Here’s Your Damn Playbook, Democrats

You can see how Democrats got the wrong idea. When President Trump was sworn into his second term one year ago, it was not unreasonable for the opposition to feel somewhat cowed. Though his victory was narrow, Trump won the popular vote and made significant enough inroads into traditional Democratic constituencies—young people, people of color, working-class people—that his grandiose claims of a political realignment were arguably credible. That wasn’t an excuse to roll over—standing up to the regime was essential. But there was an argument for Democrats to be careful about picking their spots.

A year later, things look very different. Trump’s approval ratings are dismal on everything from the economy to immigration; more than half of Americans say his policies have made life less affordable for them; and his support among young and non-white voters has cratered. His 2024 victory was not a story of realignment, but a more banal case of economic concerns bringing down an unpopular incumbent—a story that now applies with full force to Trump’s own presidency.

A normal opposition would be chugging coffee and suiting up for battle right now. “We’ve got them on the ropes, let’s go on the offense” is the appropriate response to our current political dynamics.

Instead, inexplicably, the leaders of the Democratic Party are still refusing to give up the fearful crouch they adopted immediately after the 2024 election. The most egregious recent example is their failure to organize serious opposition to funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The splitscreen we’ve been seeing on this in recent days is outrageous. ICE officers are kidnapping half-naked grandpas in the freezing cold; they’re denying legal counsel to detainees; they’re entering homes without warrants; they’re using chemical weapons against high school students; they’re sending babies to the hospital; they’re detaining five-year-old children. They are violently occupying American cities, acting like the Gestapo that Trump seems to want them to be.

And at the same time, as we speed towards one of Congressional Democrats’ last remaining points of leverage against this regime—the January 30 deadline to pass an appropriations bill to keep the government open—we’re reading headlines like “Congress clinches $1.2T funding deal for DHS …” and “Democrats support bill that would give ICE $10 billion” and “Jeffries won’t whip vote against ICE funding.” We’re even seeing Democratic leaders propose more funding for ICE training and body cameras, just weeks after Jonathan Ross, a longtime ICE firearms instructor, literally filmed himself shooting Renee Good in the face.

This is untenable. No rational, functioning opposition party would step in to fund the primary enforcement mechanism of the authoritarian takeover they ostensibly oppose. Failing to whip the Democratic caucus to oppose this legislation, as Hakeem Jeffries has already done in the House and Chuck “Folds Every Time” Schumer has shown every indication of doing in the Senate (where Republicans will need Democratic support to reach the 60 votes necessary to pass their Gestapo funding bill) would be both a moral catastrophe and political malpractice.

Americans are seeing what ICE is doing, and they don’t like it. Polling shows that a majority of Americans view ICE unfavorably and support restrictions on the agency. And for nearly half of the country, these concerns are not theoretical, they’re personal: 46 percent of Americans report being somewhat or very concerned that ICE could mistreat someone they know. This is the kind of playing field in which a fight—which will drive further attention towards ICE’s abuses—is politically advantageous. (To be clear, this is a fight worth picking on principle, even if it’s not a political slam dunk—but the fact is, it’s both!)

The same can be said on the topic of climate change and energy. Trump’s positions here are not just deranged—just this week he spent an inordinate amount of time in his Davos speech ranting that wind turbines are “losers” that only “stupid people buy”—they’re also deeply unpopular. Supermajorities of Americans want to see more wind and solar power, and say that expanding these renewable energy sources is a more important priority than expanding fossil fuels. Yet Trump has threatened or canceled 321 major clean energy projects over the last year, keeping enough electricity to power 13.6 million homes off the grid. This will drive up utility costs, and make our grid less resilient to blackouts like those that countless Americans are likely to experience during the upcoming, climate change–driven winter storm. And yet leaders within the Democratic establishment not only refuse to go on the offensive on these issues, but are actually advocating for Democrats to abandon climate action.

Instead of listening to these people, Dems might try looking to almost everyone else to learn how to rise to the occasion. Despite everything Trump has done to stop the clean energy transition, renewables have continued to grow, thanks in large part to the actions of regular people who are getting solar panels, installing heat pumps, and taking action however they can. The fight against ICE has been even more instructive: In the weeks since ICE began its assault on Minneapolis, we’ve seen thousands of people organizing—sometimes through established activist channels, but as often as not through churches, neighborhood group chats, and school Facebook groups—to stand up to Trump’s attacks on their neighbors. They’re following ICE officers across the city, honking horns, blowing whistles, recording abductions, and nonviolently disrupting these hateful operations however they can. Other community members are mobilizing to deliver groceries and offer rides to migrants who are afraid to leave their homes.

It’s among the most beautiful examples of real-life antifascism I have ever seen. And it’s why, as deeply horrifying as these last few weeks have been—and as soul-crushing as it’s felt to watch Democrats once again utterly fail to meet the most basic minimum standards for an opposition party—I am actually, right now, feeling more optimistic about the survival of American democracy than I have in a long time.

Over the last year we’ve seen the Democratic establishment, alongside practically every other elite institution in American society, bend the knee to Trump. But regular people all across the country—the people with the most to lose, who are the least insulated against the consequences of their resistance—have consistently refused to give in.

This is where our salvation lies: in our relationships in our communities, our love for our neighbors, and our hatred of bullies. There’s a suffocating amount of malice and evil out there right now. But there’s also a tremendous amount of good old-fashioned American moxie, compassion, and stubbornness. As fragile and corrupt as our elite institutions have revealed themselves to be, the people in this country are demonstrating real resilience against Trump’s authoritarianism. This should inform our strategies of resistance moving forward. And perhaps even more importantly, it should provide us with a durable source of hope as we look down the barrel of three increasingly dark and dangerous years. If all we had to rely on in our fight against fascism was the Democratic Party, we’d be toast. But that’s not all we have. We have each other—and that’s turning out to be a more powerful bulwark than I ever expected.