This article , “California’s Gavin Newsom opposes trans athletes in women’s sports, splitting with progressives” by Bill Barrow, is cross-posted below from apnews.com. For Gov. Newsom, a former Mayor of San Francisco, who is frequently short-listed as a potential presidential candidate, this policy position represents a significant departure from public expectations and may herald a trend among Democratic politicians. The article:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, used the inaugural episode of his new podcast to break from progressives by speaking out against allowing transgender women and girls to compete in female sports.

Newsom made his declaration in an extended conversation with conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old who built the influential Turning Point USA organization that helped President Donald Trump increase his support last fall among the youngest generation of voters. Kirk, like Trump, has been a vocal opponent of allowing transgender women and girls to participate.

“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom told Kirk on “This is Gavin Newsom.”

“I am not wrestling with the fairness issue,” continued Newsom, who played varsity baseball as a college student. “I totally agree with you. … I revere sports. So, the issue of fairness is completely legit.”

The governor’s comments are the latest in Democrats’ efforts to reconcile a 2024 election that returned Trump to the White House and gave Republicans control of both chambers of Congress. Among the disagreements since November is how much cultural issues – as opposed to economic policy and other matters – explain the party’s losses.

Overall, polling suggests that allowing transgender female athletes to play on women’s teams isn’t broadly popular. Even most Democrats — around 7 in 10 — oppose allowing transgender female athletes to participate in women’s sports, according to a January New York Times/Ipsos poll. A 2023 Gallup poll also found that Democrats were divided on whether transgender people should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity.Newsom, who has long positioned himself as a social progressive, drew sharp rebukes from LGBTQ+ advocates.

“Sometimes Gavin Newsom goes for the Profile in Courage, sometimes not,” said California Assemblyman Chris Ward and state Sen. Carolina Menjivar, who lead the state’s LGBTQ+ legislative caucus. “We woke up profoundly sickened and frustrated by these remarks.”

Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, said he was “disappointed and angered” by Newsom’s statements and that they “added to the heartbreak and fear” the transgender community feels under the Trump administration.

“Right now, transgender youth, their families, their doctors, and their teachers are facing unprecedented attacks from extremist politicians who want to eviscerate their civil rights and erase them from public life,” Hoang said. “They need leaders who will unequivocally fight for them.”

California law, enacted before Newsom became governor, requires schools in the state to allow transgender athletes to play on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Republican state lawmakers introduced bills in the Legislature this year to ban that practice, but they would be difficult to pass in the Democrat-dominated statehouse. The governor’s office declined to comment on the proposals, saying Newsom doesn’t typically weigh in on pending legislation.

Beyond questions about athletics, there is less public support for broader restrictions on transgender rights and issues like medical care for transgender people, particularly among Democrats.

According to AP VoteCast, 55% of voters in the 2024 election said support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, while about 2 in 10 said it’s been about right and a similar share said it hasn’t gone far enough. Voters were also slightly more likely to oppose than favor laws that ban gender-affirming medical treatment, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors who identify as transgender.

But Republicans have nonetheless sought to capitalize on the cultural touchstone that sports represent in America.

Trump regularly hammered Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Newsom’s fellow Californian, for supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Trump promised at his rallies to get “transgender insanity the hell out of our schools” and “keep men out of women’s sports.” His campaign also spent tens of millions of dollars on television and digital ads with the searing summation: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

“Boy, did I see how you guys were able to weaponize it,” Newsom told Kirk, before yielding to Kirk’s protest and saying instead that the ads were an effective “highlight” during the campaign.

Since taking office, T rump has threatened to withhold federal money from schools that allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s’ or girls’ events. He declared victory on the issue recently when the NCAA, which governs collegiate athletics in the U.S., changed its policy to restrict women’s sporting events to those athletes who were assigned the female gender at birth. Previously, the NCAA had a sport-by-sport policy determined by the respective sports’ national or international governing bodies.

Ward and Menjivar, the California lawmakers, said playing on a team consistent with one’s gender hasn’t been a problem “until Donald Trump began obsessing about it.”

Kirk, not Newsom, brought up the overall issue during their hour-plus conversation, which focused in part on how Democrats can rebuild a broader coalition of voters. Kirk pressed Newsom on whether he would speak out in opposition to transgender women athletes in competition.

The governor attempted to mitigate his comments, saying the discussion is about more than competitive advantage.

“There’s also a humility and a grace that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression, and the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with, as well,” Newsom said. “So, both things I can hold in my hand. How can we address this issue with the kind of decency that I think is inherent in you but not always expressed on the issue and at the same time deal with the unfairness.”

Still, Newsom’s approach marks a different political tack than he took on same-sex marriage more than two decades ago. As San Francisco mayor in 2004, Newsom drew national attention for the first time by directing the city clerk to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

The move prompted legal action that led to a 2008 ruling from the California Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage in the nation’s largest state. That decision came seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court established same-sex marriage as a national right.

This coalition of rural, progressive and Democratic organizations from across the United States is urging Ken Martin, the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, to substantially shift more of the Party’s time, attention and funding into rural and working-class communities. Regretfully, our earlier post of this petition campaign omitted the link for those who want to sign it. They should click here. Also, here is the link for making contributions and signing up for the coalition mailing list. 

To: Ken Martin, Chair, Democratic National Committee, and fellow DNC officers

As you know, Democrats spent over $4 billion on advertisements in the 2024 campaign cycle, outspending Republicans on the presidential race as well as both Senate and House races. Meanwhile, rural and factory town Democratic committees and candidates were starved for funds, as they have been for many years. Allocating a small percentage of those funds annually to long-term organizing and outreach in these communities would, we are confident, do far more
to broaden our base of voters and win elections.

The signatories to this letter fight for rural and working-class people. Most of us hail from or reside in small towns and rural communities. Whether through local organizing and party building, developing concrete tools for policy and communications, or careful analysis of what
works and what does not, our collective experience can help Democrats change course and
rebuild our base.

We extend this invitation to you to work together in prioritizing and fixing the Democratic Party’s profound deficits with rural and working-class voters. We have an opportunity, right now, to change course and begin to win back millions of people now alienated from our party, including demoralized rank-and-file voters, donors and activists. Anything less than a major course correction will, we fear, lead to the loss of even more voters, including the women,
minorities, youth, and working-class men who once comprised the party’s base.

