After the loss of Kamala Harris last year, professional democrats with moderate policy prepared for their favorite quadrennial sport: recrimination. They wanted to “resume” the party of the auto-imagined bad guys to which they oppose. They wrote manifest And Memos of donors and positioned against “groups. “A few weeks ago, they organized a retirement Where they condemned “ideological purity tests” as their way to a better future.
I am struck by the way it all sounds, less than two months after Donald Trump’s second term. It seems that these people argue a good label of the salad fork while their house is on fire. There is a much more basic question that drives democratic policy at the moment, if you are careful to listen to people who always say they are democrats (or even independent): will the party in opposition to Donald Trump will oppose something?
We have seen this week what a predictable answer to this question was retrospectively. The Democrats of the Chamber, who face voters every two years, who must pay attention to the mood of the public, considered the deadline for financing the government as a moment of early and important distrust against the ransacking of America. They did not come there on the basis of being progressive or moderate, in a safe seat or a swing district. They listened to their voters, who sought a sign of life among the Democrats, or a plan to alleviate the bleeding of an economic and moral collapse.
But Trump is also a big unit on his own sides, and he was able to attract the Freedom caucus to a spending bill for the first time in chandeliers by promising that he would continue to grasp and abolish the programs regardless of what the bill said. Happy to outsource carnage and responsibility, all the Republicans went there. He therefore fell into the Senate, where democratic votes would be necessary on the bill to adopt this.
The Democrats of the Senate do not face the voters every two years. They have the luxury of imposing themselves in oblivion, by inventing scenarios to avoid the confrontation that they can reverse the engineers in sage. This is what Chuck Schumer has done, withdrawing from the fight and advancing a bill he called odious to avoid a closure of the government, as if we do not live this already.
The president of the Progressive Caucus Greg Casar (D-TX) may have best summarizes: “Today, the greatest split between democrats is between those who want to stand and fight and those who want to play the dead.” There is an intrepid caucus and a fear caucus, a caucus which understands the risk of failure and wants to try to win anyway, and a caucus consumed by failure, cushion of force by risk, which stops and the arnets and narrows conflicts.
It is a split inside Washington. This is not a close question in the rest of the country. There, the Stand and Fight faction is dominant, seen in boiling anger during the meetings of the town hall which led the Republicans to stop holding them. Governor Tim Walz, who held for one of these republicans in a clear water swing district, Wisconsin yesterday, became viral for some red meat Murching a “baby from the South African Non-Elected nepo”. But what he said just before that made the critical point: “There is a responsibility at that time of chaos where elected officials need to hear what people are irritated. And I would say that Democratic officials should hear the primary cry from America, (which) is: “Do something, damn it!” It’s wrong! ‘”
Walz was part of the losing ticket last November and has the point of view to meet people from across the country and measure the national mood. Her principal Was that the campaign was too cautious, too buttoned, too little willing to take risks. This is the right lesson, because it has migrated with a tactical failure towards a decisive characteristic of the Democratic Party.
I certainly have opinions on politicians would cause shared prosperity in America, and I believe that most of them would prove as a good policy. But I also agree that the major problem of Democrats, before the elections and certainly today, is that they are perceived as weak. Everything that perpetuates this image is toxic to the party.
There is currently anger heated to whites across the country, and responding to this with cowardice will end your political career. Maybe not today; A main theoretical challenge for Schumer is in three years, when he is 77 years old. But his lack of leadership was exposed. Democrats want a different party, one with a pulse, and finally they will get it.
Politicians who understand this are not carefully grouped ideologically or generational. Bernie Sanders, still there spending speeches at thousands at the age of 83, is in the Fearless caucus; On this question, it was so Nancy Pelosi. AOC A led the chargeBut it was among the most eloquent statements that I saw this week:
“Last night, the Democrats of the Chamber united against a bill that would allow President Trump and Elon Musk firmly whatever the government they want, when they wish. Now, all eyes are in the Senate, the only institution of the government where democrats have a real lever effect thanks to obstruction. Chef Schumer and the Senate Democrats must use this lever effect to combat Americans faced with higher costs, larger deficits and intentional recession. They must use their lever effect to bring the Republicans to the negotiating table on the unconstitutional financing cuts of President Trump who violate the separation of powers.
“Congress is a co-equal branch of the government, and we must seize this opportunity to remind President Trump that he is not all-powerful. It is time to defend our country and the role of congress as a check and balance on an overly zealous president. Otherwise now, when? Otherwise, who?
It is Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), former vice-president of the New Democrat Coalition and member of the Caucus Solvers problem.
Federal employees, who could compete or even dismiss in a closure, are in the intrepid caucus. Lawyers and attorney general adopted by the Trump administration before the courts are in the intrepid caucus. Ordinary people taking the time of their day to picker in front of a Tesla exhibition hall or shouting to their representative at Congress are in the intrepid caucus. Even those who are Strong by a weakening economy are in the intrepid caucus, suggesting that the Caucus is the majority of the country.
When there is this great gap between the leadership of a party and the voters, it cannot last.