Opposing Trump
The Jackasses
I have often said that the only thing more difficult than engaging in victorious political opposition to Donald Trump is covering him tough and fairly as a journalist.
We might have to flip that around.
Democrats, in their heartfelt anger and indignity, continue to throw every available stone, stick, wrench, spanner, and kitchen sick at the head of the giant.
Whatever they can grab and hurl, they do.
It is too facile and glib to attribute it all the Trump Derangement Syndrome.
From elected officials, to podcasters, to activists, and the grassroots (not to mention Hollywood, CEOs, and the Dominant Media), there is genuine belief that Trump’s policies, manner, and personality require Resistance with a capital “R,” every day and every way.
But what the Blues possess in authentic disdain for Everything Trump, they far too often in the last ten years undermine through a sheer lack of understanding of what is required to take on the incumbent president effectively.
Yes, the Democrats have won their share of battles against Trump and Trumpism, most notably at the ballot box in 2020 and in many/most other elections since 2017.
But Trump himself is 2 for 3, including a victory he earned after January 6 and after a first four-year term that put on full display what he has on offer for the nation and the world.
I’m just a simple newsletter writer, a Substacker in an old, ripped t-shirt and gym shorts; I have no idea what the winning way is for the opposition to counter the Maven of Mar-a-Lago.
But I do know, based on the current news cycle, that this ain’t it:
1. The extraordinary fight on the Senate floor between Cory Booker and a couple of his Democratic colleagues demonstrates what happens when Resistance for resistance’s sake overwhelms the best intentions.
As with his extended floor speech a while back, Booker is clearly adding to his social media following and winning MSNBC hearts and minds, but it is unlikely he is advancing the party’s cause. He might even be setting it back.
“There’s a lot of us in this caucus that want to fucking fight,” Booker told reporters. “And what’s bothering me right now is we don’t see enough fight in this caucus…”
“It’s time for Democrats to have a backbone…”
The rare, public back-and-forth highlighted Democratic Party divisions over how best to cope with a Republican-controlled government that has pushed them to the margins of policymaking. Moves by the administration to claw back or freeze funding previously approved by Congress have further angered Democrats and underscored their lack of power….
“This is a problem with Democrats in America right now,” [Booker] said. “We’re willing to be complicit to Donald Trump to let this pass through, when we have all the leverage right now,” he said. “When are we going to stand up as a body and defend our work, defend our jurisdiction, defend this coequal branch of government?”
[Democratic Senator] Cortez Masto said she preferred a more pragmatic approach.
“Standing up to Trump isn’t about long speeches, it’s about winning and then legislating and getting stuff done for the American people,” she said after the exchange. “I will always support our law enforcement officers, and it shouldn’t be so hard for any Democrat to do the same.”
2. Fighting against Trump nominees, like Emil Bove, getting Senate approval? Again, great for Maddow brownie points in the short term, but there is no indication voters care and, oh, by the way, the Blue base gets tired of all the losing. Bove was, of course, confirmed.
3. Sometimes jeans are just jeans. Or even genes. But either way this Sydney Sweeney thing is another social and cultural battle that makes the left look out of touch with a majority of Americans (because on a lot of stuff they are!).
4. I’m increasingly of the view that the Democratic Party is not fully aware of how dangerous it will be for them politically if Mamdani is elected mayor of Gotham City. The party’s nominee for the job has reacted to the Manhattan office building shooting in a manner that foreshadows many branding challenges that the Republicans will hang around the neck of every 20226 candidate.
5. Trump has a lot of Epstein problems, to be sure, but Chuck Schumer’s sliding yet an additional egg in this particular basket is yet another manifestation of the party’s tendency to swing fro and to in an undisciplined, untested effort to blind squirrel their way to victory.
6. These other recent Schumer tweets? Eh.
7. The Blue’s press arm, the Dominant Media, is similar scattershot. A favorite: The anti-Trump tales of any government official pushed out of the job; the Atlantic is the leader in this genre. Which is not to say that some of them don’t have important stories to tell, but to what end in the real-lives-of-real-people competition with the president?