In the attached addendum to this letter, we highlight what we believe to be the most important causes of our losing trend and propose seven promising steps most likely to reverse our decline in rural America. The DNC has profound influence and moral authority within the Democratic coalition. If the leadership of the DNC would passionately and forcefully call upon the complex network of large and small contributors and Democratic fundraising organizations to explicitly direct just 10% of their resources to rural and working-class districts and candidates, it could produce deeply significant and enduring long-term gains for the Democratic Party as a whole. If Democrats had done this in 2024, we’d now have $400 million in organizing infrastructure to help mobilize and rebuild our base before the midterms.

We offer our partnership to you, committing our experience, tools and resources and on-the-ground networks to this essential mission and work. Thank you.

Signatories below:

Elected Officials and Candidates

Rep. Ro Khanna – Congressman, California’s 17th District

Sam Rasoul – Delegate, Virginia House

Ken Tole – Former State Senator in Montana

Antoinette Sedillo Lopez – New Mexico State Senator, District 16

Javier Martinez – Speaker of the NM House of Representatives

Andrea Romero – NM House of Representatives

Patricia Roybal Caballero- New Mexico House of Representatives

Dayan Hochman-Vigil- New Mexico House of Representatives

Charles Maughan – Mayor, City of Corvallis, OR

Mauree Curry – Councilwoman in Easton, MD

Christopher Wier – OK HD 4 Candidate, 2024

Tegan Malone – OK HD 95 Candidate, 2024

Ellen T Wright- Candidate for GA state senate SD29

State Parties, State and Congressional District Caucuses

Indiana Democratic Party – Mike Schmuhl Chair

Washington State Democratic Party – Shasti Conrad, Chair

Maine Democratic Party – Imke Schessler-Jandreau, Vice Chair, BJ McCollister

Tennessee Democratic Party – Carol V. Abney, Treasurer and Executive Committeewoman

Virginia Democratic Party 9th Congressional District – Rebecca Daly, Chair

Minnesota Democratic Party 7th Congressional District- Jennifer Cronin, Chair

Iowa 4th Congressional District- C.J. Petersen, Chair

Missouri Democratic Party Rural Caucus – Jacqueline Farr

Maryland Democratic Party Rural Caucus – Judy Wixted

Georgia Democratic Party Rural Council – Leonard Fatica

California Democratic Party Rural Caucus – Katie Jaycox

Virginia Democratic Party Central Committee – Joan Kark

Oregon Democratic Party Education Caucus- Liz Marlia-Stein, Communication Secretary

New Mexico Democratic Party Labor Caucus – Sara Attleson, Chair

Arizona Democratic Party State committee – Aaron J Essif

Washington State Progressive Caucus – Sharon Abreu

California Democratic Party – Rocky Fernandez, Regional Director

New Mexico Democratic Party Veterans and Military Families Caucus – Claudia Risner, Chair

Minnesota Democratic Party 9th Senate District – Jane Stock, ChairTulsa Young Democrats – David Wilson, Chair

Maine DNC Committeeperson – BJ McCollister

Democrats Abroad – Sue Alksnis

Eastern Shore, Maryland Democrats- Judy Wixted, Chair

Democratic County Committees

Cecil County, MD, John Dixon

Allegany County, MD, Cresta Kowalski

Druid Hills Community, DeKalb County, GA, Michael St. Louis

Marshall/Wicomico County, MD, Demetria Marshall-Leonard

Garrett County, MD, Judy A. Carbone

Port Townsend Precinct, Jefferson County, WA, John Collins

Tuolumne County, CA, Elaine Hagen

Washington County, NY, Jay V. Bellanca

Eau Claire County, WI, Gloria Hochstein

Cherokee County, NC, Diane Snyder

Coos County, OR, Garrett Kin

Conesus Town, Livingston County, NY, Maureen McCarron

Russell County Democratic Committee, VA – Dustin Keith

Scott County, VA, Patricia Kilgore, Chair

Pottawatomie County, OK – Kerri Keck, Ben Parker, and Sandy Ingram

Montgomery County, VA, Gretchen Distler and Deborah Olsen

Hart County, GA, Margaret O’Neal

White County, GA, Leigh Stephens

Oglethorpe County, GA, Jane Kidd

Lac qui Parle County, MN

City of Radford, VA, Vicki Tolbert

Columbia County, GA, Ron Battista

Benton County, MO, Jacqueline Farr

Talbot County, MD, Naomi Hyman, Rudy Reyes and Kaye Dutrow

Caroline County, MD, Jessica Taylor

Dorchester County, MD, Sydney Bradner-Jacobs

Kent County, MD, Muriel Cole

Morgan County, TN, Joel Derek Hawn

Bernalillo County, NM, Marisol Enriquez

Yamhill County, OR, Bill Bordeaux

Cambria County, PA, John Soyka

Denton County, TX, Anjana ParasharCumberland County, ME, Heidi J Vierthaler

Benton County, OR, Holly Shutta

Staten Island, NY, Elaine A. Friedland

Santa Clara, CA, Margaret Okuzumi

Linn County, OR, Susan Heath

Boone County, IA

Union County, OR, Randy L Knop

Riverside County, CA, Judy Rice

Mansfield Town, Bristol County, MA, Tyler Putnam

Palm Beach County, FL, Jill Sheridan

Trinity, Pasco County, FL, Ronald E Simpson

Wine Country Young Democrats (Sonoma County), CA

Adelante Progressive Caucus, NM, Colton Dean

Tioga County, PA

Grayson County, VA, Terry Dunlevy

Kent County, MD, Paula Reeder

Democratic Women’s Club of Greenbrier, WV, Carol F Evans

Phelps County, MO, Robert Cesario

Tuscarawas County, OH, Mike DiDonato

National Organizations

Progressive Democrats of America- Alan Minsky (Executive Director), Donna Smith (Chair of

National Advisory Board), Mike Fox (Deputy Executive Director)

American Family Voices- Mike Lux, Founder, Director

Rural Urban Bridge Initiative- Anthony Flaccavento, Executive Director

Community Works- Meredith Dean, Director

No Dem Left Behind- Hassan Martini, Executive Director and James Bartosh, Digital Director

