Democrats, Once Nimble Political Runners, Exhausting Themselves Chasing Trump

As President Trump races to implement his agenda, Democrats are out of gas and struggling to keep pace. Without a designated leader or clear message, they’ve lost the discipline that once defined their party, eroding its ability to mount an effective opposition much less to regain support.Losing the presidency and both houses of Congress stunned the left. This was reflected when he was sworn in last month, when the angry demonstrations that greeted Mr. Trump’s 2017 inauguration failed to materialize. Nationwide protests called for Monday and February 5 fizzled too.Thursday’s Gallup poll reflected this weakened position: 45 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want the party to become “more moderate.” In the immediate aftermath of the election, Democratic officeholders seemed to be hearing that message.Punchbowl News spoke to “several Democrats” last month who were “open to teaming up with Trump.” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her party was “too reflexively anti-Republican” and told NY1 that she saw “windows” to work with the president.In the months since, however, Democrats have avoided common ground. Knowing it was an uphill battle, they opposed all of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet nominees in the Senate and stopped none. No Democrats voted to confirm Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a former DNC vice chair, as the director of national intelligence.Rather than work together, Democrats have fallen back into their comfortable, but ineffective, role of contrarians, meeting Mr. Trump with a steady stream of outrage. Even when they start to gain footing, the president finds distracting them as easy as posting a tweet.Speed is Mr. Trump’s greatest asset. Where he is, in the blink of an eye, becomes where he used to be. For example, when he announced tariffs against Colombia, Democrats began cranking out doomsday scenarios, only to see the standoff resolved and the president declare victory in a matter of hours.The head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, makes focusing on Mr. Trump even more challenging. Famous, rich, and eloquent, Democrats hang on his words as much as the president’s. This spreads thin resources even thinner, while the White House agenda steamrolls ahead.Democratic broadsides are often startling for their impotence. Mr. Trump was in office less than a week when many began blaming him for not ending the Ukraine War, reducing egg prices, and fixing inflation.Many on the left took to declaring a “constitutional crisis” over Mr. Trump challenging court rulings. Senator Klobuchar told CNN on Sunday that she’s “not quite there yet,” but is one of the few resisting the catchy, alliterative phrase that invokes Watergate.Democrats are taking too many low-percentage slapshots that offer Mr. Trump’s supporters ample opportunity to mount defenses. They muddy the waters and cast the president in a role he favors: The underdog fighting shadowy “deep state” forces in “the swamp.”With Mr. Trump executing so many actions per minute, Democrats are exhausting themselves by going nuclear on every single one. Doing so hurts their chances of getting their message out in the press and of building back lost support.President Clinton’s pollster, James Carville, said on Thursday’s Politics War Room podcast that Mr. Trump has “overwhelmed” Democrats. Referring to a strategy of Mr. Trump’s former aide, Steve Bannon, he said Democrats “are flooded in shit and we are searching for a way to deal with this.”The previous week on War Room, Mr. Carville criticized a DNC mandate to have a “non-binary candidate or officer.” He wondered if there was a “plant somewhere in, quote, progressive, unquote America” to see “how many jackass, stupid things they can embrace.”Indeed, Democrats lack the discipline they showed under President Clinton in the 1992 and 1996 campaigns. Mr. Carville’s famous statement, “It’s the economy, stupid,” was aimed at getting staffers to concentrate on that single issue and not get lost in the weeds.Mr. Trump is enjoying a solid run, and Democrats lack the power to slow his roll. Their best course is to wait for a stumble or chance to force one. In the meantime, they can coax back their dissatisfied supporters by easing up on the panic — and maybe take a moment to catch their breath.

Democrats, Once Nimble Political Runners, Exhausting Themselves Chasing Trump

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