Revolving Door Project | Where Is the Democratic Opposition?

Trump is rapidly imposing his fascist agenda with barely a whimper of protest from the Democratic Party.

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Just over a week into his second stint in the White House, President Donald Trump has succeeded in quickly unleashing chaos throughout the United States and beyond. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats have largely been MIA as Trump signs a flurry of harmful executive orders and his unfit Cabinet nominees sail through their confirmation hearings, often with bipartisan support.

Despite the unacceptable failure of Democratic leaders to put up a coordinated fight, the electorate’s disapproval of Trump is already on the rise. Imagine how thoroughly disgusted the public might be if we had a real opposition party committed to consistently and effectively communicating all the ways the Trump administration is hurting ordinary people.

Since Trump launched his ongoing executive action barrage on Inauguration Day, he has:

Imperiled the well-being of working people by illegally pausing the disbursement of federal funds, thus disrupting anti-poverty programs including Head Start and Medicaid;
Endangered cancer patients, along with scientific progress and public health more broadly, by derailing government-supported research;
Terrorized people of color through racist immigration raids, in which immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have been detained;
Violated the rights of transgender people in myriad ways, including by withdrawing federal support for gender-affirming healthcare for individuals under 19;
Weakened workers’ rights by firing officials on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in some cases unlawfully, and by repealing several anti-discrimination measures;
Jeopardized economic stability by sabotaging the federal workforce and freezing federal hiring, resulting in the revocation of job offers for civil servants tasked with monitoring banks to prevent failures;
Authorized unfettered corporate greed and corruption through the termination of inspectors general at more than a dozen federal agencies;
Greenlit right-wing political violence by pardoning January 6 insurrectionists and commuting the sentences of far-right extremists convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with Trump’s deadly 2021 coup attempt; and
Threatened economically disastrous trade wars with multiple countries, including neighboring Canada and Mexico.

That’s a non-comprehensive list. I haven’t even mentioned Trump’s unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship, his suspension of refugee resettlement, his abandonment of the OECD’s global minimum tax initiative, his desertion of the WHO amid the growing threat of a bird flu pandemic, his prohibition on issuing new regulations (apparently excluding the global gag rule on abortion he reinstated), or his simultaneous assault on wind power and declaration of a so-called “energy emergency” aimed at enabling even more oil and gas production while the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis wreaks havoc across the nation and globe. (One can’t defeat climate change by withdrawing from the Paris agreement, alas).

And what have congressional Democrats done in the face of Trump’s fascist onslaught? Not nearly enough. While they try to develop “a single message of opposition” to Trump and wait for the perfect moment to attack, Democratic lawmakers are allowing Trump to exude the dictatorial power he covets. It would be better politics for Democrats around the country to respond passionately to Trump’s wide-ranging barbarism, which might get people to pay attention to a variety of legitimate critiques.

For example, in the wake of Wednesday night’s tragic plane crash in D.C., do Democrats have a plan to energetically question Trump’s culpability? The Federal Aviation Administration is currently leaderless. Why? Because ex-FAA chief Michael Whitaker resigned on January 20, though he was essentially pushed out by Trump adviser Elon Musk, who criticized him for not approving SpaceX missions fast enough. At present, no acting FAA administrator has been appointed, and the agency has also been negatively affected by Trump’s hiring freeze. What’s more, Trump on Tuesday dismissed every member of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which exists to examine safety issues at airports.

Democratic Leaders Caught Flat-Footed

Trump’s shock-and-awe campaign reportedly caught Democrats off-guard, but it shouldn’t have. It’s incredibly cruel, to be sure, but not wholly unexpected. Trump is systematically implementing Project 2025’s suite of reactionary policies, just as predicted. Unless Democrats bought into Trump’s ludicrous attempt to distance himself from Project 2025—something nobody should have done given the strong overlap between the blueprint’s authors and Trump World—they should have been more prepared. That some Project 2025 contributors have been identified as the authors of pivotal recent White House memos only underscores my point.

As for the breakneck pace at which Trump is moving, that also should not have come as a surprise. The right’s so-called “flood the zone” strategy was named explicitly in 2018 by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Today, it’s being pushed by Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff for policy. According to the New York Times, Miller “believes that those he regards as Mr. Trump’s enemies—Democrats, the media, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and portions of the federal bureaucracy—are depleted and only have so much bandwidth for outrage and opposition.” His objective, the newspaper noted, is “to overwhelm them with a blitz of activity.”

So far, Democrats are proving Miller right. To be fair, individual lawmakers have made a small amount of ad hoc noise. For example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) argued on Tuesday that “while President Trump illegally pauses federal funding from Congress, the Senate must not be business as usual.” For his part, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stated that Trump “does not have the right to violate the United States Constitution. He is not a king.” Moreover, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said earlier this week that Trump’s firing of NLRB and EEOC officials showed that he “could not care less about the rights of workers,” adding, “Trump and Republicans are hell-bent on launching an all-out assault on working people and their rights—they’re just hoping we don’t notice.”

But we’re missing the type of well-organized yet diffuse opposition to Trump’s authoritarian power grabs that this moment calls for, including a willingness to obstruct business-as-usual rather than acquiesce to the Republican Party’s ongoing evisceration of U.S. democracy. For instance, see the following tweet shared Sunday by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-NY), a message of resignation that rightly elicited ridicule.

Notably, organizers on Monday observed that longtime Democratic voters are sick of their party leaders’ inaction.