Movement Labs/Contest Every Race- Yoni Landau, CEO

State Democratic Party Progressive Network- Sandra J. Klassen, Steering Committee

Dirt Road Democrats

RootsAction- Sam Rosenthal, Political director

Young Men Research Project and Democratic Messaging Project (DMP)- Lisa Liddle

State and Local Organizations

State and regional chapters of Progressive Democrats of America in

● Arizona

● Maryland

● Iowa

● Oregon● Nebraska

● New Mexico

● Florida

Blue Missouri

Rise Up WV

Network NOVA

Giles Political Action

Our Revolution Northern Virginia

New Rural Virginia

Tuolumne County Indivisible

Blue Horizon Texas

Center for Common Ground

Ohio Poor People’s Campaign

NJ Universal Healthcare Coalition

Indivisible VT

Open Democracy NH

California Nurses Association

Healthy Aging Coalition

Indivisible Northwest Indiana

El Dorado Progressives

Fighting 50 PAC

Speak Out Against Hate

Major Democratic Donors

Roger Milliken

Bernard Cossell

Donna Sylvester

Margaret Gupta

Edward Rice

Sally Ketcham

Shashi Gupta

Rural/Working Class Organizers, Advocates, and Analysts

Jim Hightower- Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner and lifelong activist

Andrew Levison- Editor, the Democratic Strategist

Arlie Hochschild- Writer, author of Stolen Pride

Beth Ruck- New York state rural and urban advocateJustin H. Vassallo- Writer/researcher, political economy and American political development

Jared Abbott- Director, Center for Working Class Politics

Bill Hogseth- Rural organizer, Wisconsin

Sage Lawrence- Rural organizer and former Campaign Manager for US Rep. Val Hoyle

Jared Jodts- Former Organizing Director, Wisco Project

John Russell- Founder, editor at The Holler

Georgia de la Garza- Illinois/Jackson-Union Editorial board of People’s Tribune/

Beth Macy – Writer and author of Factory Man

Local Democratic/Progressive Activists
As of this date, over additional 500 people from all walks of life have signed this letter or a petition with the same essential requests.

At The Nation, read “Resistance Is Not Enough. The Left Must Address the Grievances of the Working Class” by Anthony Flaccavento, author of Building a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up: Harnessing Real-World Experience for Transformative Change and cofounder of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative.: “The deluge of antidemocratic, generally inhumane actions taken by the Trump/Musk presidency are fulfilling our worst fears. So what should we do in response?…For most left-leaning activists, the answer is resistance. Resistance to Trump’s cabinet nominees; resistance to his mass deportations; resistance to Elon Musk’s ongoing evisceration of critical federal agencies. Team Trump’s destructive plans and actions cry out for resistance—in the streets, the courts, and anywhere else we might have impact. One example of the resistance platform is Indivisible’s “Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink.” The essence of their strategy is encapsulated in one short sentence: “For the next two years, ‘no’ is a complete sentence.” This is “a time for defense,” they advise, rather than “proposing our own policies.”…the left’s almost singular focus on defense—without offering an equally compelling vision that addresses the grievances of rural communities and working-class people—is a grave mistake. If we don’t make our commitment to an economy and politics that serves everyday people loud and clear, we will undermine efforts to fight Trump and further solidify the estrangement of the working class. Our outrage and resistance must encompass the ongoing betrayal of farmers, unions, and workers and US manufacturers and small businesses…As New York Times reporters summarized their conversations with Black and Latino voters who went for Trump in 2024, “Democrats’ dire warnings about threats to democracy felt far less compelling compared with the urgency of their own struggles to pay the rent.” Pushed by some of the most prominent consultants and pundits on the left, that was an unforced error that may have cost Kamala Harris the election. We cannot afford to make that mistake again…the Trump/Musk onslaught of anti-worker, anti-farmer, pro-corporate actions are an opportunity to offer a plan of our own to unrig the system most Americans hate…We can begin by lifting up some of the Democrats who won in Trump-leaning districts, emphasizing their pro-worker or pro-farmer positions and pledges to confront corporate power. From Chris Deluzio in western Pennsylvania to Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in rural Washington, to Pat Ryan in New York’s Hudson Valley, the Democratic tent includes people who know that fighting for the little guy against Wall Street’s housing grab or for farmers’ rights over John Deere’s profits is both the right policy and a winning politics…As Representative Khanna put it in a recent New York Times op-ed, “The alternative to Mr. Trump cannot be a defense of institutions as they are. We need to stand for national renewal driven not by nostalgia for some golden past or simplistic anti-system slogans, but by offering transformative solutions to deliver future prosperity for all Americans, rekindling our bonds as citizens and healing our divides in the process.”

Galen Druke of 538/ABC News conducted a discussion with Washington Post data scientist Lenny Bronner and New York Times polling editor Ruth Igielnik on the topic, “Democrats Aren’t Popular. What Should They Do about it?” It went like this:

Former Rep. Tim Ryan has an article worth reading at MSNBC.com, “The right way for Democrats to communicate about Trump,” subtitled “If Democrats want to reach working class voters, they must acknowledge, empathize and recapture the narrative from Donald Trump.” As Ryan observes, “When I reflect on November’s election, two glaring omissions are missing from the Democratic Party’s messaging: acknowledgment and empathy. The lesson Democrats should take away from Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump is the importance of meeting people where they are emotionally. If Democrats don’t do that, their message isn’t going to stick…Democrats should have acknowledged the tough spot a lot of Americans were in. They should have shown voters they’re empathetic. But we also can’t just look in the past and talk about what the Democratic Party should have done. Democrats in Congress have a real opportunity to right that ship and show voters what the party really stands for… There’s an analog element to this, members should be holding town hall meetings as often as they can. They need to get on the local news. It’s time to start building the case for the American people. But that doesn’t mean Democrats should run around with hair on fire over every issue…Don’t take the bait on everything coming out of this White House. Sometimes the smartest strategy is just to play possum. As Democratic strategist James Carville recently suggested in a guest essay for the New York Times, maybe the most daring political maneuver Democrats could implement right now is to “roll over and play dead.”

