The Scourge Of Wimpiness

Terminal insecurity has damaged the Democratic Party's credibility more than any local policy choice or rhetorical trope.

(Photo by Jill Connelly/Getty Images)

Consider the political instincts of two Democratic elders, recently on display, as the party they shaped over three decades floats adrift.

First up, Hillary Clinton, who appeared on a podcast called Unholy a few days ago and was asked, “If you had a vote in this city, would you vote for Zohran Mamdani?”

She responded (or, rather, didn’t) like so: “You know what? I don’t vote in this city. Look, I am not involved in it. I have not, you know, been at all even asked to be involved in it, and I have not chosen to be involved in it. I will be there the day after, and everybody else should be too, no matter what happens.”

Clinton surely knows, in her heart what she would do. I don’t know what she would do. But she knows whether she’d set aside misgivings to vote for Mamdani or Cuomo, or whether she’d abstain on principle. What she lacks, even a decade removed from party leadership, is confidence to explain her reasoning. Endorse Mamdani, and it might feed perceptions that the Democratic Party is too far left. Abstain, and it will remind young progressive voters how hostile the establishment is to their preferences. Endorse Cuomo and be in league with Donald Trump. Better to just dodge and pivot, impressing nobody.

Next up, Chuck Schumer,

Here is the germ of a good idea, clothed in a similar kind of insecurity: Should I? Shouldn’t I? There’s clearly unfairness here, but perhaps it’s best to underline the hypocrisy and move on.

The right move, quite obviously, is to act as a means of insisting on fair treatment.

Trump sued CBS for billions of dollars and CBS chose to settle. Schumer (or the DNC, or some other party leadership entity) should follow suit, then, cut to the chase: It is our expectation that CBS’s parent company will even the score by making a $16 million donation to a cause of our choosing. Otherwise, my official guidance to our members will be to treat the reporting staff at CBS News as presumptively hostile and untrustworthy. How can we trust them not to be pawns of the Trump loyalists who run their network? If CBS executives show this favoritism, we will assume employees of the news division are either happy to do their bosses’ dirty work, or feel they have no choice.

This is, I realize, extremely unfair to the actual journalists at CBS News, most of whom work hard and detest that they’ve been sacrificed like pawns. But that isn’t my fault or Chuck Schumer’s fault. It’s the fault of the corporate leaders and the corrupt bargains they’ve made with Trump. The executives are the only ones who can set things straight, and lashing out at Schumer for insisting on equal treatment would simply underscore the double standard. Trump can be Trump, and Democrats have to grow up and learn to live with it.

Fuck to all of that.

STRICTLY BALLROOM

These examples happened to be close at hand, but they illustrate an important general point: Fighting is a better, more constructive, and more actionable impulse than agonizing over how every deed and utterance affects public perception of the national party.

Moderate and mainstream Democrats are by no means obliged to love Mamdani or express great confidence in him. But they should feel no compunction about saying they hope he will govern well—that he’s better than the vile, Trump-endorsed alternative, and that Trump will have hell to pay if he violates his oath of office to exact retribution on New York.

Beyond specific questions about Mamdani and CBS News, Democrats should transmit a constant stream of warnings to every nominally neutral entity (corporation, law firm, court of law, or foreign government) that enables or bends to Trump. They have all the berth they need to run left, right, or in between, and respond to events as they arise. The consistent vulnerability is meekness.

Democrats who refuse to opine on the big moral issues of the day in order to talk about beef prices reveal something defective about themselves.

House candidates can adopt centrist positions on all kinds of issues, and still signal something important about themselves in how they yield to public opinion. An exurban Democrat can be pro gun, and also clear that he’s sickened by the GOP’s willingness to sacrifice your child as a tribute to the AR-15. Or he can say, “unlike most of my Democratic colleagues, I agree with my friends across the aisle…”

A Senate candidate doesn’t have to make filibuster abolition the focal point of her campaign, but if she claims to support the filibuster, who can trust she’ll have the mettle to facilitate rebuilding and accountability in a post-Trump world?

Presidential candidates don’t have to fixate on Trump’s palace ballroom, but I will develop doubts about any candidate who treats the question “what will you do about Trump’s ballroom?” the way Clinton treated the question, “would you vote for Mamdani?” The American people have more important conc-NOPE. What’s your answer? The ballroom is a monument to corruption, and that’s a stain on America. Will you leave it there or not?

MORE LIKE GAVIN GREWSOME (BALLS)

This kind of thinking cuts both ways. Centrists also want Democrats to be mercenary enough to ditch land acknowledgments and abandon grad-school chic rhetorical tropes—and they are suspicious and wary of Dems who refuse to make those kinds of concessions.

Fair enough.

At some level, these hangups are proxies for the idea that Democrats shouldn’t be kowtowing or walking on eggshells. Shouldn’t be beholden to activists or slaves to polling data. They should have self-knowledge and be comfortable spending a few hours shooting the shit with interviewers in unscripted settings. At some level, we all agree that they should be pluckier leaders.

But there is severe tension between the idea that Democrats need to carefully tend their national image by pandering to public opinion, and the idea that they should be freewheeling enough to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience without seeming evasive or falling back on talking points.

This contradiction does not hamper partisan fighting. If you hadn’t notice, fighting is winning right now. Drawing lines and holding them has given Democrats their first real morale boost in a year.

California is poised to abandon non-partisan redistricting and gerrymander five Republicans out of office by a supermajority margin. Standing up to Trump has rehabilitated Gavin Newsom, who began the year as a laughing-stock capitulator, but is now arguably winning the shadow primary for the presidential nomination in 2028.

Just over two months ago, UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found statewide support for California’s Proposition 50 right on the bubble at 48 percent, with 32 percent opposed and 20 percent undecided. On the eve of the election, the same poll found statewide support had grown significantly, and stands at 60-38-2.

By fighting, Newsom transformed a huge majority of undecided voters into supporters of the referendum.

Democrats are winning the fight over the government shutdown, and it is giving them confidence in other realms. Meanwhile, Republicans are sputtering and contradicting themselves. They are more than happy to fight, but their assumption that Democrats will respond meekly has made them complacent.

So: exploit their complacency by picking more fights. Fight with CBS News, then make that a template for opposition going forward. Polarize national issues around Trump. Make it clear to every non-partisan entity contemplating partnership with him that Democrats will make examples of them—that if nothing else, they’ll feel the wrath of the country’s large anti-Trump majority and our purchasing power. Celebrate the Democratic Party as a natural home to Zohran Mamdani, Mikie Sherrill, Abigail Spanberger, Liz Cheney and everyone else in the country who wants to save its democracy.

Nobody who chooses to fight is a loser by temperament; wimpiness, by contrast, feeds right-wing caricatures of Democrats, and that has destroyed the party’s credibility.