doing a good job. Forty-six of those polled said he was, but 47 percent said he was doing a poor job.”
I’m sure Ruy will have the answer momentarily, but that has to be the first time there’s been a net negative on Bush’s handling of the terrorism threat. It might even be the first time his approval on that issue has dipped below 50%.
Still, the public prefers Bush to Kerry on the issue by 49 to 42, and despite dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, prefers Bush to Kerry by 46 to 43. Not to state the obvious, but Kerry’s big task, IMO, is to present himself as a viable wartime President and defender of national security. Makes me think more and more that he should pick Clark as his VP.
New CNN/Time poll out today has Kerry leading Bush 49-44, and with 6% for Nader:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/14/bush.kerry/index.html
It would be interesting to track these approval polls on the same graph as the poll where people believe that Saddam had nukes or had something to do with 9/11.
The media is not covering for Bush anymore, and this is the result.