How would you rate Democrats response to Trump’s speech Tuesday night? It was a tough call, and they ended up playing it safe, maybe a bit too safe. Democratic Rep. Al Green (TX-9 ) was removed from the SOTU for standing up and protesting Medicaid cuts early on during Trump’s speech. There were a few other Democratic walk-outs, but most Democratic members just sat there and grumbled, sometimes loud enough to be heard. It was the “We must maintain decorum and civility” strategy, with some Democratic members waving little signs with protest messages that looked more like those personal fans people used to use when it got hot in D.C., back before air conditioning. That may have been the right strategy. People forget all about the last SOTU within a few days after it is delivered. Why risk anything, when no one cares that much, so shortly after the event? Then there is the strategic priciple, “When your adversary is making himself look bad, get out of the way.” When your political opponent is delivering a speech that history books will characterize as drenched with bile, pique and resentment, why turn a two-day story into a week of coverage that could backfire? But, what if all the Democrats walked out on cue, right after a personal insult directed their way?  We’ll never know if that would have been a better strategy. But it seems like a question worth considering before the next SOTU. There is something to be said for a dignified walk-out, when confronted with personal insults. Nothing wrong with modeling civility, while those across the aisle howl like demented cheerleaders, and their leader finishes his sour speech to a half-empty hall. That’s not such a bad look for Democrats either.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,  and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Take a look at this graphic from the recent New York Times/Ipsos poll. Quick quiz: what is the intersection of the two sets “most important issues for themselves personally” and “most important issues for the Democratic Party”?

That right: it’s health care! There’s no other overlap between the two sets. Health care is the #2 issue for the public and at least makes the leaderboard—at #5—on what respondents think is most important to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, on other hand, is viewed as sharing three of the public’s top five priorities—the economy, immigration, and taxes—but not health care.

You may see where I’m going with this. High salience issues on which Democrats have a clear advantage are thin on the ground these days—but health care definitely qualifies and has stood out as a robust Democratic advantage for quite some time. Consider these data.

Democrats are consistently the party voters trust more to handle health care. Typically their lead over the Republicans on the issue has been in the double digits.

That trust extends to various health care issues. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) polling in 2024 found that respondents trusted Biden over Trump by a 12-point margin on determining the ACA’s future, by a 12-point margin on protecting people with preexisting medical conditions, by an 11-point margin on ensuring access to affordable health insurance, and by an 8-point margin on determining Medicare’s future.

After a famously rocky and unpopular start, Obama’s ACA has steadily gained favor. The split of favorable versus unfavorable views on the Democratic-identified health care reform bill is 64 percent to 36 percent in 2025 KFF polling.

On the broad question of the government’s responsibilities for health care, sentiment has shifted back to a strongly pro-government position after dipping during Obama’s second term. According to Gallup, 62 percent of voters now say the government is responsible for ensuring all people have health care coverage, compared with 36 percent who disagree. This sentiment obviously favors the Democrats.

Health care is important to American voters. In a 2023 AEI/NORC survey, 88 percent of voters thought health care affordability is a very or moderately big problem in the country today. That represents the largest consensus on any issue tested in the survey, except inflation. And the sentiment was uniform across most demographics, including the white and non-white working class.

In a 2024 Liberal Patriot/Blueprint/YouGov survey that tested support or opposition to a wide variety of proposals associated with the Democratic or Republican Party, the top-performing proposals—which performed remarkably well—were almost all health care related. In order of net support (support minus opposition), the health care proposals were:

• Increase the number of prescription drugs that Medicare can negotiate the price of for seniors. (Net support was 75 points.)
• Require pharmaceutical companies to charge American consumers the lowest price they charge consumers in foreign countries. (Net support was 75 points.)
• Cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it. (Net support was 74 points.)
• Protect Medicare and Social Security from funding cuts or increases in the age of eligibility. (Net support was 72 points.)
• Permanently extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections for those with pre-existing conditions. (Net support was 59 points.)
• Cap prescription drug costs at $2,000 per year for all Americans. (Net support was 51 points.)

Support for these policies is strong across demographics but tends to be stronger among working-class voters, particularly white working-class voters. Democrats’ opportunity to cut into the GOP’s coalition through this issue is clear. Remember that in the 2018 elections, when the Democrats performed so well, health care issues were absolutely central to congressional campaigns.

But Democrats face challenges on this front too. One is that elevating health care comes with an opportunity cost that Democrats, with their fervent commitments to “saving democracy,” abortion rights, and climate change, may not be willing to pay. More attention to health care means less attention to these other causes. The Democrats’ educated, liberal base and infrastructure may resist that—even if a net enlargement of their coalition would result.

Consider the Inflation Reduction Act, which included significant health care–related spending on insurance subsidies and instituted Medicare price bargaining and other cost-control measures for some prescription drugs. The act was publicized and understood as involving climate change, renewable energy, and electric vehicles, which completely overshadowed its health care provisions. To this day, the overwhelming majority of voters are not even aware of these provisions, according to KFF polling.

Given all this, surely Republicans would not be so foolish as to hand the Democrats a new opportunity to leverage their big advantage in this area. Or would they? The budget passed on a party line vote in the the House and shortly to be taken up by the Senate implies the need for drastic spending cuts to balance big tax cuts included in the budget. Medicaid is in the cross-hairs for these spending cuts, perhaps to the tune of almost a trillion dollars.

This is a genuinely terrible idea! And it is potentially far more serious than the furor around DOGE/Musk, which is already costing Trump and the GOP some good will. Rachael Bade of Politico reports:

Two…vulnerable GOP lawmakers I spoke to over the weekend were ready to brush off the anti-Musk backlash.

“I’m all in on DOGE,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) told me Sunday night, arguing that cutting the federal workforce is “wildly popular” with Republicans in his swingy district and “weirdly a non-factor” for everyone else except hardcore Democrats. Another vulnerable member from a drastically different kind of district in another part of the country, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, dismissed last week’s protests as “pearl-clutching” by the media and Democrats.

For both, however, Medicaid is a different story.

“That’s where the battle’s coming,” said Gonzales. “There’s no doubt that there’s waste, fraud and abuse in every program in the government, including Medicaid — but at what point do you stop cutting into the fat and start cutting into the bone? You can’t pull the rug out from millions of people.”

