An Opposition Worthy Of Its Name
We should all have realistic expectations, but Democrats could absolutely do better. Here's how.
Since my last newsletter:
The Justice Department nearly collapsed under the strain of one of the biggest acts of public corruption in U.S. history.
Donald Trump’s secretary of defense traveled to Europe and, without formally withdrawing the U.S. from NATO, functionally abrogated the western alliance.
Republicans confirmed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard to helm the nation’s health and intelligence services.
I mention these developments because several readers have asked for my input on a recent Axios article about Democrats in Washington, frustrated by the calls they keep getting from alarmed constituents who plead with them to step up their game.
“‘People are concerned that…we're not doing enough, but we're not in the majority,’” said one member,” according to the report, “Some Democrats see the callers as barking up the wrong tree given their limited power as the minority party in Congress: ‘It's been a constant theme of us saying, “Please call the Republicans,”’ said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).”
Terrible things are happening—many of which we should have expected, some worse than we could have imagined—and it’s making people on both sides of these phone calls upset. At the same time, in an irony, Democrats also seem less frustrated with Republicans than with their natural allies.
Most readers probably associate me with the critics, and, for the most part, rightly so. Elected Democrats have official powers; most constituents do not. But the story isn’t quite that simple: The tension between the Democratic grassroots and the party elite is exacerbated by mutual incomprehension—by Democratic confusion over what’s driving constituent anger, and constituent confusion over what Democrats could reasonably accomplish.
This is my attempt to resolve that confusion, and to lay out an approach to opposition that’s both practicable to implement and responsive to fair criticism.
WHAT’S THE NEGUSE
I have been writing about Democratic under-reaction for so long now, I almost can’t remember what I used to write about before. I write about it frequently, too, not because Democrats are the bad guys in American politics, but because, unlike Republicans, they retain some capacity to absorb and incorporate good-faith critique.
So if they aren’t being purely defensive, why are they carping to insider tip-sheets instead of changing their behavior?
I suspect it has to do with the quality of the criticism leveled at them, much of which is poor. There are reflexive critics of the party who will ignore every laudable thing Democrats do in favor of mocking or yawning at them. The progressive reporter Ken Klippenstein recently made a point to note that the Democrats’ Rapid Response Task Force will be “co-chaired by 81 year old congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, congressmen Gerry Connolly (74) and Jamie Raskin (62),” without noting that that the co-chairs serve under Chairman Joe Neguse, who is 40, or that Raskin is one of the party’s most talented and vigorous voices of accountability.
There are others on the broad left who sincerely want to see Democrats be more energetic, but exaggerate or don’t fully understand the limits of the party’s leverage. Like them, I’d feel better if Democrats would seize more opportunities to slow down Senate operations, but the truth is that, even if they did exactly as I wished, it wouldn’t accomplish much. It isn’t as though Republicans have a huge legislative agenda to enact—for the time being, they can sweat a few days of lost floor time each month. Democrats also need to be mindful of the fact that if they deny consent for literally everything, Republicans can change the filibuster rules on a simple-majority basis. In the long run, I would favor such a rule change, but if Democrats actually want to preserve the power to slow things down somewhat, they probably have to allow some stuff to happen at normal speed, too.
It is further likely that had Democrats done everything exactly as I wished, all of the above disasters would have unfolded anyhow. Democrats can’t stop Hegseth and the Trump administration from antagonizing allies; Democrats can’t stop 50 determined Republican senators from voting for corrupt cabinet nominees Democrats can’t directly intervene as Trump’s mafia lawyers hollow out the DOJ, if Republicans in Congress decide they’re okay with it.
They will have some leverage to end the lawlessness, when Republicans come to them for budget votes. But for now we should all recognize that even if Democratic Party were firing on all cylinders, the state of emergency in the U.S. would still be dire.
CASSANDRA, BULWARK
Those considerations don’t fully absolve Democrats, though. Their constituents aren’t mostly victims of mischievous punditry, or of common myths about parliamentary procedure.
Sentient people can simply detect that Democrats aren’t acting like they’re in the midst of a generational freedom fight, and losing ground.
Think about what we’ve all witnessed these past several weeks, and how a party worried about losing the country forever would have reacted differently.