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Democrats in disarray! (For awhile.)

Published on 14 Comments on Democrats in disarray! (For awhile.)

David Dayen says Democrats are adrift because they have no widely accepted leaders. That's true. Nancy Pelosi was a strong Speaker but she retired. Joe Biden is now a widely-derided lame duck. Kamala Harris lost, and losers never wield much influence. Chuck Schumer spends most of his time on legislative blocking-and-tackling. Young up-and-comers like AOC are still struggling for seats at the table.

But Republicans are almost as bad. Mitch McConnell led the Senate for years, but he retired and John Thune doesn't yet have a lot of leadership chops. Mike Johnson is beset by strife on all sides and survives only thanks to occasional alms from Democrats. The young guns of years past have all flamed out. Gadflies like Elon Musk and MTG keep the party in a dizzy spin.

The one big difference, of course, is Donald Trump. Republicans have a president-elect that gives them the illusion of control even though he's famously disordered and nobody really knows what he's going to end up doing.

So don't take any of this too seriously. The party that wins the presidency always has a leader and the party that loses is always in disarray for a while. It'll sort itself out soon enough.

14 thoughts on “Democrats in disarray! (For awhile.)”

  3. Justin

    Not so much in disarray today.

    The bill bans the military health program, TRICARE, from covering some gender-affirming care for the transgender children of service members if it could risk sterilization, a provision that caused some Democrats to vote no in the Senate and in the House.

    Throwing transgender under the bus already!

    The 100-member Senate backed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, by 85 to 14.

    You knew someone had to go first. Sorry kids!

    “Remember, guys, we still have just a razor-thin margin of Republicans,” Johnson continued. “So any bill has to have Democrat votes.

    Democrats!

    1. Josef

      Democrats aren't perfect and you're right to call them out of this. But I think this has more to do with it being included in the NDAA than if it were a stand alone bill. I guess this pill was just bitter and not poison to Democrats.

  4. D_Ohrk_E1

    Hey Joe, shouldn't you have a "60 for 60" program, where for each of the next 60 days you have one presidential (EOs) action to memorialize your values?

    At the very least, you make Trump's administration undo all 60 actions so that Democrats can point to Trump's actual values.

    Ain't that hard, Joe.

  5. Joseph Harbin

    Jamelle Bouie:

    Democrats may be in the minority, but they are not yet an opposition.

    What’s the difference?

    An opposition would use every opportunity it had to demonstrate its resolute stance against the incoming administration. It would do everything in its power to try to seize the public’s attention and make hay of the president-elect’s efforts to put lawlessness at the center of American government. An opposition would highlight the extent to which Donald Trump has no intention of fulfilling his pledge of lower prices and greater economic prosperity for ordinary people and is openly scheming with the billionaire oligarchs who paid for and ran his campaign to gut the social safety net and bring something like Hooverism back from the ash heap of history.

    An opposition would treat the proposed nomination of figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth as an early chance to define a second Trump administration as dangerous to the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Americans. It would prioritize nimble, aggressive leadership over an unbending commitment to seniority and the elevation of whoever is next in line. Above all, an opposition would see that politics is about conflict — or, as Henry Adams famously put it, “the systematic organization of hatreds” — and reject the risk-averse strategies of the past in favor of new blood and new ideas.

    The Democratic Party lacks the energy of a determined opposition — it is adrift, listless in the wake of defeat. Too many elected Democrats seem ready to concede that Trump is some kind of avatar for the national spirit — a living embodiment of the American people. They’ve accepted his proposed nominees as legitimate and entertained surrender under the guise of political reconciliation.

    1. Citizen99

      I kind of see this. My guess is that the Democrats are *still*, incredible as it may seem, taken with "norms." In this case, no criticism of an incoming administration during the transition period.

      I hope they have been practicing their curtsies.

  6. Citizen99

    "Kamala Harris lost, and losers never wield much influence."

    Except for the person who lost in 2020.

    Oh, sorry, I forgot that this only applies to Democrats. I would note, though, that Joe Biden ran for president 3 times before he won.

  7. spatrick

    Why interfere when the GOP is already showing what utter fuck ups they truly are? Because scum like Dayen and other political writers Bouie are bored to tears right now? Hey, instead of worrying about something that going to mean nothing to anyone in month's time, how about celebrating the holidays and wait until the show begins in mid-January?

    1. jv

      Or they could also... I dunno.. Start to lay the ground work as an opposition party...

      But taking time off and practicing being invisible is also a plan, I guess.

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