Democrats have had years to prepare for a second Donald Trump presidency, but without a captain at the wheel, they look like they are listing into oblivion.
The early days of Trump’s second term could hardly be more different than when he first came to Washington in 2017. Back then, Trump was still learning how to pull the levers of power while relying on insiders to help direct him.
But in his triumphant return, he’s more sure of himself and what he can do. Weeks before his inauguration, he started announcing his Cabinet picks. He said he was going to take 200 executive actions on Day One, addressing core planks of a campaign that pulled nearly every locality in the country rightward with his message of taming chaos at the southern border and restoring the prepandemic economy.
Bouncing from his “golden age” inaugural address in the Capitol rotunda to the speech he said he wanted to give all along but had to be reined in by his advisers, Trump reminded the country what presidential vigor and energy look like.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) was one of the hosts for his inaugural luncheon, welcoming him back with smiles and jokes about the food options from her home state. It was an image that was hard to shake a week later when she stood at a podium blasting Trump for directing the Office of Management and Budget to freeze all federal loans and grants pending a review.
In the lead-up to his return, Trump has made allies out of the Silicon Valley billionaires who threw up nothing but roadblocks for him eight years ago. Besides their cash, he appears to have taken their mindset when it comes to starting something new — Trump is moving fast and breaking things.
Democratic doldrums
Before he started shaking up the way Washington runs, Trump shattered Democrats’ spirits.
His comeback for the ages sent Democrats to the sidelines to lick their wounds. Out of power and out of mind, they questioned how, four years after Trump was consigned to the political wilderness, he had roared back to win not only the Electoral College but the popular vote.
Rather than preparing to counter his well-telegraphed plans, Democrats proceeded to fight with themselves about whether their problem was messaging or if they had simply lost touch.
Then-Vice President Kamala Harris had decamped to California after her defeat, and then-President Joe Biden had long since been ushered off the stage.
A competitive primary might have given Democrats another leader to look to in this moment. It might have revealed Biden’s shortcomings earlier and forced him out of the contest in time for Harris, or another candidate, to run a campaign that lasted longer than 100 days.
Instead, Democrats were left twisting in the wind. Facing a future in the minority in Washington, state and national leaders started talking about how they were willing to work with Trump and Republicans rather than try to replay the 2017 “resistance” playbook.
Democrats readily admit their messaging is a mess — their decision to make identity politics the core of their appeal has made it nearly impossible to connect with voters who care more about the cost of living.
Losing support among Latino and Hispanic voters has been especially damaging.
Javier Palomarez, the founder and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council, told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s unpopular proposals and actions aren’t bad enough to convince voters who are “visibly tired of empty promises and identity politics” to sign up for another four years of Democratic administration.
“If the last four years and President Donald Trump’s second election to the White House have proved anything, it is that voters prefer common sense and results-driven approaches,” Palomarez said. “Many Democrats and certain social and news media personalities have spent months calling Trump a felon and a threat to democracy and the duo of Vice President JD Vance and Trump weird and unlikable. In the meantime, Trump has capitalized on presenting common sense and attractive policies. This is why he has made inroads with groups that previously may have felt alienated by the Republican Party.”
Republican revival
Recruiting those disaffected voters has sent a bolt of enthusiasm through Republicans who are feeling more optimistic about their future than ever. The good vibes Harris tried to capture in the early days of her campaign drained away and were scooped up by the resurgent GOP.
In the two weeks since Trump and Vance took office, every attack leveled at the party has fallen flat. Questions about why Trump’s Day One promises haven’t been fulfilled landed with a thud because voters don’t expect everything to happen overnight.
While Democrats deflect on addressing problems voters want answers to, Trump and Vance are stepping into the breach and speaking honestly about what they want to do, George Carrillo, CEO of the Hispanic Construction Council, told the Washington Examiner.
Democrats “often focus on topics like Jan. 6 pardons or diversity initiatives,” Carrillo said. “While those issues have their place, they don’t connect with the immediate struggles families face. This leaves a vacuum for Trump and Vance to step in, position themselves as problem-solvers, and tell voters that meaningful change takes time, an argument many are starting to believe.”
