Monday was President’s Day, and around the country the Democratic base made itself known in the streets.
Crowds gathered in cities in every state across the country, ranging from dozens to thousands by area code, as part of a nationwide day of protest organized by “#50501”, which used Reddit and other platforms to quickly set up hundreds of spontaneous demonstrations.
The message was one of outrage in the face of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s dismantling of federal agencies including USAID, the Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and others. But one question was on the minds of individual demonstrators and organizers alike: where are the Democrats?
It was also a bit of a shot across the bow of the national party. Subsidiary chapters of Indivisible, one of the groups singled out by grumbling Democrats on Capitol Hill as supposedly out of touch, returned their insults with a 50-state show of force.
America’s opposition party does not seem to be keeping up. The Democratic response to the wholesale shuttering of agencies has been mind-boggling: a flustered and frustrated Maxine Waters demanding the name and badge of a stern-looking man preventing lawmakers from accessing the headquarters of CFPB. Cringe-inducing chants of “We will fight!” (when?) and “We will win!” (how?) from the likes of Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer, as the party leans into the protest aesthetic with little to back it up.
In terms of actual strategy, there’s nothing to critique. Democrats had no alternative or unity behind an effort to secure their own legislative priorities in exchange for votes to support the Laken Riley Act in January. The national party is totally disconnected from its grassroots, leading state-level officials to take up legal challenges to DOGE’s slash-and-burn cost-cutting while Democrats in both chambers continue to lend credibility to Musk and his efforts.
But more than anything else, the party is just seemingly absent: from old media, where Democrats appear to a dwindling cable news audience (minus Fox, the largest network, where most won’t tread); from new media, where the left is grappling with just having lost to a candidate who appeared on podcasts and Twitch streams; and in the limelight of national spectacle, where Trump, unlike his predecessor, enjoys visibility — he took a lap at the Daytona 500 this weekend, seven days after appearing at the Super Bowl.
As the broadcaster Stephen A. Smith (who has stoked curiosity about his own possible political ambitions) put it to Pod Save America’s Tommy Vietor in an episode released today: “Isn’t it their job to recognize and notice what their constituency finds appealing?”
If Smith doesn’t have a future in elected office, he could at least stand to give a few lectures on media strategy at the DNC.
There are, of course, bright spots within the party when it comes to presenting a visible opposition force. Bernie Sanders continues to pump out video after video for his YouTube channel and Instagram page — each one is racking up millions of views between the platforms, and he has amassed more than five times the followers of Cory Booker, chosen by Chuck Schumer to teach their shared caucus how to communicate via social media.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, too, continues her dominance of Instagram. She’s closing on 9 million followers, thanks to her frequent Stories posts and videos aimed at a younger demographic less experienced with the workings of politics.
The Democratic Party’s supporters online — even the centrists and conservatives — are itching for that same kind of leadership.
That was obvious as Republican-turned-Democrat strategist Cheri Jacobus went semi-viral this week for a suggestion that Pete Buttigieg, former Transportation secretary, be empowered by the party to host a daily opposition news briefing. The suggestion of Buttigieg hints at the hunger on the left for a brawler — Buttigieg’s sparring with Fox News hosts was a rallying point for the pro-Biden and pro-Harris camps in 2024. Jacobus’s suggestion was echoed by billionaire Mark Cuban, who himself has been floated as a possible standard-bearer for the center-left.
But party leadership is loath to concede anything to the progressive left, even when it comes to helping an aging party embrace modernity. Ocasio-Cortez in particular was snubbed by her party (or, more accurately, blocked from advancement by a vengeful Nancy Pelosi) in favor of Gerry Connolly, whose main accomplishment as the new ranking member of the Oversight Committee appears to have been botching plans for a vote to subpoena Musk — the vote failed due to a Democratic absence, for which Connolly failed to account.
If the Democrats are going to remain relevant over the next year, they’ll need to elevate those among them with the ability to scrap with Republicans. They risk being permanently two steps behind the GOP without them.