Gonzales, who has a large constituency enrolled in the program, already co-authored a letter with seven other House Republicans representing large Hispanic populations asking Johnson to rethink where the GOP is headed on Medicaid.

This makes sense. Medicaid is an enormous program, whose enrollment has been expanded far beyond the truly indigent by the ACA. According to KFF, two-thirds of American adults have a personal (self, family, close friends) connection to Medicaid through receiving health care coverage, receiving support for pregnancy/home health/nursing home care, or assistance with Medicare premiums.

Small wonder that Medicaid is hugely popular with the public, with 77 percent having a favorable view of the program, including 85 percent of Hispanics, 82 percent of those with under $90,000 in household income, and even 63 percent of Republicans. Just 19 percent think we are currently spending too much on Medicaid and 81 percent are opposed to cutting the program (including 74 percent of Republicans).

Even the shambolic Democrats, who can’t figure out a way to dissociate themselves from the unpopular policies that are dragging them down, might not blow this one! As former Democratic operative Evan Barker notes in a piece on Lee Fang’s Substack, the attack ads practically write themselves:

I predict this is precisely what they will look like: Elon Musk is on stage at CPAC, waving a chainsaw in slow motion, with doom music in the background; cut to a frame with Donald Trump promising no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, and a final quick transition to a man speaking directly to the camera: “I lost my job, and when I tried to apply for Medicaid, I was turned down. Two weeks later, I got brain cancer. Now I’m homeless because I had to sell my house to pay for chemo.” It sounds dramatic—but the drama is how Dems roll. These ads will be blasted in key swing states in 2028, with the numbers of those who lost healthcare coverage since 2024 tallied on the screens.

Ouch. Of course Trump many times has said he has no interest in making cuts to Medicaid. His cagey political instincts and his “brand” as a working class-oriented populist Republican would appear to lead him against such a move. Judging from the debate in Congress and the views of many in his party, he has his work cut out for him. If he doesn’t succeed, health care really could turn out to be the Achilles heel of his second administration.

At Rawstory, Matthew Chapman takes a look at James Carville’s New York Times op-ed on Democratic strategy, and underscores Carville’s argument that Dems have a “more subtle and simple tool…to play the long game.” As Chapman notes, quoting Carville:

“The Republican Party flat out sucks at governing. Even Tucker Carlson agrees with this. For all the huffing and puffing on the campaign trail in 2016, the first Trump administration largely amounted to tax cuts for the wealthy, 500 miles of a border wall and a destructive pandemic gone viral. George W. Bush got us into a harebrained war in Iraq and then tried to privatize Social Security while letting our financial system drive smack into the Great Recession. And George H.W. Bush governed his way into a one-term presidency because of the economy.”

Chaman notes further, that “Trump is already falling into the same pattern, Carville argued, abandoning his campaign promises to increase public safety and simply firing droves of key federal workers as a power play, all while assembling “the most incompetent cabinet in modern history.”

How do Democrats fight this? Well, Carville said, they don’t.

“With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead,” he [Carville] wrote. “Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight, and make the American people miss us….Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular. Until then, I’m calling for a strategic political retreat….Democrats, let the Republicans’ own undertow drag them away.”

Chapman explains, “This stands in contrast to Dems’ approach in Trump’s first term in which, Carville argued, “we spun ourselves up into a tizzy” over every issue and were too unfocused for voters to pay attention.”

Chapman adds, “Carville concluded by arguing Democrats should fight like boxing champion Muhammad Ali, the master of the “strategic retreat.” “Facing George Foreman who was rolling off 37 knockouts and 40 wins, Ali deployed the famous ‘rope-a-dope’ strategy, retreating to the ropes of the ring, evading punches right and left, absorbing small jabs, until Foreman’s battery was depleted — and in the eighth round deployed a decisive knockout blow. It’s Round 1. Let’s rope-a-dope, Dems.”

The following article, “DEI Is a Failure Because the Civil Rights Movement Wasn’t About Elite Diversity: The tide is turning against modern diversity bureaucracies. But that’s not necessarily bad news for progressives, at least if they believe in the goals of the civil rights movement” by Zaid Jilani, is cross-posted from substack.com:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is being challenged, as President Donald Trump recently enacted an executive order that requires his administration to crack down on and remove diversity-oriented offices and policies across the federal government.

To many liberals, Trump’s order is distressing.

“I have to assume that ‘pursuing DEI efforts’ means hiring anyone who isn’t a white man?” asked The New York Times’s Jamelle Bouie about the administration’s new initiative to crackdown on DEI.

Indeed, the term DEI has at times become a sort of racist shorthand for corners of the online far-right, where people who in some cases were elected to office by the voters are derided as DEI hires simply because they’re nonwhite Democrats.

But not every critic of DEI is motivated by white resentment. Many people criticize these programs because they have little positive impact on diversity, anyway, and there’s a bunch of evidence that diversity trainings can actually make people more prejudiced.

The outcomes of Trump’s maneuver, however, remains to be seen because the devil is in the details.

Does removing DEI from the federal government mean eliminating potentially discriminatory programs? Or will the order end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater as it guts organizations that do have some proven benefit, like government teams that help protect the rights of disabled employees?

I would argue that the anti-DEI efforts we’ve seen pop up across the country over the past few years are capable of doing both things, and only time will tell what the Trump administration ends up achieving with its new anti-DEI directive.

But something is lost in this debate, where you have conservatives on one side railing against programs and practices they believe discriminate against white men and promote mediocrity and liberals on the other side defending DEI as an extension of the civil rights movement that guarantees the rights of minorities.

The reality is that DEI is only tangentially related to the rights and opportunities of minorities. The civil rights movement was not about diversifying corporate or government offices with a few black or brown faces in places of power.

It wasn’t about diversity trainings where employees roll their eyes as someone hired by HR lectures them for three hours about their privilege.

It was about redistributing power to the masses of people who don’t have it, including white people.

Read more here.

