The Democratic Party Slides Into Irrelevance
By: David A. Graham ( The Atlantic via Yahoo News)
Donald Trump is the last, best hope for the Democratic Party. How amazing is that?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
This past weekend marked a high for opposition to Donald Trump, and another low for the opposition party.
From Chula Vista, California, to Portland, Maine, and from Bellingham, Washington, to Key Largo, Florida, Americans demonstrated against the president, in "No Kings" protests scheduled to coincide with Trump's military parade in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. The parade, desultory and poorly attended, set a striking contrast with the marchers, whom observers estimated to number in the millions. That would make Saturday's protests some of the largest in American history. Three of the biggest sets of U.S. demonstrations have taken place while Trump has been president, an indication of intense grassroots opposition toward him and his vision for the Republican Party.
So these ought to be boom times for America's other major party. But Democrats seemed almost entirely irrelevant last weekend. While many ordinary Americans engaged in the most kinetic kind of politics, the Democratic National Committee was splintering acrimoniously, and some of the party's most prominent leaders were busy attending a glitzy Hamptons wedding that brought together two venerable, aging dynasties: the Soros family and the Clinton political machine. Although Democratic officials attended and spoke at many of Saturday's rallies, the No Kings protests were not driven by the Democratic Party—which may have been one of the protests' strengths.
Not every Democratic politician is missing in action. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who spent recent months clumsily attempting to moderate his image by inviting MAGA figures on his podcast, now finds himself as the nation's foremost Trump foil. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz wonpraise for his handling of the response to the assassination of one state legislator and the wounding of another this past weekend. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have drawn huge crowds at rallies around the country.
As a whole, however, the Democratic Party seems unprepared and uninspired. Internally, the party is more consumed with relitigating 2024 than with looking toward 2026. It has no apparent leader: Barack Obama is apathetic, Joe Biden is obsolete, and Kamala Harris lost. The congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are hapless, declaring red lines that they have no evident means or intent of enforcing. (Did they not learn their lesson from Obama's red-line follies?) That means de facto leadership falls to the DNC. The party elected a new chair, Minnesota's Ken Martin, in February, but Martin has so far failed to inspire or unify the party.
Martin's term has been most preoccupied with trying to manage David Hogg, the young gun-control activist who was elected DNC vice chair in February and then announced plans to spend millions backing primary challengers to sitting Democrats in safe seats. Challenging sitting officeholders isn't bad per se—in fact, it's often good for revitalizing politics—but for a top party official to be driving those seems to cut against the idea of a party organization.
Democratic leaders first tried to badger Hogg into giving up the plan, but he refused. Then they stumbled on a solution of sorts that got rid of Hogg but validated every stereotype of Democrats as obsessed with procedure, consumed by elaborate diversity rules, and generally incompetent. A woman who'd unsuccessfully run against Hogg for vice chair argued that the DNC had violated its own rules and unfairly benefited two male candidates. The DNC concluded that the challenge was correct; invalidated the election of Hogg and another vice chair, Malcolm Kenyatta; and ordered a do-over. Hogg opted not to run in the new election. Problem solved!
Along the way, however, audio in which Martin whined about how it had all affected him was leaked to Politico. "I'll be very honest with you," he said. "The other night, I said to myself for the first time, I don't know if I wanna do this anymore." Addressing Hogg, he went on: "I don't think you intended this, but you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to. So it's really frustrating."
No doubt, this has been unpleasant for Martin, but it's not encouraging that the guy Democrats chose to lead them as they take on a budding authoritarian is crumbling in the face of a 25-year-old activist with a relatively small war chest.
Then, on Sunday, reports surfaced that Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, had left the DNC; they complained that Martin was, in Weingarten's words, "not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more and more of our communities." Both had backed one of Martin's challengers for chairperson, and Weingarten had supported Hogg; before resigning, they'd been kicked out of seats on the powerful Rules and Bylaws Committee.
Weingarten is a lightning rod, and teachers unions are controversial among Democrats. But the DNC can hardly afford to lose the buy-in of major unions. Organized labor provides both funding and foot soldiers for Democratic candidates. This has long been true, but the situation is more fragile than ever, as Trump has made gains among union members and union leaders. In 2024, he was able to persuade both the Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters to forgo endorsements altogether. Forget enlarging the tent—the DNC appears to be in danger of shrinking it.
The good news for Democrats is that the midterms are more than a year away, and the 2028 election is more than three years away—an eternity in politics. Trump can't figure out his position on even his signature issue of immigration, his administration is understaffed and underprepared, and public disapproval is strong; when he's been in office, voters have rejected him and his allies at the ballot box. But if anyone can figure out how to fumble the situation, it's the Democratic Party.
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The good news for Democrats is they have a political eternity to find themselves. The bad news for Democrats is they don't seem to know where to look to find themselves.
Democrats would thank God for Donald Trump except they can't afford to lose the atheist vote.
The good news for Democrats is that this isn't just a "Democrats vs Republicans" fight, it's an ideological progressive's vs conservatives, and progressives ALWAYS win eventually, it just takes a little longer sometimes. The rightwing religious conservatives of today would be called leftists by their rightwing religious conservative ancestors. Why? Because of progressives moving us towards a more perfect union while conservatives try their best but fail at clinging to their archaic bigoted status quo.
This time the pendulum that swings in our country between conservative and progressive extremes is going to swing so far back left after these dipshit rightwing conservatives are kicked out of office that the pendulum will go over the top and get stuck at its apex. This shift cannot come soon enough as our nation will continue to suffer the ignorance and arrogance of conservative morons making us all less safe until progressives, under whatever party label they choose whether Democrats or green party or perhaps the 'Great American Party' to stuff a fucking stick in MAGA's eye.
It's actually more like the far left vs the traditional left. And the far left has been threatening to primary the traditional left candidates. Joe Biden did not unite the Democratic party because he was not far enough left. Now that Pope Leo XIV has been inaugurated, Democratic Catholics may become more visible.
(Remember Joe Biden is a Catholic; so that far left Christianophobia won't unite the Democratic Party. Hispanic immigrants tend to be more religious, too. Have you noticed that Democrats haven't been dominating the Hispanic vote the way they dominate the Black vote?)
Like who? Trump won't run in 2028. At present it looks like Republicans will be running with much, much younger candidates. Besides, the national debt has become such a serious problem that Democrats will likely be reluctant to promise more far left democratic socialism. The Democratic Party can't afford to appease and pander to the far left any longer. So don't count on buying votes with bigger social programs.
The democrats have no message that appeals to anyone outside the extreme left other than "Trump is bad"
It worked in 2020 and was a disaster in 2024. I guess they want to try it one more time(best of 3) even though trump is not running.
Trump has not won either a congressional election or presidential election as an incumbent. That is because when they see him in office people are reminded what a fuck up he is.
As I said, democrats have no message that appeals to anyone outside the extreme left other than "Trump is bad"
The Democrats appear to have completely lost their way. The last election had them losing ground in just about every demographic, especially minority men and young people. They seem to have abandoned the middle and working class and be on the wrong side of about every issue that's important to the average, normal American citizen.
They refuse to listen to the likes of Bill Maher, James Carville, and Fetterman, all staunch liberals, about changing their views and attitudes. At this point, they are the gift that keeps on giving to the Republicans