WASHINGTON (TNS) — Like everyone else in Washington, Democratic Party leaders have been stunned by the speed and the breadth of President Donald Trump’s efforts to revamp the federal government.
Still licking their wounds from a decisive electoral defeat and post-election polling showing their party’s basic brand may be even weaker than the actual results, they have been slow to counter Trump’s aggressive outreach.
In recent days, however, anti-Trump demonstrations reminiscent of those from eight years ago have started to spread, and Democratic leaders are mapping plans to confront GOP lawmakers during this week’s House recess.
Still, given their lack of congressional clout, the real battle against the excesses of Trump 2.0 will continue in the courts, where they are seeing at least some short-term success. So far, some 70 suits by Democratic attorneys general, employee unions and ousted workers have produced 14 rulings halting administration efforts or questioning their legality.
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are primarily focused on forthcoming battles over government spending, while they watch Senate Republicans fall dutifully in line to confirm Trump’s Cabinet choices and House GOP budget drafters wrangle over when and how much to cut.
Their first real opportunity to wield influence may come as Congress confronts the need to fund the government past mid-March and raise the debt ceiling. Both will require some Democratic votes to pass, giving the party some leverage beyond its minority numbers to restrain some of Trump’s extra-legal excesses.
Still, anyone expecting major Democratic successes in resisting the Trump tsunami will almost certainly be disappointed. To be fair, that’s hardly surprising.
The Republican majorities that control both houses of Congress, though narrow, are far more coherent than in the past, as was evident when the Senate GOP solidified behind even the most questionable of Trump’s Cabinet choices.
Like many defeated parties, the Democrats lack a single leader around whom to rally their battered forces. Their current congressional leadership of Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries seems far better suited to inside legislative maneuvering than public exhortations.
And in choosing their new party chair, the Democrats opted for a low-key party mechanic, Minnesota chair Ken Martin, rather than someone who would be a major public voice for their party.
Besides, history suggests that any initial Democratic recovery may depend more on possible failures of the Trump presidency than on any structural changes that party leaders make. What they can do – and are starting to do – is to make sure swing voters who Trump attracted last year understand the degree to which they are being damaged by what he is doing as president.
Appearing Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Jeffries called for an “all-hands-on-deck effort” by Democrats “to fight in the courts, push back in the Congress and continue to push back in the community.”
At the same time, the Democratic National Committee unveiled “a new strategy” designed to “show how Trump’s policies are hurting red states” by noting that many received “disproportionate benefits” during the Biden administration and now face “disproportionate harm.”
“It’s time for Democrats to show up in all 3,244 counties — red, purple, blue — to make our case,” Martin told NBC News.
They hope to chip away at his support among “swing” voters by showing he is ignoring or even exacerbating the issues like inflation that helped him regain the White House.
By emphasizing the dire effects of Trump’s policies — and his failure to meet his promised goals – Democrats hope to reorient their focus back to “bread and butter“ economic issues and away from the social issues that turned off many voters. They need to avoid taking the bait he held out by making unpopular foreign aid and diversity programs his initial targets.
Meanwhile, Trump may be in danger of playing into their hands by creating a federal government that is less responsive to key voter groups, like farmers who have seen funds withdrawn for climate control projects, and more focused on policies like tariff increases that will raise the prices he promised to lower.
Looking ahead, the national Democratic Party needs to focus on regaining control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 elections some 21 months away. They should have a reasonable chance, given the GOP’s narrow current margin and the historic tendency of governing parties to lose strength at midterm.
As for this year, intervening special elections are often precursors of future results. While Democrats hope to reduce Republican margins in three special elections for vacant GOP congressional seats, several 2025 statewide contests pose better prospects for them.
The first is in Wisconsin, which Trump carried narrowly last November. The state Supreme Court seat held by a retiring Democratic justice is at stake April 1, and Democrats need a victory by Democrat Susan Crawford over Republican Brad Schimel to retain the court’s current 4-3 liberal majority.
In November, they hope former Rep. Abigail Spanberger can regain Virginia’s governorship, now held by term-limited Republican Glenn Youngkin, in a race generally won by the party losing the prior presidential contest. New Jersey will also elect a new governor, replacing Democrat Phil Murphy.
As Trump rides roughshod, national Democratic morale is low. But the late Democrat chairman Bob Strauss used to observe that things in politics are never as good as they seem or as bad as they seem.
And defeated parties often revive faster than expected when victorious presidents overreach their mandates.
(Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News.)
