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.
Does anyone have information on the demographic makeup of those who participate in the Iowa Electronic Markets?
If participants in the IEM are disproportionately upscale, and if you believe, as I do, that the wealthiest people in this country are both increasingly out of touch with how those with ordinary means live, and less bound to the well being of citizens of ordinary means, that would be a reason not to give decisive weight to what the IEM says.
Ruy’s posts on the real health of the economy vs. how the WashPost sees it are a good example of how conservative business and economics coverage has become over the past two or three decades. It is overly focused on the stock market as an indicator of the health of the economy and it does not look beneath the surface when looking at issues such as the employment picture. This correlates with huge increases in pay and status for reporters for the elite print and television outlets which other media outlets feed off of. The folks doing the reporting are not middle class themselves. They are upper middle class and up, with incomes far higher than the median for the country as a whole. And their reporting reflects a mindset that is out of touch with how ordinary folks live in this country.
An acquaintance of mine is an investment advisor for a big firm. He’s a very nice guy, mild mannered, thoughtful, who has no use for the fundamentalists or foreign policy adventurism. He’s a blue-blooded Repub who voted for Bush and now knows W is incompetent. He also tells me a guy in the business he knows who has never voted Dem–and didn’t think it was possible he ever would–told him with great anguish that he’s voting for Kerry this time.
Anyway, I ask my acquaintance six weeks ago if the stock market analysts in his shop are weighing in yet on who they think will win the election. He says to me, very matter of factly, “Oh, yeah, yeah. Bush.”
I say “Oh?” He says “Oh, yeah. Easily.” I raise my eyebrows again.
No data offered, nothing. (I suspect he and his firm’s analysts were relying on the IEM data.)
He even tells me that historically the stock markets tail off in the first year of a presidency–unless it’s a Democrat who wins, in which case the markets go up. (! I think there was a big study by MetLife or some other insurance company on that.) Kerry, of course, would “tax the hell out of people.” (meaning wealthy people, of course–I rather doubt he knows the top marginal federal income tax rate under Eisenhower was 90%)
Go figure. But that’s his world–the markets start to turn up, the profit picture starts to look up…things are looking up from where he sits.
I just think he–and a whole lot of other folks up there in the economic stratosphere–are out of touch.
http://128.255.244.60/graphs/graph_Pres04_WTA.cfm
> Iowa Electronic Markets winner take all
> presidential future
> Shows Bush has regained his lead.
> IEM has one of the best records of predicting
> elections outcomes, I believe, better than opinion
> polls.
If I am not mistaken, it predicted Gore would win the 2000 elections though.
MARCU$
Tch, that one vote will be MINE. I call Japanese ambassador… even with Krazy Kim across the pond.
I do see your point, Mimiru. I predicted the rise in gas prices before the 2000 election. I told my friends, and especially the Bush supporters, that if Bush got in, watch the price of gas jump up like crazy. At the time we were paying $1.139 per gallon around here, and had been for several years. Sure enough, within six months, the price was close to $1.70. So I mentioned it to one of my friends and he said “At least Bush isn’t cheating on his wife.”
Some people you can’t pursuade, but for the rest, you do what you can, you use what you can. If it does turn out to be a close election, I won’t have to think that I didn’t do everything I could to pursuade the people I know to vote for Kerry. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t talk up a Kerry proposal or point out a Bush failure to someone.
If we win by one vote, I want to be ambassador to Ireland. I really liked Ireland when I was there on vacation.
Those damn Iowans, first they rob me of my Dean (whose children I would have gladly borne) and now this.
Seriously though, just means we all have to work harder and that Kerry needs to start closing (which apparently he’s good at) as soon as the convention ends and keep right on closing until November.
http://128.255.244.60/graphs/graph_Pres04_WTA.cfm
Iowa Electronic Markets winner take all presidential future
Shows Bush has regained his lead. The Kerry campaign does not appear to be able to catch up and hold the ground (I suspect the difference is the Nader vote).
IEM has one of the best records of predicting elections outcomes, I believe, better than opinion polls.
My gut reaction is this election is still Bush by a squeaker. Most voters have already made up their minds, those who have not see Bush as a stronger leader than Kerry, in a time when ‘strength’ is the buzzword of the day.
The War on Terror and the Situation in Iraq favour a president: you don’t change horses in midstream.
Maybe not what people want to hear, but my bet is when that curtain closes, a lot of the doubters will opt for the guy they think is more forthright, more determined, more focused aka GW Bush.
> what it means, and what I certainly will
> say, is that bin Laden could have been captured
> two years ago if they had cared to find him, but
> they let him go and ignored him until it was
> useful to them.
Also, there are the reports that an Al Qaeda camp was operational in northern Iraq (Kurdistan) in late 2002. Saddam had no control over this area, so it wasn’t his fault. But some reports claim Al Zarqawi and possibly other AQ bigwigs were there. You’d think the Bushies would have jumped at the opportunity to bomb the “evil guys”, right? Wrongggg… They dithered and dallied, ostensibly because they were “not sure” about the validity. But some government officials reportedly suspected that the hesitance was due to fears that it might complicate the ongoing effort to attack Saddam.
—
Iran could be another possible attack opportunity for Kerry in the “War on Terror” debates. Here is a nation that, unlike Iraq, has a real and undisputed track record in the business of supporting Islamic fanatics across the globe. They seem to have a more advanced nuclear program too, and the IAEA is worried about it. The latest news is Iran may have sheltered some Al Qaeda operatives — including ten of the 9/11 terrorists had crossed Iran from Saudi Arabia the year before the WTC attacks. “War on Terror” hawks such as Michael Ledeen (who, to be sure, is a fairly obnoxious guy) are furious about the Bush Administration’s incoherent response to all of this during the past three years.
