For a party that favors civics over salaciousness, this has been a tough lesson for Democrats to learn. But we’re seeing some of them adapt. The biggest success story of late is Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who took up the cause of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was wrongfully deported and imprisoned in El Salvador. But Van Hollen finds himself in an annoying two-front war: On one side, there is an unrepentant Trump administration; on the other, some of his more sclerotic Democrat colleagues.
But it’s 2025, baby. He who grandstands best wins, and in Van Hollen’s case, his efforts earned him a place on every single Sunday show. From pillar to post, this was a stunningly well-executed bit of political theater, proof positive that if you’re willing to give the media what it wants—conflict and controversy—they will reward you with coverage. Best of all, Democrats have ample room to pick big fights on matters that are righteous and substantive, like our rights to due process, and not on weird, off-putting GOP fixations, like the relative fuckability of a cartoon piece of candy.
This is a deeply funny thing to say when you’re a governor who has launched a side hustle as a just sayin’ podcaster. More to the point, there are some staggering misapprehensions at work in these critiques, the first being that Democrats have “walked into a trap.” There seems to be an abiding belief that to stick up for a legally wronged immigrant somehow puts Democrats on the wrong side of the issue, but this is simply not the case. Yes, I’ve seen and lamented some of the public opinion polls in which majorities support deportations, but what Trump is doing is a thing apart—and deeply unpopular. As Alex Shephard wrote last week:
Between the time Alex wrote that piece and I typed this paragraph, it became official: Public support for Trump’s approach to immigration is tanking. In some surveys, he is underwater. Half of Americans say Trump should bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., versus just a quarter who say he should not. Someone sprung a trap all right: Chris Van Hollen.
This is simply out-of-touch thinking. We live in a world where ordinary Americans have to contend with a litany of political problems. To tell voters that some of their concerns don’t actually matter is a recipe for disaffection. Beyond that, our information environment requires political parties to be nimble and varied, keeping old conflicts burning while surfacing new controversies. But that doesn’t mean every Democrat has to do it all. There’s nothing wrong with taking up a pet issue and becoming the go-to person on the matter, as Van Hollen has done with Abrego Garcia. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems to be latching onto the issue of congressional stock trading. If Newsom wants to be one of the tariff guys in the party, he’s free to dig in and make himself useful.
Suffice it to say, success begins with an acknowledgment that the landscape is shifting—and the rules have changed. Some, like Van Hollen, are getting with the program and easing into a new way of doing things. Other Democrats may find themselves being left behind; but the worse scenario is that the more moribund members of the party might undermine the efforts of their more highly effective peers with their carping and complaining. This is a time for some to lead and some to follow, and for others to get out of the way.
This article first appeared in Power Mad, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Jason Linkins. Sign up here.
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