Now that they are in the opposition, Democrats have to recalibrate their attacks on Donald Trump and the GOP.
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The first 48 hours of Donald Trump’s second term have featured a whirlwind of activity that could have filled a month’s worth of news cycles. However, a lot of it was simply the kind of noise that is great for generating page views and social media outrage but, ultimately, completely meaningless. In order for a resistance against Trump to re-form, it is crucial for his opponents to not be sidetracked by these things and instead focus on what matters.
It will be an adjustment.
In the past, it seemed like a valid strategy to highlight that Trump was weird and mentally unstable, or that Republicans are hypocrites.
But, apparently, voters didn’t mind that Trump would rather riff on sharks and Arnold Palmer’s penis size instead of formulating workable policies. They didn’t care about (or believe) his lies and boasts.
And the American people also gave congressional Republicans a pass for being dysfunctional, and it did not seem to bother them that their actions constantly betray their words.
Instead, they voted based on their real and perceived problems, such as inflation, immigration, and crime, and who they thought could better address them, which put the incumbent party at a disadvantage.
Now, obviously, that should be the point of elections. People should vote based on their own interests. However, it would have been nice if character also mattered, or if they had done their due diligence and examined the causes of these problems (or, in the case of migrant crime, non-problems) and who proposed workable solutions.
They did not, and here we are.
But this also shows what the anti-Trump coalition has to focus on from this point on forward. It has to be a lot less about him being a threat to democracy, a fascist, and just an all-around terrible human being.
Instead, just like the Democrats were in November, he has to be judged by voters’ real-life problems and what he does to fix them.
Therefore, it does not matter one bit that Trump didn’t put his hand on a Bible when being sworn in, that he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico, or even that he is running a multibillion-dollar crypto scam from the White House.
Even the blanket pardons of the January 6 insurrectionists are not a priority right now. Neither is whether Elon Musk flashed a Nazi salute at a rally.
In addition, pretend-pious Republicans complaining about a bishop who sounds a lot more like Jesus than they ever do is not important… because it does not seem likely that any of the above will cause Trump voters to abandon him and them.
Therefore, all that matters for Democrats is to highlight whether the president and a GOP-dominated Congress materially improve the lives of regular Americans. Everything else is a sideshow.
Trump has said that this will be a golden age and that he will bring prices down.
Those are big promises that he should be measured by.
And that is all Democrats should focus on, especially because many of the GOP’s priorities, from mass deportations of the labor force to tariffs, will do nothing to reduce the cost of groceries.
And when the economy does not boom as Trump has promised, they have to call him out with one voice instead of each talking about their own pet issues.
That is something Republicans are much better at. They focus on a handful of things and just keep hammering away at them.
To be successful, Democrats have to take a page out of the GOP playbook and relentlessly highlight any wobble in the economy. That could be stalling growth, uninspired jobs gains, billionaires (and Trump himself) getting richer while regular people are merely treading water, higher costs of prescription drugs, Americans losing insurance coverage, etc.
In addition, they have to do a better job of tying Republicans to corporations. They have to turn the GOP into the party of greed.
There is one notable exception.
Most non-MAGA Americans (and hopefully even many of those) do not like cruelty — and Trump is a cruel person.
It’s one thing to support deportations, but it’s another to watch grandmas being pulled out of their homes or children being separated from their families. It’s one thing to want to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ sports, but it is another to ostracize these kids.
For the same reason, even Republicans don’t want Trump to launch a vendetta against his “enemies.” But that won’t change Trump’s behavior. He is going to go after them — it just depends on how viciously. If it’s really bad, then Democrats should use that as another line of attack.
Until then, however, the old adage remains true: It’s the economy, stupid.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
