How do we beat Donald Trump? It’s actually not hard, though with all the handwringing from Democrats on Capitol Hill, you might think it’s impossible.
“I’m trying to figure out what leverage we actually have,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said last month. “What leverage do we have? Republicans have repeatedly lectured America — they control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s their government.”
To which I say: are you kidding me? The answer is staring Democrats right in the face, Mr. Leader, while your members obsess over whether to bring auction paddles to Trump’s address to Congress or to skip it altogether.
Just open your mouth and talk like a normal person. Muster up righteous anger about how Trump is screwing the American people. Most importantly, don’t ever bail Republicans out as they are on a path to destroy themselves politically. The American people voted for disruption in November. Let the Republicans give the people what they wanted and see how they like it.
You only need to leave the Beltway cocoon for 30 seconds to understand the anger and deep-seated disgust regular people feel about how both parties are handling their concerns. They want Democrats to be fighters, not accomplices.
Bernie Sanders has been on a road trip for the past several weeks, drawing massive crowds in swing districts currently held by Republican members to talk about how a bunch of billionaires hijacked our country. You don’t need to convene a dozen focus groups to figure out that calling this out plainly and forcefully is effective.
Look at what’s happening right now. Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security are all on the chopping block. Our foreign policy has been sold out to the Kremlin. The cost of living is exorbitant, Trump’s tariffs will make everything more expensive and your 401k is draining away before your eyes.
Meanwhile, a chainsaw-wielding billionaire is running around gutting your benefits while scooping up more and more government funding for his own companies, as the president of the United States takes time out of his day to shill for his flailing car company. The corruption is in plain sight.
Here is the leverage Democrats have: their mouths.
Sanders is a senator from the small state of Vermont. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett are only two of 435 Members of Congress. And yet they get attention whenever they speak because they actually say stuff in plain English that channels the frustration of so many Americans. Stuff that is not particularly controversial, mind you.
Stuff that everyone outside the MAGA echo chamber is saying.
Stuff like: “Trump is coming for your Medicaid.” Stuff like: “They want to dismantle the federal government and cut programs that working people desperately need.”
Last month, James Carville penned an op-ed in The New York Times calling on Democrats “to roll over and play dead.” Hell, no. Playing dead is what the entire establishment wing of the Democratic Party have been doing for months. What’s that gotten us?
According to a poll leaked to Politico, Congressional Democrats are “more focused on helping other people than people like me.” Sixty-nine percent of voters believe that Democrats are “too focused on being politically correct.” Another 51% describe the Democratic Party “elitist.”
Let that sink in: it’s Trump who is gutting the safety net that has kept millions of Americans afloat and yet more than half the nation believes that Democrats are elitist. That’s what the Democratic Party has gotten for playing dead for the last four months.
Democrats spend way too much time focusing on how to present their views in a way that doesn’t offend anyone. They self-police language so much that they are afraid to say anything at all.
That’s why you are hearing crickets from Jeffries, Schumer and most of the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. When they do speak, they parse their words so much that they either don’t make sense or sound like something I used to read in my grad school philosophy class in order to fall asleep faster at night.
Trump is delivering messaging opportunities to Democrats on a silver platter every single day. What has gotten better for the average American since he has been in office? Not your retirement savings. Not the cost of living. Not access to hard-earned benefits. Not public health. Nothing.
If Democrats can’t message our way out of a paper bag based on this, they don’t deserve to win. But I think Democrats can and should win — because Democrats actually do stand for the working person, provided they open their mouths and begin to effectively channel the anger that people feel.
