Democrats playing defence; perhaps they should play dead

[WASHINGTON, DC] During the 2024 presidential race, Democratic candidates warned that a second Trump presidency would be disastrous, and a threat to American democracy and the rule of law. That President Donald Trump II would splinter the foundations of the federal government and shatter the transatlantic alliance.

One way that the Democrats could deliver their message to the American people today is by telling them “I told you so!” But it seems that Americans are not buying into that, as most polls suggest that they still prefer Trump to the alternative the Democratic Party presents to them.

So the Democrats are trying to figure out what went wrong, and to design an effective message to counter an unruly president who, while challenging norms and laws, continues to dominate the public’s attention.

There is certainly no denying that the Democratic Party’s loss in 2024 was catastrophic. While the party did improve its margins among white, college-educated voters, it lost ground among women, voters without college degrees, African-Americans, Hispanics and the young.

Studying the results, moderate Democrats are contending that their party lost non-white and working-class voters who were supposed to be its core constituents, because they had swerved too much to the left.

More specifically, centrist Democrats insist that the party has lost the so-called “culture wars” over issues such as immigration policy, the promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and the rights of transgender people.

Indeed, trying to highlight a more centrist face to potential voters, the Democrats decided to select Senator Elissa Slotkin from Michigan, a moderate Democrat with a background in national security, to give the party’s response to Trump’s recent congressional address.

The senator included in her address a centrist message that warned that if Trump was “not careful, he could walk us right into a recession”, and referred to the Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, saying that while change was needed, it “doesn’t need to be chaotic or make us less safe”. Sensible stuff indeed.

From the perspective of the Democratic Party’s moderates, they now need to peel away the left-leaning message of the party with its emphasis on identity politics and appeal to centre-leaning voters, who may be adversely affected by the president’s policies.

But, members of the Democratic Party’s progressive base are not convinced about the tilt to the centre. Instead, they want to position the party as the leader of an aggressive resistance movement to Trump and his policies.

Demonstrating that kind of resistance during Trump’s congressional address was Representative Al Green, the left-leaning 77-year-old African-American congressman from Texas who repeatedly disrupted the proceedings, waving his cane as he shouted “no mandate!” at the president and refusing to take his seat, before being ejected from the chamber.

The feisty congressman explained later that he wanted simply “to let people know that there’re some of us who are going to stand up against this president’s desire to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security”.

But, some would say that the image of an old man waving his cane reflected in a way the condition of the Democratic Party today – tired and out of touch with most Americans, with no new ideas to market to the public.

Other progressive Democratic lawmakers protested the president’s address before Congress by wearing pink to represent woman power, or holding up signs like “Musk Steals” and “Save Medicaid” to demonstrate their opposition. Other Democrats yelled “January 6”, and some just did not attend the event.

Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania criticised these protests on the part of his colleagues. “A sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance,” he wrote on social media. “It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained. We’re becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to, and it may not be the winning message.”

And, indeed, the Democrats have to come up with a winning message. But first, they have to set aside the old one, which may be difficult since interest groups advancing abortion rights, anti-racism, environmentalism and immigrant rights are still very much in place and have enormous influence over Democratic politics, as they continue to press for advancing a progressive agenda.

“I’m concerned right now that we haven’t embraced the fact that we need to change, that we need to do things differently if we’re going to win,” said Seth Moulton, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts.

“Anyone who just says, ‘The message is fine, we just didn’t get it out there’, is very naive about the problem,” according to Moulton. “It’s just an excuse for doing nothing and maintaining the status quo. Good luck with that. We’ll keep losing.”

Some think that the best thing the Democrats could do is simply allow the Republicans to self-destruct. Voters would recognise the Republicans’ inability to govern and return the Democrats to power in the 2026 midterm elections.

Veteran Democratic consultant James Carville has called, in a recent New York Times op-ed, for “the most radical thing” that the Democrats could do: nothing at all. Carville’s plan is for a “daring political manoeuvre” for the Democrats – to “roll over and play dead” and “allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight”.