Since the (re)election of Donald Trump, it's natural that Democrats would engage in some self-reflection. Of course, it's not like Republicans did that after Trump lost in 2020 and then tried to overthrow the election. But, you know, if you're a rational group of humans, you reassess after you lost and think about what you could do better. Perhaps you come up with some new ways to inspire voters. Perhaps you think about the running of campaigns and methods. Maybe you even figure out how to present your party's beliefs in a way that makes more sense.
You know what you don't do? You don't cry, "Uncle" for an extended period of time while punching yourself in the face repeatedly. You don't decide that the real solution to your failure to move the needle the two percent it might have taken to win is to abandon your values and to turn your back on the rhetoric you used throughout the campaign about Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. You don't throw people and movements under the bus. And you don't, you absolutely don't offer a helping hand and any words of encouragement or praise for a man who you declared a "fascist" and a "Nazi" and a criminal and a rapist whose return to power would mark the end of American democracy and would plunge the world into chaos.
But that's exactly what Democrats have been doing. From Joe Biden, who is still president, acting chummy with Trump at the White House to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis praising the lunatic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to Bernie freakin' Sanders starting a tweet about the Pentagon budget with "Elon Musk is right." You know what you call someone who is willing to work with fascists? I don't think I even have to answer that.
Sanders has been extra odious, saying that the election results were because Democrats "abandoned working class people." Then you add in Democrats like rank opportunists Reps. Seth Moulton and Tom Suozzi blaming their party for refusing to condemn the extraordinarily rare occurrence of transgender girls playing in girls sports in high school, with Suozzi saying that the party was "pandering to the far left." Look, I don't think Kamala Harris ran a flawless campaign at all, but one thing you cannot say about her or the Biden administration is that they didn't do anything for the working class or that they did anything about transgender rights. It's simply false on both accounts. And it's giving Republican lies credence instead of saying what's really true, which is that Trump won because people believed his falsehoods, not because he was telling any hard truths. You have to be willing to tell people who voted against you that they're wrong, not that you're wrong.
What Democrats are missing right now is that we, the base, desperately need to see them out there fighting. Yes, there has been some strong condemnation of Trump's alarming parade of criminals, predators, freaks, and con artists as nominees to cabinet and other offices. But that's not enough to rally us because lemme tell you something, Democratic leadership, we're hurting. We're watching as the cases against Trump for genuinely serious crimes (like, you know, leading a coup and stealing top secret documents) disappear. We're watching as the other cases are ground down in proceedings that will likely end with dismissal. We're waiting for the Biden administration to go into overdrive for not just judicial appointments, but for things like renewal of Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of migrants.
But even that's not enough. One of the things that Republicans did successfully when they were out of power was fight and fight, even if they were losing battles, like the constant effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act. And I know you're tired, Democrats in office. God, we voters are, too. But we're angry, and you're giving us nothing to focus our anger and our desire to resist.
Right now, I'd love to see some Hail Mary passes from the Biden administration. I want to see him grant blanket immunity to every migrant who has applied for asylum and to pardon all the Dreamers and give them a path to citizenship. I want to see him try one more time to come up with a way to do away with student loan debt. I want him to commute the sentences of every federal prisoner on death row so that Trump can't come in and start executions again.
And I want to see Democrats go for it on whether or not Trump is ineligible to take office under the 14th Amendment's prohibition on anyone having committed insurrection from being president.
I know, I know, I know these are all causes that are likely doomed to fail (except for the commutation of sentences, which is totally within the president's power). But losing causes also draw a line in the sand; they clarify what you believe in and what your opponents believe, and they show that you are willing to fight, even when the odds are against you. That gets people ready to go again when the 2026 midterms come around: we can see what's possible if power is shifted, we can get the messaging tested and strong, and we can see you're not just laying down your arms.
Even on a symbolic level, I want to see the groveling before Trump to stop. No Democrat should go to the inauguration. By going, you are ignoring his lies, and you might believe you are honoring the American tradition of peaceful transfer of power, but you're actually giving aid and comfort to someone who ended that tradition. You're forgiving a criminal who has show no remorse and you're abandoning everything that Democrats have fought against for the last decade And for what? For the hope that he maybe won't set a Kash Patel-led FBI after you for having opposed him? For a moment of his idiot hordes not inundating your offices with death threats? Being decent to indecent people is a fool's game.
Because, see, right now it seems like Democrats aren't fighting. It seems like they've surrendered. And that sucks because the rest of us out here in the trenches haven't.