Pete Hegseth is a particularly robust target for all of this.
Maggie Haberman, lacking General Kelly and the other inveterate leaking Trump haters from the first term, is down to this type of piece:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has begun requiring that nominees for four-star-general positions meet with President Trump before their nominations are finalized, in a departure from past practice, said three current and former U.S. officials.
The move, though within Mr. Trump’s remit as commander in chief, has raised worries about the possible politicization of the military’s top ranks by a president who has regularly flouted norms intended to insulate the military from partisan disputes.
I could go on….
Now, are there ANY smart people who don’t care for Donald Trump’s brand of governance with better ideas than all of the above?
Ross Douthat has an essential reading column that gives Trump his due on understanding how to leverage America’s vital role in the world to win more U.S. spoils, an acknowledgement of documented truth that the opposition party would be wise to understand and accept.
Bret Stephens goes even farther down this path of acceptance:
[I]f Trump’s opponents want to someday be effective — and let’s face it, we haven’t been — then we have to come to grips with realities that have so far eluded us. Such as: Not everything Trump does is bad. Sometimes the president’s bad manners and over-the-top tactics achieve useful diplomatic or political results. His about-face on Ukraine is a welcome demonstration that he’s capable of changing his mind when the facts don’t bear him out. Fulmination and moral hectoring are rarely persuasive, and neither are incessant predictions of doom that never quite materialize. Americans will listen to Democrats when they propose better solutions to common problems, not when they openly root for the administration to fail.
I have lambasted the administration over and over again, both in its current and previous term. I’m sure I will again. But while it’s never fun to be fair to those you dislike, it’s also healthy. For criticism to be credible, it cannot be blind.
Finally, Humphrey Democrat Ted Van Dyk, writing a version of the same op-ed piece he’s written for the Wall Street Journal at least two dozen times in my memory, pens this:
Now, in Mr. Trump’s second term, Democrats’ poll ratings show them less popular than either the president or the Republican Party. Their primary message has become one of rage against Mr. Trump and Trumpism. If history holds, Democrats may make some gains in the 2026 midterm elections, but certainly not based solely on Trump derangement syndrome.
Mr. Trump’s overreach and missteps may cost him congressional majorities next year. But, at this point, he continues to enjoy far greater public confidence than Democratic officeholders and candidates. What is the alternative Democratic platform, and who are the leaders proposing it? Even at the height of Reagan’s popularity there were numerous Democratic proposals offering alternatives, such as the Bradley-Gephardt legislative plan to reform the tax code.
Having lost the 2024 presidential election decisively, and without control of either house of Congress, Democrats lack a credible alternative vision to present to American voters. Not being Donald Trump isn’t enough. Democratic congressional leaders, governors and prominent private citizens need, separately and together, to develop national-security, economic and social-welfare proposals that will appeal to a majority of citizens. How do we propose to keep them safe and prospering? What are our plans, beside our plan to replace Mr. Trump?
In conclusion: The Democrat with the best chance of beating JD Vance (or whoever) in 2028 will likely be the one who best understands Donald Trump’s success and popularity.
To be continued….
PS:
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ESSENTIAL READING
* Washington Post teases out some examples of Team Trump accommodating Beijing to lay the ground work for a grand bargain, with critics seeming to ignore the fact that you must deal with the devil to get a deal with the devil.
* The factoids, narrative, and photos in Tina Brown’s Ghislaine Maxwell piece will educate you and, potentially, blow your mind.
* Wall Street Journal on the administration’s flip-flop-flip on health research funding.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is set to headline the latest iteration of an event previously billed as the largest annual gathering of Republicans in South Carolina, a state traditionally key to picking the GOP’s presidential nominees, and one in which she already has deep relationships.
Rep. Sheri Biggs of South Carolina’s 3rd District told The Associated Press that Sanders would be the featured speaker at her Salute to Liberty, slated to take place Aug. 18 in Anderson. In an interview last week, Biggs said she felt the governor “represents what the people in the 3rd District believe in, our morals, just down-to-earth hardworking people that love the Lord and want to live in peace with their families and uphold our conservative values.”