Democrats are not planning an all-hands resistance to President-elect Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least not in 2016 style, when lawmakers, activists, volunteers and millions of angry voters mounted a party-wide effort to curb his newfound influence in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where so much was once unprecedented, Trump is now familiar. Ahead of January 2025, the lack of a unified Democratic rebuttal<\/u><\/a> to his second term is the latest sign that the party\u2019s just beginning to soul search, trying to figure out what went wrong before banding together to bash the GOP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe one thing we seem to know is the strategy of being an anti-Trump party didn\u2019t work any better than when we became a primarily anti-Bush party,\u201d said Max Burns, a Democratic commentator. \u201cIn that transformation, we seem to have become unclear about what our actual pro-Democrat message is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s more like Republicans post-1960 than anything,\u201d he said, \u201cwhere the loss led to a real round of questioning about what our values are and what our strategy is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the one hand, the month-and-a-half postelection period can seem like decades, as D.C.\u2019s political class awaits the unpredictable transition of power. On the other, it\u2019s just a blip in what many expect to be a long undertaking to redefine the Democratic Party beyond Trump\u2019s shadow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As voters who found sympathies with Trump inch closer toward a home with the GOP, liberals and moderates are in the messy process of figuring out their ideals, how to unite around them and how to message everything to the rest of the country. Results showed it\u2019s not motivating enough to be against the MAGA president-elect, challenging a doctrine party loyalists have clung to over the past eight years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While some still insist Trump\u2019s reelection remains an existential threat, those voices have become more muted. Democrats\u2019 \u201csave our democracy\u201d rhetoric, a fear-based approach effective in past cycles, tanked this time, and many want a new way of operating after losing significant power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2017 pomp and circumstance of rage solidarity has also died down. Back then, America\u2019s raw political divisions and fear of the unknown prompted thousands to pour into the streets, protesting what they saw as Trump\u2019s misogyny with a \u201cWomen\u2019s March\u201d<\/u><\/a> and similar advocacy uprisings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is clear that fighting back against Trump and MAGA will definitely look different this time than it did in 2017 because the circumstances are different,\u201d said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn PAC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut there is energy to organize and push back that we know is there. The key will be understanding that we have to be strategic with how we deploy that energy,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, Democrats are slowly unpacking their recent losses with constituencies whom they saw move even further away from their party, questioning if being fully against Trump is the right approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re clearly not persuading labor, or Hispanics, or young people the way we used to, because our message is so vague now that it\u2019s hard to grab onto and rally behind,\u201d said Burns. \u201cVoters are angry, and they want populism, and they\u2019ll take a bad version over none at all, so Trump gets to sell his sham populism largely unchallenged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Progressives have started to try a new tactic. Some in the Senate and House have expressed a willingness to consider \u2014 or, even in some cases, enthusiastically embrace \u2014 Trump\u2019s goals and administration picks. It\u2019s different from the tone ahead of his first term, when the sheer shock value of many of his choices burned through any goodwill Democrats may have been willing to offer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some on the left are challenging Democrats\u2019 default to reject Republicans just for the sake of party loyalty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think the hypocrisy of opposing an idea you agree with because somebody on the other side also agrees is what is seen as one of the biggest problems with the two-party system right now,\u201d said a former campaign adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSeriously, when you talk to actual voters, most \u2026 don\u2019t apply an ideological definition to their beliefs,\u201d the former adviser said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Others on Capitol Hill are already targeting potential areas for partnership, hoping to steer the party toward a common ground, at least in the earliest days of the partisan changeover. The most notable example is the budding debate around defense money, an early focus of Trump and progressives alike, where high spending from the Pentagon has been criticized by some prominent members of both parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Ro Khanna\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D-Calif.), is emerging as a leader presenting an alternative way to work with Trump-aligned members of Congress. He told The Hill that he would \u201cwelcome efforts\u201d to engage with Republicans where their priorities meet, including on the military budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think it\u2019s very important to not categorize everyone into left vs. right,\u201d said Hassan Martini, a Democratic strategist and executive director of the group No Dem Left Behind. Instead, he said, his party should \u201creally look into each person\u2019s comments and actions on an individual basis.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, some top Democrats have reignited their adversarial style against Trump and his current allies, aiming for consistency in showing that they don\u2019t endorse the right-wing agenda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrump and congressional Republicans are already signaling that they are going to overplay their hand, and we will be ready to hold them accountable when they do that,\u201d said Epting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who was one of the most outspoken figures in the so-called resistance effort to Trump\u2019s first term, hasn\u2019t changed her posture for his return to Pennsylvania Avenue. She\u2019s been critical of several of Trump\u2019s proposed Cabinet leaders, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the possible head of the Health and Human Services Department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Warren\u2019s role on the Senate Finance Committee means that she will be a key figure in Kennedy\u2019s confirmation fight, where she has already indicated staunch opposition to his views on vaccinations and other conspiracy theories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSay goodbye to your smile and say hello to polio,\u201d the Massachusetts senator said in a recent video clip<\/u><\/a>. \u201cYou know, I would laugh if it weren\u2019t so scary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats\u2019 postelection slump has also caused many to turn their attention toward an election more within their wheelhouse: the race to select the next Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair. Lawmakers, strategists and activists believe they can now craft the direction of the DNC differently than what they had last cycle, where the pro-democracy messaging and large focus on abortion did not work in their favor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Progressives fear that moderates will angle for more of the same type of centrism that caused Democrats defeats, while middle-ground stalwarts see too much liberalism as the reason they lost to Trump all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n