One month after President Trump was sworn in for a second term, Democratic despair and denial are giving way to an angry message from party activists and voters to their leaders.
Do something.
Across the country, anti-Trump protests and fiery town halls are flickering back to life. In polling, Democratic voters are venting disapproval at congressional Democrats. And in interviews last week with voters, activists and elected officials, many said Democrats were failing to curb Trump or offer a meaningful counter-message.
In an interview, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, said that neither party was “effectively serving as a check on the executive branch,” and offered a striking rebuke of his side of the aisle.
“They are failing to address the real concerns that people have,” he said when asked on Thursday about congressional Democrats’ response to the early weeks of the new Trump administration.
Mr. Shapiro, who has filed a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s freeze of federal funding for Pennsylvania projects, added, “They’re failing to do what is their fundamental responsibility constitutionally — to be a check.”
The dawning reality of Republican control of the Capitol, punctuated by Trump’s eagerness to smash longstanding boundaries and enact retribution on his perceived enemies, has heightened Democrats’ sense of shock and outrage — and, increasingly, their frustration with their own leaders.
None of Trump’s nominees have been rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate, which early Friday also approved a GOP budget plan that would increase spending on border security and the military.
A poll last week from Quinnipiac University found that more Democratic voters disapproved of the job that congressional Democrats were doing than approved of it. And in a new CNN poll, 73 percent of Democrats surveyed said congressional Democrats were doing too little to oppose Trump.
Jessica Ruiz, 36, a Philadelphia Democrat, her disappointment in the party runs so deep that it even clouded her joy over the Eagles’ Super Bowl victory.
“We’re able to get together and go out on the streets and celebrate a football team,” she said. “But we’re not able to come together and raise our voices to our city officials, state officials and government in the same manner.”
Some Democrats urge patience, betting that the country’s mood toward Trump will sour. For now, they face the obvious hurdle of life in the congressional minority, alongside the possibility of retaliation against those who criticize Trump or his powerful ally Elon Musk.
“I really don’t know what they can do,” said Karen Taylor, 56, a Democrat from Mesa, Ariz. “My only hope is that people will see and get out and vote the next time.”
Democratic lawmakers are also divided, with some eager to battle Trump and Republicans on every front and others urging a far more selective approach.
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, a Democrat who represents a district that Trump won, warned against overreacting to “whatever is coming down the Twitter feed.”
“Our job is to build a national consensus about how we are going to address the very real problems we’re facing,” she said, “and not alienate the voters who are going to determine the balance of power, the real legislative authority moving forward.”
A major test of the Democratic posture toward Republicans is unfolding over a spending confrontation. In the meantime, as Democrats strain to keep up with Trump’s rapid moves, they have held news conferences; taken to social media; tried to force Republicans to take damaging votes; and, in some cases, organized protests as they seek to cast Trump as advancing billionaires’ interests at the expense of the working class.
Representative Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, sees a chance to expand the party’s appeal with a broad spectrum of voters who are uneasy with giving the ultrawealthy — like Musk — more power.
“It’s not just progressive voters that are upset,” he said. But, he added, “for us to encourage people to step up and fight, and put in their hours after and before work to stand up to Trump, they also need to see their elected officials coming together, treating this as the emergency that it is.”
In an interview, Ken Martin, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said he shared the base’s combative attitude. He even embraced the word “resist,” which has fallen out of favor with exhausted Democrats.
“We have to stand up and resist with every fiber of our being,” he said. “If we’re not doing that, and doing that strenuously, how in the hell are people going to believe that if they put us back in power, we would fight for them?”
Beyond Washington, governors — the chief executives of their states — tend to have more leeway, and some are pushing back more assertively.
“Governors are worried their states are going to get crushed, and trying to figure out the right balance between condemning Trump and staying on his good side,” said former Representative Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, a Democrat who has encouraged more forceful pushback to Trump. “Inevitably, they are going to offend him, and inevitably, he is going to try to crush them.”
*The New York Times