Some messaging points from Frank O’Brien’s “Progressives: We Have to Drive Efforts to Confront the Working Class Disconnect” at progressivesonmessage.substack.com:  “People living paycheck to paycheck and feeling unheard and unseen by many Democrats aren’t wrong. In November, their frustration boiled over triggered by inflation….No messaging shift will work unless Democrats back it up with action. We must push for an economic populist agenda and against policies that stack the deck against hard-working people….We need Democrats who can give voice to the needs and aspirations of people struggling with economic uncertainty as easily as they represent people worried about climate change or the spread of authoritarianism. And they need to talk about economic hardship in a much more visceral, emotional way….We have to advance steps that don’t ask people to wait around for years before feeling the impact. And we have to aggressively sell that agenda….We didn’t lose by standing with trans kids dealing with outrageous harassment and heartbreak. We lost because we didn’t demonstrate the same kind of empathy and concern for working-class families worried sick about how to pay their bills, feed their family and carve out a brighter future for their children….Sure, standing up for peoples’ rights doesn’t mean taking the bait every time our opponents try to draw us into crazy conversations.”

At Roll Call, Daniela Altimari, Mary Ellen McIntire and Niels Lesniewski share some insights from recent polling, including “A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday brought bleak news for congressional Democrats: Just 21 percent of voters approve of the way they are doing their jobs. Democratic lawmakers are underwater even with their own base, notching a 49 percent disapproval rating among registered partisans….Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are enjoying a honeymoon of sorts, the Quinnipiac survey found. In the early days of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the GOP governing trifecta, 40 percent of voters give Republicans in Congress positive marks. Among Republicans, that number shoots up to 79 percent….Democrats in Congress have been here before. They endured a shellacking in the 2010 midterms and saw Republicans win full control of Washington in 2016. But since March 2009, when Quinnipiac first asked this question, their job approval rating has never dipped this low….The former leader of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party [Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin] released a blueprint this week for fighting Trump and regaining momentum. The plan relies heavily on winning back working-class voters by painting the president as an out-of-touch advocate for the ultra-rich.”

“Post-mortems of Democrats’ performance consistently referenced a political realignment in U.S. politics, which included a rightward shift in voting patterns, notably among working-class men of all demographics,” Tanner Stening writes in “Can progressives and moderates bridge the growing divide in the Democratic Party?” at Northeastern Global News. ” That shift is certain to have an effect on the losing party. Looking at global patterns, Johnson says that center-left parties generally slide further to the right as right-wing parties do well in elections….“I imagine they will primarily focus on economic issues and specific federal programs and be wary of focusing on the sorts of dramatic proposals or social issues with which the party’s progressive wing is associated,” she says…. But there is also the danger in overstating the Republican victories in 2024, says Costas Panagopoulos, distinguished professor of political science at Northeastern and co-author of “Battleground: Electoral College Strategies, Execution, and Impact in the Modern Era.”….Panagopoulos and Beauchamp note that the momentum swings over the last several cycles still point to a narrowly divided electorate — and a sense that “anything can happen” over the next four years….In the 22 midterm elections from 1934 to 2018, the incumbent’s party lost 28 House seats and four Senate seats on average, data shows. Should the Democrats perform well in the midterms, it will help them build back a coalition capable of challenging the Republicans in 2028.”

In “To stop Trump, Democrats must reinvent themselves,” at The Hill, Will Marshall writes “Democrats, yoked to the status quo, are extraordinarily unpopular. Less than a third of Americans view the party favorably, while 57 percent disapprove. Independents are even more likely to express negative views. During the Biden years, Republicans also erased the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in party registration….Progressive activists nonetheless are pressuring party leaders to make a show of resisting the Trump-Elon Musk blitzkrieg on the federal government. This is tricky: Democrats are duty-bound to speak out against Trump’s unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power. But they must also avoid falling into the trap of defending a federal bureaucracy most Americans believe is badly broken….   The same risk applies to other key issues voters trust Republicans more than Democrats to handle — what to do about the economy, immigration, crime, energy and climate, schools and cultural friction around race and gender….Non-college voters far outnumber college grads. That’s why the Democratic coalition is shrinking and retracting into its urban bastions, conceding vast swaths of the country to Trump and the Republicans. Trump won 31 states last year, to Kamala Harris’s 19….Democrats should forge a new agenda for economic and social reform that puts ordinary working Americans first….They don’t want handouts; they want abundant economic growth and opportunity that expands the middle class, not the upper class. They want policies that are pro-worker and pro-business, reward hard work, support stable families, encourage entrepreneurial risk-taking and keep America on the cutting edge of innovation.”

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Democrats are roaming in the political wilderness and seem bewildered on how to find their way out. More resistance? More moderation? More lawfare? More denunciations of fascism/authoritarianism/lawlessness? Look for ways to compromise? Don’t look for ways to compromise? Shut down the government? Don’t shut down the government? Better messaging of Democratic positions? Actually change Democratic positions? It’s all so confusing!

It needn’t be. There’s one simple question—a sort of test—that would illuminate the path forward for Democrats.

What would the working class say (WWWCS)?

Let me explain.

The WWWCS test is not so hard to do but it does entail getting outside of the liberal college-educated bubble so many Democrats live within, particularly as experienced on social media, in activist circles and within advocacy, nonprofit, media and academic institutions. Look at actual public opinion data—not as summarized by someone you know or something you read. Look at focus group reports. Talk to actual working-class people—there are lots of them! Listen to your intuitions about how working-class people would likely react to policies and rhetoric currently associated with the Democrats —not how you think they should react. Think of family members or people you grew up with who are working class. Try to get inside their heads. They are less ideological, more focused on material concerns, more likely to be struggling economically, less interested in cutting edge social issues, more patriotic and generally more culturally conservative. All this makes a difference.

The “what-would-the-working-class-say” test can tell you a lot about whether Democrats are on track with their approach. If the test indicates that Democrats are advocating or saying something that is likely unpopular, off-putting and/or just lacks salience with working-class people, that policy or rhetoric is probably on the wrong track. Conversely, if the test indicates that working-class people are likely to view what Democrats are advocating/saying as desirable, in tune with their values and actually important to their everyday lives, that is a very good sign.

So that’s the test. Here’s why it’s so damn important.