At long last, Jeffries on Wednesday called a meeting “to open a ‘comprehensive three-pronged counteroffensive’ against Mr. Trump’s blitz,” the Times reported. But this begs the question: Why did it take nearly 10 days for Democratic leaders to sketch out a full-fledged response to Trumpian lawlessness?

If anything, the inexplicable delay serves as a reminder that when it comes to resisting Trumpism, the party’s abdication of duty began months ago, when Senate Democrats failed to confirm many of then-President Joe Biden’s nominees to independent agencies while they still controlled the upper chamber. Consequently, there are fewer public advocates in place to counter Trump and the GOP’s offensive against the public good.

“Despite this failure,” my colleague Toni Aguilar Rosenthal wrote Wednesday, “we call now on Democrats… to not preemptively resign from fights, nor to cede these issues to Republicans without challenge.” As Toni put it, “If Democrats want to motivate the voting public, they must (finally!) vociferously and continuously defend the law, our regulators, and the people they are meant to protect.”

Democratic Leaders Waiting for Trump to “Screw Up”

Unfortunately, what Rep. Gerry Connoly (D-VA), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told the Times on Wednesday exemplifies the passive and ineffective approach preferred by the party’s top brass:

“It’s a little bit like drinking from a fire hose,” Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia… said of the pace of Mr. Trump’s moves. But he said that speed is likely to cause sloppiness and mistakes.

“They’re going to stumble,” Mr. Connolly said. “They’re going to screw up, and we’re going to pounce when they do. In their haste to remake the federal government, they’re going to make big, big mistakes.”

In case anyone forgot, Connolly, a terminally ill 74-year-old member of the Democratic Party’s corporate-friendly establishment, won his critical minority leadership position over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), an energetic young progressive, after Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the 84-year-old former speaker, made several phone calls on his behalf while recovering from hip replacement surgery.

The wait-and-see method that Connolly is advocating for is akin to the “Prevent” defense that a lot of football teams run in certain situations, ostensibly to prevent their opponents from scoring when they’re mounting a comeback and/or there isn’t a lot of time on the clock. The idea is that, to avoid giving up a touchdown or a big play, the defense should keep everything in front of it, even if that means giving the offense a ton of cushion. The problem with this strategy, however, is that it often allows the offense to complete a series of short to moderate pass plays, cumulatively earning enough yards to put themselves in field goal range or at least a more realistic touchdown scenario. (That’s why critics call it the “Prevent Yourself From Winning” defense). Alternatively, an unexpected and well-timed corner blitz can stun the offense, as the Buffalo Bills learned the hard way on Sunday.

Given that it’s not the end of the first half or the 4th quarter (we’re just 10 days into Trump’s second term) and Trump’s team is currently up on the scoreboard, it makes even less sense for congressional Democrats to be giving the White House such a massive cushion. To have a chance of winning, Democrats need to aggressively pursue the quarterback rather than sitting back and hoping that he throws an interception. Constant and variegated pressure—not forbearance—is more likely to generate a turnover.

On Wednesday, Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were quick to claim credit after Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rescinded its unlawful memo ordering federal agencies to temporarily halt all grants and loans. However, it is unclear what, if anything, congressional Democrats other than Murray, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, did to provoke such a move. Furthermore, a premature victory lap is unwarranted and indicative of the weakness of Democratic leaders’ current approach to combating Trumpism.

To briefly recap, a federal judge stayed the Trump administration’s funding freeze before it was set to go into effect on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the White House said that OMB rescinded the order to circumvent the court’s injunction, adding that it still expected agencies to comply with Trump’s directives to identify and block spending he opposes. If this confusing saga makes one thing clear, it’s that Trump is absolutely intent on usurping Congress’ power of the purse, signaling that he has real autocratic ambitions.

At this point, Democrats ought to be gearing up for a fight over impoundment, the lawless refusal of a president to spend congressionally appropriated funds. Trump, who seeks unilateral power over federal funding, has deliberately triggered a constitutional crisis over spending authority—one that is likely to be appealed to and ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

Senate Democrats Inexplicably Helping Republicans

Sadly, there’s more evidence of Democratic fecklessness in the face of Trump 2.0. Consider that, with the exception of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Senate Democrats have so far helped Republicans confirm each of Trump’s Cabinet nominees by comfortable, and sometimes wide, margins:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was confirmed in a 99-0 vote;
CIA Director John Ratcliffe was confirmed in a 74-25 vote (20 Democrats and one Independent joined Republicans);
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was confirmed in a 77-22 vote (23 Democrats and one Independent joined Republicans);
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was confirmed in a 68-29 vote (15 Democrats and one Independent joined Republicans);
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was confirmed in a 59-34 vote (7 Democrats joined Republicans); and
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin was confirmed in a 56-42 vote (3 Democrats joined Republicans).

Rubber-stamping the individuals who Trump hand-picked to implement his regressive agenda is inconsistent with Democratic lawmakers’ (correct) warnings that Trump poses an existential threat to democratic government and a livable planet.

Each of the above votes should have had 47 nays. Democrats are under no obligation to help Republicans. Currently, voters associate Democrats with “bipartisan solutions” and do not reward them for it.

Embracing bipartisanship is especially reckless at a time when the majority party—led by a billionaire despot who has surrounded himself with billionaire oligarchs—is trying to fully eradicate government of, by, and for the people. Instead, Democrats should force Trump and his Republican lackeys to unilaterally own the impending carnage.