Democrats Fight Over How to Fight Back

BY AARON ZITNER AND KATY STECH FEREK

The Democratic Party, overpowered by President Trump’s command of the national political debate, is fighting over how to respond.

When Rep. Al Green of Texas stood up, shook his cane and yelled at Trump during the president’s address to Congress this past week, the progressive group Indivisible called it the leadership the party needs. But to Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, Green’s outburst was a distraction from the pocketbook issues that win elections.

Their diverging approaches reflect a schism inside the party over Democrats’ most promising pathway back to power. Progressives are urging core supporters to flood town hall meetings and congressional phone lines to demand an aggressive response to Trump. Moderates say that approach risks turning off centrist voters in highly competitive districts— such as Suozzi’s.

The confrontation crowd believes that angry voters turning out at town hall meetings have scared GOP lawmakers, who in turn could become a moderating force on Trump. Many are unwilling to accept that their party has little ability to counter the president’s efforts to fire federal workers, idle entire agencies and unwind longstanding ties with U.S. allies, even though Democrats don’t control the House, the Senate or the White House.

“Be in their faces,” said Michele Harney, 68, who attended a constituent meeting held recently by Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D., Va.). She recited the slogan of former First Lady Michelle Obama, “When they go low, we go high,” then added: “I’m tired of going high.”

“We can’t just go about like it’s business as usual. We need wartime leaders at this point, because that’s what this is,” said Daniel Callahan, 42, who attended a town hall meeting held by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Pa.) and said he was frustrated by what he said was her bipartisan posture.

Evan Roth Smith, a Democratic pollster with the firm Blueprint, urged a more cautious approach. The party right now isn’t a compelling alternative to Trump, he said.

In a mid-February Blueprint poll, 65% of voters agreed with the statement “no one has any idea what the Democratic Party stands for any more, other than opposing Donald Trump.” Smith said that Democrats should discard any gesture that distracts from showing how the party would help voters if they regained power.

Rahm Emanuel, the former congressman and White House chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, has said that confrontation won’t help Democrats reach voters. “They’re close to having you on mute, anyway. If it’s only one tone, they’ll shut you down,” Emanuel said at a February panel.

The divide over tactics surfaced again on Thursday, as Suozzi and nine other Democrats joined all Republicans in voting to censure Green for his breach of decorum, a gesture to the political center. Five of the Democrats represent highly competitive districts, including three where a majority of voters backed Trump last year.

Where progressives criticized the censuring Democrats, Lauren Harper Pope of the Welcome PAC, which supports centrist Democrats, said those who censured Green know what it takes to win over voters in competitive districts.

The censure vote was only one recent case where the party’s centrist and progressive impulses were at odds.

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, broke with liberals by saying trans athletes should be banned from women’s sports, calling it “an issue of fairness. And I think Democrats have lost that.” His comments were denounced by more liberal lawmakers.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic mayors of four big cities defended so-called sanctuary city policies that limit cooperation with Trump’s deportation program aimed at removing people who are in the U.S. illegally.

Other Democrats have argued that voters won’t trust the party unless it proves it is serious about border security. In January, the Laken Riley Act, which imposes harsher penalties on some people in the country illegally, passed with support from 48 Democrats in the House and 12 in the Senate.

The party also took a centrist approach in choosing Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a state that backed Trump for president last year, to give its official response to Trump’s address. Slotkin, who served in Iraq as a CIA analyst, delivered a calm, centrist message that said lawmakers should focus on cutting grocery prices, securing the border and fixing the legal immigration system.

To Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic strategist, protest politics works. Rosenberg, who uses his Hopium Chronicles substack and podcast to encourage Democrats to call their elected officials and organize against vulnerable GOP lawmakers, says the crowds at town hall meetings can both affect policy in Washington and help Democrats in the midterm elections.

During Trump’s address, Green was ejected from the House chamber for his outburst, and other Democrats later walked out. Those who remained sat stone-faced, even as Trump gave a special honor to a 13-year-old cancer survivor in the audience. They displayed small signs with anti-Trump slogans.

Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) derided it as a “protest paddle bonanza” and said the party was wrong to “snub” the young cancer survivor.

But Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, says party leaders don’t understand the media environment, which requires messaging pitched to spread online. “If you’re not going to create messages that get eyeballs and eardrums, then nobody is going to see your message,” he said.