'What is the Democratic Party for?': One DC insider has some advice
23 February
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) speaks to the media, on the day of a Senate Democrats' weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 19, 2025.
We discuss the first month of President Donald Trump’s second term in office — and the response from the Democratic Party — with journalist David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever. He notes that despite Republicans holding all three branches of the federal government, Trump has mainly used executive orders and other decrees to impose his will instead of using legislation. “They’re trying to create a precedent that presidents cannot be constrained at all,” he says of the party’s strategy. He also faults Democrats for failing to effectively oppose the administration. “What is the Democratic Party for? What does it support? What does it advocate for? There’s not really much of an answer right now.”'
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
One month into Donald Trump’s second presidency, he’s mostly governed through executive orders and carried out his agenda with sweeping cuts by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, the billionaire, and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, all of which has generated a slew of protests, lawsuits, judicial rebukes.
This week, Trump shared an illustration of himself wearing crown, with the headline “Long Live the King” — it looked like a Time magazine cover — as he cheered his administration’s move to end congestion pricing in New York.
On Tuesday, Elon Musk defended his work to gut whole agencies across the federal government in a joint interview with President Trump on Fox News.
ELON MUSK: I think what we’re seeing here is the sort of — the thrashing of the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, a court filing from the White House Office of Administration lists Elon Musk as a senior adviser to the president who’s serving as an employee of the White House office, not DOGE, which the White House previously said he was leading.
To discuss this and much more, as Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw at the CPAC summit that just took place, we’re joined by David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, former senior communications adviser and speechwriter for Bernie Sanders. His recent pieces for The Lever are headlined “Trump Just Limited Your Payout for Airline Mishaps,” “Elon Doesn’t Want You to Know His DEI Past,” and “Musk Just Scored More Government Cash While Pushing Education Cuts.”
Well, you’re here for a big podcast convention. You were talking about climate. But talk about what’s happening right now and the level of resistance.
DAVID SIROTA: I think what we have to understand is that — and the question that we have to ask is: Why is Donald Trump behaving the way he’s behaving when his party already controls Congress and the courts? What is the point of trying to do what he’s doing without going through the normal process of legislating? Right? If you want to close down the Department of Education, if you want to close down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the way to try to do that is through legislation, through passing it through Congress, having the law upheld in court. His party controls those institutions. So why hasn’t the White House tried to do that through the normal process?
And I think if you step back, what you see is what they’re trying to do is create the precedent that a president can do whatever a president wants, that it’s not a coequal branch of government, that essentially it is a king, an elected king. And I think they’re relying on the idea that people, or at least their base, doesn’t necessarily know or care about what the difference between a president in a coequal branch of government is versus an elected monarch. They’re trying to create a precedent that presidents cannot be constrained at all.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to Elon Musk saying, “We’re talking about the thrashing of the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy”? I mean, you watch Fox, and all they’re talking about is laughing about people getting “DOGEd.” They’re cutting the fat out. You’re not hearing about what the services are that are being slashed, sliced and diced across this country.
DAVID SIROTA: This is an old tactic. This reminds me of the Gingrich era. Newt Gingrich, when he rose to power in Congress, would come out and pick out one or two science projects that sounds, on its face, ridiculous. “Oh, the government’s spending $2 million to study cow flatulence. Oh, this means that the entire government is wasteful.” Meanwhile, there’s a reliance that there’s not an understanding of what scientific research ends up developing. And I think they’re applying that across the board.
And we have to ask the question: Well, why? The richest man in the world is also one of the largest government contractors. So there’s an inherent conflict of interest — or, in the case of the Trump administration, I guess, an alignment of interest. The more you cut public services, the more it creates, essentially, the impetus to hire private contractors. And the guy who’s doing the overseeing of the cutting happens to be one of the largest private contractors.
AMY GOODMAN: You recently said on social media, quote, “It’s not really a political party at this point. It’s better understood as a country club, with status perks for its emeritus leaders,” and referring to the Democratic Party, in response to news that former VP, presidential candidate Kamala Harris had signed with CAA to represent her on her post-White House initiatives, including speaking engagements and possible book deals.
DAVID SIROTA: Look, the Democratic Party doesn’t seem to be interested in changing, at least not yet. They reelected their same leaders who oversaw the policy and party positioning that led to Trump’s reelection. That’s the same leadership that led to Trump’s first election in 2016. The party doesn’t seem interested in changing how it approaches its own voters or its own effort to win elections. There’s some lip service to the middle — to the working class, but there’s not really a change in policy.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you make of Senator Sanders now going around the country and speaking in red districts that are most vulnerable? He says, “If we can turn around three,” he says, they’ve ended their extremely narrow lead in the House.
DAVID SIROTA: Yeah, look, I think Bernie Sanders is doing the right thing. It’s an example of what the Democrats at large should be doing, which is actually going into and trying to speak to the disaffected working class, that used to be the base of the Democratic Party.
The problem is that the Democratic Party, its leaders, are caught between the demands of their donors and the demands of voters, which is why so often the Democratic leadership sounds incoherent. If you’re trying to address what voters want, but also trying to enrich or appease your donors, you often sound like you stand for nothing. I mean, can we actually explain or answer the question: What do the Democrats stand for right now, other than, in theory, rhetorically being against Trump, even though they’re giving votes to confirm some of his nominees? Like, I think the average person has trouble even articulating: What is the Democratic Party for? What does it support? What does it advocate for? There’s not really much of an answer right now.
AMY GOODMAN: You had a recent piece on Elon Musk’s previous support for DEI policies at Tesla.
DAVID SIROTA: Yeah. Well, look, only a few years ago, Tesla was touting itself as weaving DEI into its DNA. That’s a quote out of a large report that came out from Tesla. Obviously, the politics have shifted. Donald Trump is trying to demonize DEI as a way to appeal to the working class, and the Democrats haven’t made an effective argument on economics to also try to appeal to the working class. And right now if both parties aren’t really making an economic appeal, then Trump is relying on making an identity appeal.
AMY GOODMAN: In this last 20 seconds, what do you think is most important right now?
DAVID SIROTA: The most important thing is for the Democrats to try to gum up the works, to stop what’s going on. They don’t have a lot of power. And it’s also important to understand that if Donald Trump is going outside of the institutions of government, then the Democrats are going to have to rely on different kinds of tactics that don’t just rely on just press conferences in the U.S. Senate.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it’s possible Republicans in the House and Senate will turn on Trump?
DAVID SIROTA: I don’t believe it’s going to happen. I just — there’s no historical precedent for the Republicans to bail out on their own president.
AMY GOODMAN: David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, we want to thank you so much for being with us, and we will link to your articles at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
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