As noted in an excellent new report by Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck:

For the first time since the mid-20th century, the central fault line of American politics is neither race and ethnicity nor gender but rather class, determined by educational attainment. But in the intervening half century, the parties have switched places. Republicans once commanded a majority among college-educated voters while Democrats were the party of the working class. Now the majority of college educated voters support Democrats. Meanwhile, the troubled relationship between the Democratic Party and white working-class voters that began in the late 1960s now includes the non-white working-class as well, as populist Republicans are expanding their support among working-class Hispanics and an increasing share of African American men….

The sorting of partisan preferences based on educational attainment is bad news for Democrats, demographically and geographically. Fewer than 38% of Americans 25 and older have earned BAs, a share that has plateaued in recent years after increasing five-fold between 1960 and 2020. And so, it appears, has the Democratic share of the college graduate vote (57 percent in 2020, 56 percent in 2024) even as the Republican share of the non-college vote surged from 51 percent to 56 percent. Meanwhile, non-college voters still make up 57 percent of the electorate, a figure that rises to 60 percent in the swing states. [Note that the figures for eligible voters are actually quite a bit higher—RT]

If Democrats cannot build a broader cross-class alliance, one that includes a larger share of non-college voters, their future is not bright. At the presidential level, they could end up confined to states with high densities of college-educated voters, leaving them far short of an Electoral College majority. Although Democrats won all the states with shares of BA degree holders at 40 percent or higher in 2024, there were only 12 of them, none swing states. By contrast, Democrats won only one of the 29 states with BA shares at 35 percent or lower while prevailing in seven of the 10 states with college attainment between 36 and 39 percent. [Note that the only swing state in the 36-39 percent group, North Carolina, was carried by Trump—RT] And because ticket-splitting between presidential and senatorial races has become more infrequent, the new class-based politics bodes ill for Democrats’ U.S. Senate prospects as well.

Here’s the visual on the difference between high and low education states:

Notice anything different about the two maps? The point about Senate implications cannot be emphasized enough. My Liberal Patriot colleague Michael Baharaeen recently did a crackerjack job of running down the Senate maps for 2026-2030. The Republicans have abundant pickup opportunities in low-education, working class heavy states while Democratic opportunities are slimmer and generally involve knocking off Republicans in the same kind of low-education states. This is daunting to say the least.

Read more…

The following article, “How About a Daily Democratic Message?” by Robert Kuttner, is cross-posted from The American Prospect:

There’s an interesting idea floating around on social media about how to rescue the Democrats from a wilderness of mixed messages and relentless media stories of Democratic disarray. But actually bringing this idea about sheds light on the thorny structural challenges that the opposition party faces.

The idea is that “the Democrats” should designate a single spokesperson, or perhaps rotating spokespeople, to give a daily press conference with a few clear talking points. That would presumably become the day’s main political story and give Democratic opposition to Trump more focus and clarity. So far, so good.

A number of the social media accounts have suggested Pete Buttigieg, who is deft at articulating a substantively progressive message as just plain common sense. Trump’s wrecking crew provides a target-rich environment, to say the least.

But let’s play out making this idea happen. For starters, who are “the Democrats”? Who would appoint this spokesperson or -people, and using what criteria?

There is a Democratic National Committee, with a talented new chair in Ken Martin, but the DNC does not make this kind of decision. The Senate and House leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, are the closest thing to national leaders.

Let’s assume that Martin, Schumer, and Jeffries meet and decide that this is a good idea. Then begins the problem of herding cats.

Schumer and Jeffries would have to get buy-in from their respective caucuses. Multiple demands would surface. Lots of different people with presidential aspirations would want the role of daily spokesperson. All would agree on just one thing. It can’t be just Pete Buttigieg.

Then the further mixed blessing of diversity in all its forms would kick in. There would be pressure to pick spokespeople from different regions, races, genders, ideologies. Instead of clarity, we’d get a circus.

Let’s make the heroic assumption that the party leadership could somehow surmount this challenge and pick just three rotating spokespeople.

My nominees would be Jamie Raskin, Gretchen Whitmer, and Pete Buttigieg. See the superb extended interview with Raskin in Politico. He is the most eloquent and best-focused anti-Trump Democrat we have. But I digress.

There is the further challenge of message. Do we just leave that up to the messengers, or must they clear it with some kind of committee?

The anti-Trump talking points are clear enough. He is putting your health at risk with fringe appointees and wreckage of essential public-health agencies. He plans to take away some of your health insurance and Social Security to finance more tax cuts for his billionaire cronies. He is wrecking the economy and inviting a stock market crash. He is destroying America’s most reliable alliances and helping global adversaries.

I wish that his trampling of the rule of law, his vindictiveness, and his cruel separation of immigrant families with Gestapo-style ICE raids were at the top of the list. They surely are for Prospect readers. But for the general public, alas, the more powerful message is how Trump’s crazy actions harm you.

A further challenge is the Democrats’ affirmative program. Yes, we need a few bold commitments that would help ordinary people directly and provide a vivid contrast with Trump. Our friend Tom Geoghegan, writing in The Nation and urging Democrats to keep it big and simple, proposes a 50 percent increase in Social Security benefits and a law prohibiting the firing of wage and salary workers except for cause. At the top of my list would be canceling student debt.

But here’s the problem with that tactic. The press would quickly point out that none of this stands any chance of passage, and many elected Democrats would distance themselves from Hail Mary pass proposals.

If the Democratic leadership could agree on a small rotating cast to provide a consistent narrative on the personal menace of Trump to ordinary Americans, that would be a possible start.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Over time, Democrats have been hemorrhaging working-class voters, including and especially in the last election. A resolute, unconditional defense of government bureaucracies does not appear to be a promising route to getting them back in our current populist era.

But oddly, Democrats seem to have decided that hitching their wagon to government bureaucracies is just the ticket they need to storm back against Trump and GOP. Nothing illustrates this better than how they’ve mounted the barricades to defend USAID and each and every dollar it spends.

As was widely-reported, all USAID programs except for “life-saving humanitarian assistance programs” were paused on January 20^th and all agency employees, except for a tiny handful, were put on administrative leave (some have subsequently been reinstated through court order). These actions are follow-ons to Trump’s Executive Order on “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid.”