—
Kerry could boost his hawkish credentials by promising to divert more attention to Iran, while at the same time reiterating his criticism that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.
MARCU$
Because the constant redistricting battles I’ve read that it won’t translate into more than perhaps 5 seats changing either way.
Any historical perspective on the generic congressional choice advantage for D’s this year that Rasmussen seems to be measuring consistantly at 5-8 points? Is is more or less than previous years? How many seats gain might it be likely to translate to?
I can’t really think of any other administration that would pull this kind of shit and do it so badly, and for those not up on the pervasive incompetence and process of the administation, this claim is so substantively crazy that for the average person the claim will be too outrageous to be believed.
I’d also like to see Ruy’s comment on the Rasmussen poll’s shrinking Dem advantange when it comes to congress.
Mimiru, what it means, and what I certainly will say, is that bin Laden could have been captured two years ago if they had cared to find him, but they let him go and ignored him until it was useful to them. Otherwise he would have wandered around free forever. And that is the point of what I was saying. These “good things” meant nothing to them until it became campaign fodder, and then it was very important indeed. Predicting it enforces the notion that it was political and lends credibility to those who claim the “surprise” was entirely political.
What do you think explains the trend in the Rasmussen tracking poll? http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm I’m not so much interested in today’s point-estimate (Bush 47; Kerry 45) as in the trend–Kerrey got about a 3-point bounce from Edwards’ selection, but then Bush gradually but inexorably took the lead back. This is the only daily tracking poll that’s publicly available, to my knowledge.
Who cares if it was predicted? What kind of rebuttal is that? I can tell you what the response of the average person would be to THAT claim:
“They’ll do anything they can to win won’t they? Why aren’t you celebrating his capture?”
Inre: October Surprise. Already pre-empted, it is easily countered by pointing out that it was predicted and that the Bushies only did it to win the election, not because of a commitment to justice.
Inre: Oil price crash. Same as above. Clearly a cynical move to win the election. Point out that prices will go higher than they were before once he wins.
On the rest of Allen’s points, the answer is yes. However, making a lot of noise about how the deficit is financed by Central Bank of China and therefore puts us at the mercy of the Chinese can help.
Ohio governor rejects Diebold electronic voting machines because of security risks. I believe that cheating at the polls will lose Florida for us in November. However, Ohio comes back into play because the cheating machines are no longer on the table. Look for more about this in the weeks and months to come as the Republicans won’t let this go away. They will fight to the death for those machines. The machines make winning easy for the Republicans.
10. The highest number ever (60 percent) think the US should not attack another country unless the US is attacked first.
— I wonder if John Kerry is reading this…..
Colin
Sherman in Atlanta was a neccessary thing though.
What can the Democrats do about an October Surprise????? What should the Democrats do about an October Surprise????
Reliable reports say that the Pakistanis have been told to produce a major Al Qaeda event — a supposedly successful, large-scale attack or, better, a major capture — during the Democratic National Convention. How should Democrats respond?
How should Democrats respond to a Bush “achievement” prior to the September convention?
How should Democrats respond to a terrorist event in October?
[Not since the 1864 Democratic Convention have the Republicans needed “Sherman in Atlanta” more. And, these bastards are ruthless enough to stage it, for dramtic effect.]
What will Bush/Rove/Cheney do to win? This includes their “supporters” like Jeb and Grover.
Will they let a terrorist attack happen somewhere that is on a big enough scale to frighten people enough to flock to the incumbent?
Will they pull in markers from the oil industry to crash gas prices down to $1.20/gallon for the month before the election?
Will they work to disenfranchise voters for Kerry in key states and counties?
Will they flood the media with ads equating Kerryand Edwards with everything from homo sex fiends to the Blob? (from the 1950s movie).
Will they spend deficit financed pork-barrel money like there is no tomorrow but mostly in Republican districts to energize the base all the while preaching about “smaller government” and “this is the people’s money not the government’s money?” (huh?)
POP QUIZ: How many of these things have the actually done already? Add your own. It’s fun!
Next week’s Dem party convention in Boston will be crucial. A lot of voters disgruntled with “Shrub” will be paying close attention to Kerry / Edwards for the first time. *If* these voters like what they see and hear (=credible, alternative policies for 2005-08 presented by a credible presidential candidate), it ought to translate into a healthy “bounce” in the polls for John/John.
Unfortunately, the stakes are quite high. If Kerry is perceived to be a weak candidate, he won’t get another shot before the TV debates in September. And if that happens, I worry that Kerry will rapidly lose support much as Dukakis did in 1988. “Shrub” is also expected to unveil his plans for a second term around the time of the GOP convention in New York.
This could go either way, and nobody knows what the news from Iraq/Pakistan/Afghanistan will be. More Abu Ghraib-type blunders certainly will further erode the President’s ratings, but good news (capture Bin Laden and/or Zarqawi, for example) might yet restore some confidence in his “War on Terror”.
MARCU$
Bad news for BUSH that is!
Here’s some more bad news. A number of hunters in Florida–a traditionally Republican group–are disgusted with Bush’s envrionmental record and plan to vote against him And we all know how importaNT FLORIDA is! See this article on the issue in today’s Gainesville Sun: http://www.gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040718/LOCAL/207180317
Desperate people do desperate things. Millions of us are concerned that the voting process will be corrupted by the republicans to their advantage especially with the electronic voting machines and the optical scanning machines. It has happened in the past and the 2000 election shows that they will do anything to win. I’m so disappointed that the DNC isn’t taking a a more vocal stand because no matter what the polls say what are you going to do the day after the election when the Republicans still control the White Hous, the House and the Senate? I am beginning to wonder if there are Republican moles in the DLC controlling the Democratic party?
We cannot stop working no matter what the polls say. This is a refforandum on the most far right president in our history.