Vance acknowledged that change is a process in his first interview as vice president last weekend. When asked why grocery prices hadn’t come down, he reminded CBS’s Margaret Brennan that Trump “can’t undo all of the damage of Joe Biden’s presidency in four days.”
During her first briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that attempts to tie rising egg prices to Trump were missing the point that they haven’t been more expensive in the last three years than when Biden was running the country.
“There is a lot of reporting out there that is putting the onus on this White House for the increased cost of eggs,” she told the Washington Examiner. “I would like to point out to each and every one of you that in 2024, when Joe Biden was in the Oval Office or upstairs in the residence sleeping — I’m not sure — egg prices increased 65% in this country. We also have seen the cost of everything, not just eggs, bacon, groceries, gasoline have increased because of the inflationary policies of the last administration.”
While sparring with Brennan, Vance summed up the ethos the Trump administration has in its early days in five simple words — ”I don’t really care, Margaret.”
Brennan was trying to catch Vance out when talking about how immigrants were being vetted. She pointed out that it wasn’t clear whether an Afghan national with a special immigrant visa after the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan and was arrested after plotting a terrorist attack on Election Day was radicalized before or after he entered the country.
“I don’t really care, Margaret,” Vance said. “I don’t want that person in my country. And I think most Americans agree with me.”
Vibe shift
It isn’t new for the out-party in Washington to go through an identity crisis. Whenever there is a changing of the guard, the winners get to take a victory lap while the losers regroup.
The problem for Democrats, besides not having a clear leader to rally around and enthusiasm for a project or set of policies to excite voters, is that they are trying to rerun a playbook that has proven to be ineffective. They are sluggish to respond to the flurry of activity Trump and company can produce, and when they get around to acting, their counterattack looks powerless.
Last week, Democrats tried out a line of attack that, one user on X pointed out, would have landed perfectly if Mitt Romney or Bob Dole were the objects of their fury instead of Trump.
“Donald Trump is putting together an administration focused on Wall Street—not Main Street,” the party posted.
When the Office of Management and Budget released a memorandum announcing a widespread freeze of loans and grants, Democrats responded by holding a press conference to talk about Trump’s decision to pardon more than 1,500 people who had been charged for actions related to Jan. 6 — something he did a week earlier.
The substance of that briefing eventually morphed to address the freeze, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) opened his attack on the memo by invoking its similarities to Project 2025, a molehill of an issue that Harris fruitlessly tried to turn into a mountain during her doomed campaign.
Despite a lackluster opening attack, Democrats might have finally landed a glove on Trump with their opposition to the OMB funding freeze. A steady stream of criticism and the threat of legal action backed the White House into a corner and forced the administration to rescind the memo.
Notching one victory might get lost in the flood of frustrations Democrats have felt in recent weeks. But it might have also given them hope and a plan for future counterattacks.
Trying to keep pace with the frenetic Trump, who appears intent on highlighting how different he is than Biden by the sheer volume of his activity, hasn’t worked. However, waiting and “pouncing” when Trump’s flurry of attacks leaves him vulnerable, could be a replicable strategy.
“We started Jan. 20 really down in the dumps,” Schumer said last week after the OMB victory. “Our constituency has really been given a lift by our example. … We knew that [Trump] had really screwed up. And we just pounced.”
Backing down might be a sign of things to come, though the White House continued to project confidence that it will win future fights when it comes to restricting spending.
“In light of the injunction, OMB has rescinded the memo to end any confusion on federal policy created by the court ruling and the dishonest media coverage,” Leavitt said. “The executive orders issued by the president on funding reviews remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented by all agencies and departments.”
With multiple victories on the board outweighing a marginal defeat, Republicans aren’t cowering under attempts at cultural ostracism either.
New York magazine’s cover story this week was about the “cruel kids’ table,” a tale of being “out late with the young right as they contemplate cultural domination.”
Rather than a stinging rebuke, Vance said, “It’s like they’re trying to make us look cool.”
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It was a sentiment Vance delivered earlier in the day when he spoke to House Republicans at their retreat in Florida, saying Republicans were “cool” in a way they hadn’t been for a long time and that their popularity wasn’t on tenterhooks.
“It’s one thing to win an election but another thing to win this cultural moment we’ve been having where people see Republicans as the answer.”