Democrats were outraged as well they might have been. USAID does much useful and important work and most of its employees surely deserve something better than being summarily laid-off during an audit of the programs they administer. Democrats took that outrage to the streets in a signature #Resistance move, where House and Senate Democrats rallied outside the USAID headquarters building and demanded to be let inside (to do….something), at which point bored security guards politely told them to get lost.

Of course, this got a lot of publicity but to what end? The truth is most Americans know very little about USAID and could care less about the USAID as an institution. And if you told them that USAID basically administers foreign aid programs, they would care even less.

The fact of the matter is that foreign aid is one of the least popular parts of the federal budget. Indeed, skepticism about foreign aid is one of the most consistent and durable findings of public opinion research. In a 2023 AP-NORC poll, 69 percent of respondents thought U.S. government spending in this area was “too much”; 20 percent, “about right”; and just 10 percent “too little.” In contrast, support for more spending in most domestic areas (healthcare, education, infrastructure, Social Security, etc.) is very strong.

And unsurprisingly, anti–foreign aid sentiment runs highest among working-class voters, precisely the people who have been defecting from the Democrats to Trump, and without whose votes the party cannot recover. Cutting foreign aid spending is about ten points more popular among voters without college degrees than among the college-educated.

Given these realities, it makes sense for Trump and Musk to go after foreign aid spending, as an exemplar of misallocated government resources that need to be “reevaluated and realigned.” This is particularly the case since it isn’t hard to find examples of USAID programs that appear to have strayed far afield from standard priorities like food, medicine and technical assistance. One example of many is a $1,500,000 grant to a Serbian organization called Grupa Izadji “to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities, by promoting economic empowerment and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people in Serbia.”

In fairness, these kind of grants do not take up a large portion of USAID’s budget but even a small number of them is enough to raise hackles among voters who are already suspicious that much foreign aid is either wasted or could be better-spent elsewhere.

OK, let’s recap the situation for which the outraged masses of Senate and House Democrats have taken to the streets.

1. Democrats are blanket defending an obscure institution in an anti-institutional era, where most institutions are regarded with intense suspicion. As David Axelrod remarked to Politico, apropos of the USAID situation:

[How] did the party of working people become a party of elite institutions?…Part of the problem for the Democratic Party is that it has become a stalwart defender of institutions at a time when people are enraged at institutions (emphasis added). And they become—in the minds of a lot of voters—an elite party, and to a lot of folks who are trying to scuffle out there and get along, this will seem like an elite passion.

Call it the institutions trap. Trump attacks an institution Democrats are identified with; Democrats feel obliged—pretty much no matter what it is—to defend it tooth and nail. But that simply reinforces Democrats’ brand as the institutional, establishment party, which makes them even more vulnerable to populist attacks and even less capable of defending those institutions Then Trump goes after another institution and the cycle repeats.

Reflecting this dynamic, congressional Democrats have rallied in several other places, including outside the Departments of Treasury and Education, implying that whatever auditing and attempted cost-cutting is taking place at these institutions is completely unjustified. That is their default assumption—the bureaucracies in question are doing a fine job. But the default assumption of the median working-class voter is that a good chunk of most bureaucracies are doing work that isn’t even needed and wasting considerable money in the process. Therefore, such voters are likely to have considerable initial sympathy for what Trump and Musk/DOGE say they’re trying to do.

Democrats should recall an important finding from New York Timespolling in the last cycle. Voters overwhelming believe that the political and economic system in America needs either major changes or to be completely rebuilt. Automatic, dogged defense of all institutional bureaucracies does not speak to that sentiment.

Not only that, Democrats are only succeeding in making themselves look ridiculous as they take to the streets in geriatric-led demonstrations to defend these bureaucracies….

….As Tim Ryan, former Ohio House member and Senate candidate put it:

Yes, it is a bit depressing and certainly altogether implausible that these antics will succeed in reaching the working class voters Democrats need.

2. In USAID, Democrats are not only blanket defending an obscure institution, it is an institution that does one of American voters’ least favorite things: provide foreign aid. How much sense does it make for Democrats to hit the streets to defend USAID and pump up the issue politically when most Americans are indifferent to hostile to the programs they administer?

Not much! Axelrod again:

My heart is with the people out on the street outside USAID, but my head tells me: ‘Man, Trump will be well satisfied to have this fight…When you talk about cuts, the first thing people say is: Cut foreign aid.

Rahm Emmanuel adds:

You don’t fight every fight. You don’t swing at every pitch. And my view is—while I care about the USAID as a former ambassador—that’s not the hill I’m going to die on.

Words of wisdom, should Democrats care to hear them.

3. Finally, not only are Democrats blanket-defending an obscure institution that does something American voters don’t care about, they are defending without offering any hint of what they would preserve and what they would get rid of in terms of what USAID does. That implies that everything is working perfectly at USAID and all the programs are vitally needed, when clearly that is not the case.

Voters want big change in their institutions; it doesn’t make sense to insist that no change is needed, especially in an area like this. Bill Clinton once said: “Mend it, don’t end it” in a different context. That spirit of open reform is desperately needed here and elsewhere as Democrats try to resist Trump’s excesses.

And there will be many! Democrats should show some common sense in what they spend their political capital on as Trump ramps up his various institution-bending schemes. Given that even the most attentive political junkies are having trouble keeping track of all the things that are going on, we can safely assume that the typical working-class voter has very little appreciation for these intricacies—much less whether they amount to a “constitutional crisis”—and mostly knows Trump and Musk are shaking things up in government bureaucracies. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in their book, until and unless it starts to affect them personally.

That’s really the key and how Democrats can get out of the current “institutions trap” that brands them as the establishment party in an anti-institutional, populist era. Trump is pretty much guaranteed to do many things that are genuinely unpopular and impinge upon voters’ lives in a way that angers them in areas like health care, education, and the cost of living. Democrats should reserve their big guns for those situations. That should make them politically stronger over time and, paradoxically, make them better able to restore worthwhile USAID and other government programs over time and get many of those workers back to work.

In contrast, their current grandstanding on the USAID shutdown and other DOGE monkey business will likely do those programs and those workers no good. As that great American, Casey Stengel once remarked: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” We’re still looking Casey, we’re still looking.