Ever since their party lost the presidency and control of the Senate, as well as failed to gain control of the House last November, Democrats still appear to be in disarray. This is especially the case with how Democrats are looking to resist President Donald Trump in his second term, who did much better than he did in 2016, even winning the popular vote this time. Mainstream media outlets are noticing, with liberal columnists applauding those members who seem to be standing up to Trump, though they tend to be the party's most radical members. The polls show it too, with Democratic voters disapproving of how members in Congress are handling the resistance.
On Thursday morning, The Washington Post put out a piece with a very specific headline on what seems to be frustrating Democratic voters, "A populist uprising stirs among Democrats furious at their leaders."
Speaking of polls, that headline was noticed by Cygnal's Brent Buchanan, who included this piece in Thursday's daily roundup of headlines he was keeping an eye on. "Forget not 2016," Buchanan mentioned. He went on to remind of the election over eight years ago now, when Trump beat out Hillary Clinton to win his first term. "We're essentially 10 years out from the moment both parties were given to embrace populism. The GOP did with Trump. The Democrats dispensed Bernie [Sanders] for their hand-picked Hillary. Now the populist uprising on the Left cannot be ignored, or it will be at their peril. Voters don't see parties that work for them and seek instead the answer in specific people," he added.
Sure enough, this piece mentions Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 and 2020, but was cast aside by the DNC for a candidate considered more mainstream. Hillary Clinton still lost in 2016.
As the piece begins with:
Recommended
Democrats are turning up by the thousands at rallies across the country — showing the stirrings of a populist uprising against President Donald Trump’s drastic cuts to government agencies and demanding that their leaders fight harder to save programs that benefit the middle class.
The question now facing the party — which has been in the grips of an identity crisis since November — is whether it can harness that pulsating energy to slow Trump’s agenda at a time when they have so little power. There is no clear Democratic leader. The party’s popularity has crashed to historic lows in recent polls. And there is no consensus on how to win back working-class voters and younger voters who were crucial to Trump’s victory last year.
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents mobbed a half-dozen Western state events held last week by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) — with more than 30,000 people filling Denver’s Civic Center Park on Friday evening. At town halls organized by liberal activists and Democratic Party officials in the congressional districts of the most vulnerable Republicans, rank-and-file voters have decried the enormous influence of billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s top donor, as he vows to cut $1 trillion or more from the federal budget.
Will Sanders, 83, run for president once more? It was actually in light of those rallies he held with the much younger Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who is 35-years-old, that there's been increased chatter they'll run as a ticket. However, when even just asked about AOC's role in the party, as to if perhaps she'll challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in a primary, Sanders got up to leave his interview with ABC News' Jonathan Karl.
It's interesting to compare 2016 and 2028, though, and not merely because Sanders isn't getting any younger. There's a header in the article, "'Playing by the old rules.'"
As it reads [emphasis added]:
Two months into Trump’s presidency, Democrats nationally are in a combative mood and deeply unhappy with their leaders. In a CNN poll conducted earlier this month, only 29 percent of Americans said they approved of the Democratic Party, and 57 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the party should primarily work to stop the GOP agenda, rather than trying to compromise to get Democratic ideas into legislation.
When asked to offer an assessment of the state of the Democratic Party at recent events, many attendees used words such as “weak” and “lame.” There was a broad agreement that it was time for the party’s “old guard” — namely Schumer and other Democrats who hold out hope for compromise with Republicans — to move on, as well as a sense that the party is not matching the speed and aggression of Trump’s tactics.
Mike Arnold, a 74-year-old Air Force veteran from Cathedral City, California, said he attended a Khanna event in Norco this past weekend, because he “got tired of screaming at the TV.”
Like Siegel, he said he isn’t sure the country will make it to Democratic elections in 2026. Trump, he said, is advancing an authoritarian agenda — bullying white-shoe law firms and universities and calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against him.
“The courts might not hold, and if the courts don’t hold, the only next thing is the military itself,” said Arnold. Democratic leaders, Arnold said, “have to be much more aggressive than they have been.”
“We are playing by the old rules, and they don’t abide by those,” he said of Trump and his allies. “It’s nice to be polite, and God knows we don’t want to fracture the country any more than it already is. But what is happening cannot stand.”
Brenda Balsiger, a 69-year-old Democrat from Tustin, California, said she turned out for a recent event in Republican Rep. Young Kim’s district in Anaheim because “it’s pathetic, what’s happening in our country right now.”
“I want new leadership. I want Chuck Schumer out,” she said. When asked who should lead the Democratic Party, Balsiger said she’s a “big fan” of Ocasio-Cortez: “I don’t think she’s as polarizing as she used to be. She speaks her mind. She’s young, and we just blew it on the messaging. We weren’t listening out in the communities” in 2024.
Luis Huerta, a 32-year-old federal employee, did not vote in November but showed up for Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s recent event in North Las Vegas because he can’t understand why Democrats haven’t done more to stop Musk from wielding his chainsaw on the federal workforce.
The country is facing “the complete destruction of American values,” he said, and he fears soon “laws won’t matter.” Huerta said Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez “are showing their support for the common folk, the working class, and speaking up against billionaires who do not have our best interest at heart.”
For Huerta and many other Democrats, Sanders’s message about the corrupting influence of money in politics has suddenly taken on new resonance as they watch Musk and other wealthy donors exert their influence over Trump in the White House.
“We didn’t listen [to Sanders] the first time, so now we have to regroup,” said 79-year-old Barbara Peirce, a Democratic-leaning independent from Lake Elsinore, California, referring to the senator’s previous run for president.
“There is no leader” of the Democratic Party, Peirce said. “We’ll acknowledge who the leader is when we see that they’re willing to be as angry as we are.”
Indeed, polls, including recent ones from just last week, show bad news for Democrats, as a party overall and when it comes to members in Congress, including that CNN poll mentioned above. That poll also showed that, like concerns expressed in the piece by 79-year-old Barbara Peirce, described as "a Democratic-leaning independent," there is a lack of a clear leader in the Democratic Party. In an open-ended question about which Democrat "best reflects the core values," 30 percent gave an answer with no response. AOC received 10 percent, more than any other person. Former Vice President Kamala Harris received 9 percent and Sanders received 8 percent.
When it comes to the polls and pieces like this, it's worth wondering what it is that these Democratic voters expect? Do they want Democrats in Congress--who are the minority in both chambers--to act like the authoritarian dictator they believe Trump to supposedly be?
Nevertheless, they still feel this way. Earlier this month, Symone Sanders-Townsend, who used to work for Harris and is now with MSNBC, complained on air about Democratic members holding up pathetic signs for Trump's speech before a joint session of Congress because it wasn't going far enough. Just over a week later she shared on air that she was leaving the Democratic Party.
This was a lengthy profile piece of sorts, but when it comes to input from Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, it does in a way remind one of an Axios article from over the weekend in which Democrats shared their thoughts on why they think the party lost last year.
