What is the Democratic strategy to fight Trump? It's not clear.

Michael Signorile, The Signorile Report
13 December 2024
Donald Trump speaks as he meets with House Republicans on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 13, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

Donald Trump came out full force after the election, naming most of his Cabinet—including a bunch of sexual assaulters (Hegseth, Gaetz), crackpots (RFK), QAnon promoters (Kash Patel), and Putin apologists (Tulsi Gabbard)—and Democrats have mostly watched some of it implode.

Gaetz collapsed, and others are struggling. And sure, many Democrats have been loudly speaking out against them.

But we keep hearing, at least in the media, that the strategy among Democrats and the larger progressive base is not “resistance,” as in 2016, but something more strategic.

I get that. People are not in a mode to take to the streets and protest en masse—though that is happening in some places—and instead want to learn from the successes (and mistakes) of the last four-year term of Trump.

So what is the strategy?

Well, as I said, we’ve certainly seen many Democrats speaking out forcefully against Trump’s nominees. And there was outrage in regard to his first interview, with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, in which he called for jailing the January 6th Committee and ending birthright citizenship.

At the same time, literally in the same weekend, influential South Carolina Democratic House member James Clyburn, who served in the Democratic leadership for years until 2023, called on Biden to pardon Trump if he’s going to also engage in preemptive pardons of Trump targets. And we see other Democrats making the mistake of 2016 that some made in thinking they can work with Trump.

The Washington Post published an editorial this week headlined, “Trump tries a softer tone—and a hard one too.” The editorial board notes that Trump, in his first interview since being elected, on “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker, seemed “conciliatory” on some things—like trying to “find a way” to stop Dreamers, those in the DACA program, from being deported, and claiming he wanted to keep medication abortion legal—while he also seemed harsh on other issues. Their takeaway at the end: “In short, as Mr. Trump approaches his second term, prepare for the worst—but do not assume it at every turn.”

I would say, keep the first part of that sentence and forget the last. We’ve heard Trump be conciliatory before—including on abortion and the Dreamers. In many ways the “Meet the Press” interview was like his first interview after the 2016 election, when he spoke with “60 Minutes.”

“We have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age,” Trump said on Sunday to Welker. “And many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country.”

Trump in fact said the same thing in 2016, that he wanted to do something about Dreamers—those young people who came to this country as children, often with parents, and grew up as every other American. Even into 2017 he was saying he wanted to protect the Dreamers.

“As president, my highest duty is to defend the American people and the Constitution of the United States of America,” he said in September 2017. “At the same time, I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are a nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”

But instead, Trump actually tried to kill the DACA program. Trump was led on by those neo-Nazi advisers, like Stephen Miller, and hardline right-wingers in Congress. There not only wasn’t a deal in Congress as Democrats pushed for one, but Trump took it out on the Dreamers when he claimed the Democrats stymied on other things, tweeting out, ‘NO DACA DEAL!”

Trump was stopped by the Supreme Court from killing DACA but still tried to kill the program again after that.

And we all know what Trump did on abortion, putting radicals on the Supreme Court and overturning Roe, even as he said early on he was not looking to do that.

So anyone who thinks that his “conciliatory gestures” now are openings is a bit delusional. And that seems to be the case with the Democrats who will work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on the Department of Government Efficiency they created. Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Ro Khanna and Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris said they’re open to or are going to work with the two billionaires as they believe spending can be cut (and obviously these Democrats support cuts to places like, say, the military, rather than social programs).

But these billionaires and the Trump administration are only looking to cut regulations so they can make more money for themselves, while cutting programs for other Americans. And as I’ve written, Republicans are already focusing on Social Security cuts.

It’s very naive of any Democrat to think anything good will come out of this. And beyond that, there should be no working with this fascistic administration. As for Congressman Clyburn’s suggestion that Joe Biden pardon Trump to “clean the slate”—while Trump is threatening to jail the January 6th Committee—with all due respect, he needs to just shut up, full stop. That is not the place most Democrats—including Biden—are right now.

A lot of people have short memories, and I suspect some of this is some Democrats trying to position themselves as having tried to reach out, so they can say that after Trump bites them. We’ll know more as Trump’s nominees have their confirmation hearings, where Democrats in the Senate will have an opportunity to put on a show and expose their and Trump’s extremism.

Whatever the case, Democrats haven’t really seemed to have settled on a cohesive strategy. But I think once Trump is in office and doing insane things, that will change. The reality of his fascistic impulses—and the Project 2025 agenda—will come into view, and nobody will be able to pretend otherwise.

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