Why it’s time for Senate Democrats to get ugly

I don’t know what incentive there is for the Senate Democrats to play along with Donald Trump. Right now, there seems to be some reason, however oblique, to give lip-service at least to the idea of getting along with the president-elect, even though his administration already promises to be the worst of our lifetimes. Perhaps that will change by the time the next Congress is seated, but so far, it doesn’t look good.

Robert F Kennedy Jr is, for instance, the most terrible choice imaginable to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services. For one thing, he’s a conspiracy theorist. He believes vaccines cause autism, among other insane convictions. For another, he’sascammer.

During his brief campaign, he vowed to “restore America as the global example of health & well-being. Not through pills or syringes, but through character and self-discipline.” That’s rich from a former heroin addict and 70-year-old who’s clearly juicing. (This is not to mention the scam of saying that he could win the election when third parties never win, which we know is true on account of them never winning.)

And yet some Democratic Senators are going out of their way to say they will keep an open mind. New Jersey’s Cory Booker said he’s not an automatic no vote on Kennedy. Vermont’s Bernie Sanders said he "understands" Kennedy’s criticism of the food industry. It “makes billions of dollars by getting our children addicted to unhealthy food, which causes diabetes and a bunch of other illnesses," Sanders said.

But it’s Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman who has whiplash. Last month, he said: “I’m not going to really take any kind of advice [from] a dude that chainsaws whale heads and delivers dead bears into a park." This month? “I’m not immediately, like, 100 percent hell no. If that’s going to be the guy, you have to discover where you can work together.”

Do you really have to, though?

From where I’m standing, Robert F Kennedy Jr. is elite America’s version of a street crazy. There may be some truth hidden deep down in all the lies and delusion, but is it the Senate Democrats’ job to find it? Are they unreasonable for preferring sane and competent cabinet nominees? Are they obligated to work with Trump’s bad choices?

I don’t think so.

But then again, who am I?

I talked about this with Stephen Robinson. He’s the publisher of The Play Typer Guy, an excellent newsletter about politics and the arts. (It’s one of two newsletters I read regularly, the other being Noah Berlatsky’s). Stephen invited me to be on his podcast to talk about the Democrats’ reaction to Trump. I’m reposting the full podcast and the brief edited transcription of it below with Stephen’s kind permission.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

SER: It just seems as if [Democrats] are responding and acting as if Nikki Haley, or even Ron DeSantis, had won, and not Trump, despite what we've been seeing. What are your thoughts on that, John?

STOEHR: I didn’t really start thinking about this until Trump started nominating people for his cabinet. The first thing I noticed is that every one of them is terrible. Well, maybe not every single one, but most have no business leading anything bigger than a front office.

It’s an affront to anybody’s sense of merit and excellence. Like you teach your kid, if you want something, you got to work at it and try hard and take a risk and achieve and then establish mastery over whatever subject you choose to do and gain the respect and admiration of your peers and so on and so forth.

Most of these people have none of that … but I started really thinking about it when I heard the Democratic reaction to some of these people, in particular, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, the senator there, saying that Dr. Oz would be just fine in overseeing Medicare and Medicaid, as long as he promised to protect Medicare and Medicaid.

That is the lowest threshold you can put on somebody who is not qualified. He’s a TV personality. Why are we playing nice?

They’re giving us the football, Stephen.

They’re saying, “Run 99 yards and score a touchdown.” We’re saying, “No, thanks. I’m not going to do that because my reputation for being reasonable is more important than actually scoring points.”

SER: You think about what needs to be done and you feel as if you’re asking a mouse to behave like a fox. That’s kind of what's happening. I hate to use the term like “run like a business,” but going back to 2016, there'll be a tremendous loss, an outcome that is not what they expected, and then the leadership [just reports to work the next day.]

Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin aren’t wartime consiglieres, but there’s no change in the Senate. It’s like if you and me are the Duke of Suffolk or something and we're gonna have this setup forever. Nothing changes, but even with the aristocracy, there might be a palace coup.

There's no palace coup.

This is the team we have forever.

STOEHR: That could lead to the impression that there's no accountability even within the Democratic Party. … The Democrats are really stuck on policy, and I’m telling you, if I know anything, it’s two things. One is white evangelical Protestantism. I know a lot about that. I’m an “expert,” right? And two is white working class people. White working class people know nothing about policy. You can talk to them about policy all day, really, all day, and it just won’t matter that much.

Now, I’m not saying they’re stupid. It’s just that they don’t hear it, right? What they hear is power [gestures]. If you are talking from a position of strength, you could be talking about Dunkin' Donuts. The thing you’re talking about won’t matter. What they hear is how you're talking about it. That’s why Bernie Sanders was so attractive. That’s why Donald Trump is so attractive. It’s the way he talks.

When [Democrats] talk about policy, they put a premium on sounding reasonable. Sticking with the facts, measuring outcomes, things like that. You’re going to lose voters. They're just not going to hear it.

Let me give you an example. Right now, the Republicans are talking about how Social Security and Medicare are on the table. When it comes to the next budget in the next Congress, they are going to have to make “hard choices” in what to do with Social Security and so on.

I know what the Democrats are going to do.

They’re going to put up a full-throated defense of Social Security and Medicare. They’re going to say that this is important and we have to take care of people and so on and so forth. Fine. They should do that.

But what they really should be doing is saying:

“These Republicans are a bunch of scammers. They’re scamming you out of your money. They told you one thing, now they're doing another. You should never trust them. We told you so.”

That gets people’s attention.

Not reasonable, educated people. It doesn’t get their attention. Reasonable, educated people care about policy. They can hear reasoned debate. They can follow the train of logic and so on.

White working class people, however smart they might be, don’t.

They don’t react to those signals because they're looking for other signals. They’re looking for Trump signals. If you say that Republicans are a bunch of scammers, they’re going to be like, huh, okay. Either they’re going to say there’s a point to that or they’re going to argue with it. Either way, they’re reacting, and that’s where you need to be.

SER: I agree with you, and I do actually take it further. There are no reasonable people. I think we just flatter ourselves with that argument.

We see this a lot, like when [Democrats] talk about Project 2025, which always sounded cool to me. It was like a sci-fi series. They would say things like, “Oh, Trump’s going to dismantle the administrative state.” Well, OK, but the other side is saying that you’re going to send your kid to school and [liberals] are going to change their gender.

STOEHR: Democrats actually believe politics is a bad thing. This is why they continually go back to this word “distraction.” You know, the bigotry and the race-baiting and so on is just a distraction away from the real issues, and if we can just set that aside and focus on the real issues, then they might reach this mythical undecided voter, etc.

But the undecided voter doesn't react to those kinds of signals.

They react to power gestures because undecided voters really are not paying attention. They don't really care that much. They just don't.

I haven’t written about this yet. It’s kind of percolating in my mind, but Democrats need to set aside the whole idea of distraction and they need to center rightwing politics and say, this is the problem: [Republicans] are terrible people. They’re trying to scam you. They are hateful and we don’t like them any more than you do. Just like that.

But there’s a fear.

It’s the fear — especially the Joe Manchin types — that they know they're at a disadvantage. So to center the bigotry, which is already leaning on them pretty heavily, they feel like that’s a kind of suicide.

But I don’t think it is.

You should hate the hate is another way of putting it. Hate the hate. You’re going to take the risk of being [accused of being] just like those people, but I don’t really buy that either. You should just use the power you have when you have it. You should scream like bloody murder when you don't have power. I mean, you just should, just do that.

I think that’s good politics.