It Isn't 2005 Or 2017 Anymore

Democrats can't count on being able to rerun opposition strategies from bygone eras.

Successful Republican presidential campaigns always go something like this.

And 2024 is no different. Once Republicans realized they’ll have enough power, at least on paper, to make major changes to tax and spending programs, many of them couldn’t help but salivate over slashing Social Security, a program they pretend to revere right up until they consolidate power.

Senator Mike Lee is among the most shamelessly two-faced of these Republicans.

Here’s Lee’s very sincere response, with State of the Union cameras rolling, when Joe Biden noted many Republicans have Social Security in their sights.

And here’s Lee just a few days ago, now that Republicans aren’t the minority anymore.

Lee doesn’t speak for all Republicans, but he’s a good soldier for the party elite. He received a Quote Tweet of Approval from Elon Musk, who (in his role as Donald Trump’s richest lackey and austerity director) serves as a heat shield between Republicans and their most unpopular policy ideas.

So the plot against Social Security is real, and it goes all the way to the top. That’s why Democrats are prepared to once again oppose cuts to Social Security as a bloc. Running back their 2005 and 2017 plays in defense of the safety net is what Hakeem Jeffries had in mind when he dismissed other, major aspects of partisan opposition as “distraction[s}.” It’s why TPM’s Josh Marshall, a veteran of the safety-net wars, published an article with the headline “Let’s Call It: Trump 2.0 Is Lining Up for Massive Social Security Cuts.”

And, to be clear, it’s important for Democrats to be ready, even against a tiny incoming GOP majority. But we should all try to anticipate the ways that 2025 will be different from 2005 and 2017. I would advise Democrats to prepare for opposition on many other fronts, too, and with the expectation that the main focal points of politics in the coming year are likely to be taxes, immigration, and tariffs rather than the roots and branches of safety-net programs.

And to the extent Democrats do need to run defensive plays to protect safety-net programs, they should imagine ways these fights might not play out exactly as the did in the past.

SECURITY BLANKET

I assign almost no significance to the fact that Trump himself claims to oppose cutting Social Security. It’s not clear he understands the significance of any of these programs beyond the fact that they’re politically perilous to cut—and he’s a huge liar. If he thought repealing Social Security outright would glorify or enrich him in a significant way, he’d abandon his pledge in a heartbeat.

But I do think this is a promise Trump might “keep” (or rather, a promise he might end up not breaking) in part because he’s right: If Republicans were to launch a George W. Bush-style campaign—or even a more subversive effort—to privatize or shrink Social Security, it would go poorly for them.

I suspect they won’t try because, mathematically speaking, they know they’d fail.