Democrats Need To Join The Fight Over The Trump Verdict Now
Their unfathomable stumbling in response to Trump's felony conviction has been an aha! moment for many liberals, and creates an opportunity to set the party straight.
In the almost 48 hours since a New York jury returned its verdict against Donald Trump, many liberals who are normally sanguine about the Democratic Party’s approach to partisan combat have found themselves astonished by what they’ve seen. As their response has taken shape, Democrats have revealed fundamental disunity over how and even whether to exploit the fact that their principal opponent is a convicted felon.
The grand jury returned its indictment over a year ago. The trial has been ongoing for over a month. With all that time to prepare for any combination of outcomes, Democrats seemingly did nothing, and are thus largely paralyzed. No rousing defense of the rule of law. No assertion that 34 felony convictions should be disqualifying for a major-party presidential nominee.
The Biden campaign has no plans to spend money on television ads about Trump’s criminal conduct or the fact that it’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, according to the New Republic’s Greg Sargent.
There are a handful of high-profile Democrats, like Adam Schiff, who have identified themselves with the cause of Trump accountability. But they are the exceptions. By contrast, almost every single serving congressional Republican not named Mitt Romney has raged against the verdict in multiple fora, calling the prosecution a witch hunt, the trial rigged, the country a banana republic.
Per Politico, the party’s divided between “establishment figures [who] are preaching caution and sobriety and have no evident plans to immediately capitalize on the historic jury decision to benefit President Joe Biden, and “prominent officials and operatives [who] see the unanimous verdict as a political gift and are incredulous that the party would not use it as a cudgel.”
Among those operatives is former Obama White House adviser
, who tweeted, “I wrote about HOW Dems (not named Joe Biden) should talk about Trump's conviction. I didn't realize there was a debate about IF Dems should talk about it. That's nuts.”
The truth is, if you’ve studied Democratic handling of Trump malfeasance closely over years, this breakdown would come as no surprise. As the jury entered deliberations, I said it’s “worth asking and re-asking the question, though: What, if anything, do Democrats have planned in the event of a guilty verdict that they hope will drag coverage past a news cycle, and contest predictable Republican lies?” On Thursday morning, I wrote, “I have a second-order concern that if Trump is convicted, Republicans will continue doing what they’re already doing (smearing the judge and jury, tearing down the justice system to shield Donald Trump from consequences) while Democrats will land on a boilerplate message like “Republicans nominating someone who’s now a convicted felon is Republicans problem, we’re going to focus on the kitchen-table issues affecting America’s families.”
And so it went. It’s consistent with a chronic debility, familiar to the precious few observers who’ve assessed the leadership critically, with an open mind. If more influential liberal and party elites had taken notice or interest in it prior to today, they could have weighed in before the verdict, so that Democratic leaders might have been boxed in to organizing a vigorous, unified response.
There’s fortunately still time to help Democrats find firmer footing. But it’ll be easier to do that if people have a clearer sense of why this happened, like understanding disease pathology before researching a cure.
PSAK IT TO YOU
I know why I worried Democrats wouldn’t engage the fight over the verdict vigorously. Rather than rehash my ancient critiques, though, I think it’d be more helpful to go straight to the source.
With huge thanks to the indefatigable
and Public Notice for providing me the video file, watch this incredible clip from Thursday night of former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki explaining the party’s thinking to a panel of her colleagues, who were left dumbstruck for almost 10 minutes.