Democratic leaders are facing a Goldilocks dilemma.
From the left, they’re under fire to take the fight against President Trump up to DEFCON 1.
From the center, they’re meeting pressure to be less antagonistic — and even cooperate — with the duly elected administration.
It’s all left Democratic leaders on and off of Capitol Hill treading delicately to an elusive balance to appease both camps — or at least not infuriate one of them.
The challenge is hardly trivial.
Democrats in the House are bullish about their chances of flipping control of the lower chamber in next year’s midterms, and that means appealing to centrist and Independent voters in purple districts where vulnerable Republicans are fighting for their political lives. Putting emphasis on the wrong issues — or just adopting the wrong tone — could backfire in those crucial regions, denying Democrats their last best chance of putting a check on the second term of the norm-smashing president as he wages war on the way Washington works.
Yet pulling punches has its own set of pitfalls, not least the danger of demoralizing a progressive base that’s already accusing Democratic leaders of fighting with kid gloves while the president dismantles cherished programs and thumbs his nose at court orders aimed to rein him in.
They aren’t mincing words.
“If you want to be in Democratic leadership then you need to take accountability for the party and the direction of what this party's doing to fight back,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for the Justice Democrats, a liberal group.
“What we have seen very clearly was, once Trump was inaugurated, it almost felt like this Democratic leadership and party were just not ready to take on this moment,” he added. “And they absolutely failed to meet the urgency of this moment or the scale of the crisis.”
Among the gripes, many liberals maintain that Senate Democrats should never have voted to help confirm Trump’s Cabinet picks. They should never have voted in March to help Republicans pass a government spending bill. And they’ve failed to use the tools at their disposal to confront Trump in a way that speaks to the emotions of anxious voters.
“I think voters are just waking up to see that this party, in the way it looks right now, is not functioning as the opposition party they desperately need it to be,” Andrabi said.
Democratic leaders reject the criticism. Though they’re in the minority in both chambers, they say they’re doing everything imaginable to counter Trump’s flood-the-zone approach.
“We continue to be in a ‘more is more’ environment,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said.
“Rallies, press conferences, demonstrations, sit-ins, town hall meetings in Democratic districts, town hall meetings in Republican districts, days of action,” Jeffries continued. “More is more and that's, I think, what you've seen over the last 100 days. And that's what you'll continue to see.”
Immigration has become ground zero in the internal battle.
Democrats of all stripes are hammering Trump’s mass deportation policies, but they’re torn over how to approach the most high-profile case involving a former Maryland resident, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly sent to an El Salvadoran prison in March.
Trump’s aggressive deportations resonate in large parts of the country, and moderate Democrats like Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) have cautioned the party not to lionize Abrego Garcia, who has been accused of having ties to the MS-13 gang (a charge he and his family deny).
“When you look at immigration is this the immigration case you want to take to fight on?” Cuellar told Fox News recently. “In my opinion, absolutely no.”
Liberals couldn’t disagree more. Given the administration’s own admission that it deported Abrego Garcia in error, they see his case as a glaring example of Trump’s open contempt for human rights and the rule of law.
Last month, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) visited El Salvador to meet Abrego Garcia. Four progressive House Democrats conducted a similar visit shortly thereafter. It’s that type of fight progressive activists say Democratic voters want to see.
“There is a reason that people were so ecstatic about Chris Van Hollen and other members of Congress doing that because it felt like, Wow, finally showing signs of life from this Democratic Party about what to do and how to fight back,” Andrabi said.
“And we should want a lot more of that.”
Impeachment is another battleground.
Many Democrats maintain impeachment is futile, at best, while Democrats are in the minority. At worst it provides Trump with more ammunition to claim he’s the victim of a partisan witch hunt. Those voices want Democrats to keep a strict focus on the issues that appeal most to voters of all stripes: health care, financial security and the cost of living.
“There are a variety of tools available to us. Impeachment's just not a very effective one,” said one House Democratic aide, who spoke anonymously to discuss a divisive topic.
“We don't have the numbers — the numbers are not there,” the aide continued. “So this becomes a show thing — a thing to just basically punch at him with, and it's something that Donald Trump can punch back with and be like, 'Look, they're just against me no matter what. They hate Trump.'”
Democratic leaders seem to agree. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said recently that impeachment “is not an exercise that we're willing to undertake.”
Yet it hasn’t stopped a small group of liberals from pressing ahead. Late last month, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) filed seven articles of impeachment against Trump, and other lawmakers say they’re on board.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is one of them. She said she’s ready to impeach Trump “in a hot second,” pointing specifically to the conflicts of interest inherent in the burgeoning crypto empire run by Trump and his family.
“We have a president who has created his own crypto. He has now created his own stablecoin. And he has connected campaign fundraising at Mar-a-Lago and the White House by inviting people who invest. Have you heard about all of this?” Waters said.
“I just think there’s something here that is so unseemly about not only the disrespect, but the disrespect for everything — the laws, the Constitution, the democracy.”
The effort has not been overlooked by Trump. The president is now calling on Republicans to consider expelling any Democrats who support his ouster.
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