And The Mainstream Media?
A few days ago, AOC— not Gerry Connolly— ripped Elon Musk for being “morally bankrupt” and “not smart.” She noted on her Instagram page (which has 9 million followers) that “This dude is probably one of the most unintelligent billionaires I have ever met or seen or witnessed.” And she didn’t even mention that unless you’re under 5 feet tall, it’s nearly impossible to get into the passenger seat of the Tesla he claims to have designed without bumping your head on the door jam. Nor did she mention how unpopular he’s become.
A couple days later, Ally Mutnick reported that, with congressional Democrats moving along the messaging that Musk is a boogeyman, internal polling, found Musk is viewed negatively by voters in battleground districts, with an approval rating of just 43% compared to 51% who disapprove). And the survey was completed between Jan. 19-25— so before the DOGE rampage through the federal government that has left voters across the country queasy. “Pollsters,” wrote Mutnick, “asked respondents for their thoughts on ‘the creation of a government of the rich for the rich by appointing up to nine different billionaires to the administration,’ and found 70 percent opposed with only 19 percent in support— a stat that suggests Democrats have landed on a message that could gain traction with swing voters.
And that brings us to the little drama on Wednesday when House Oversight Committee Democrats tried to subpoena Musk. So… where was Musk amigo Ro Khanna when we needed him? Did he think no one would notice his conspicuous absence? Daniella Diaz reported that “Khanna said he missed the vote and said he was unaware it was happening— but three Democrats familiar with the run-up to the vote who were granted anonymity to describe what ensued said Democrats were given a heads-up about the maneuver to try to catch Republicans by surprise. They said they believed Khanna knew the vote was happening and made an intentional decision to miss it. In the end, the motion to subpoena Musk was shut down by Republicans on the committee on a 20-19 vote— with eight lawmakers missing the vote, including Democrats Khanna and Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD), who missed for an unrelated reason, one Democrat familiar with the planning said. The rest of the members who missed were Republicans. Khanna disputed the characterization that he missed the vote on purpose, saying on Twitter that he ‘would have voted yes. They called a procedural vote without notice & I like 8 others didn’t make it there on time,’ he said in a post. ‘Musk’s attacks on our institutions are unconstitutional. He should be subpoenaed & answer to our committee. They should call the vote again with notice.’ Musk responded to Khanna’s post, writing to him, ‘Don’t be a dick.’ The three Democrats familiar with the planning said Khanna’s staff was properly notified about the vote ahead of time. A spokesperson for the California Democrat said ‘Congressman Khanna and his team had zero knowledge that this vote would be up.’”
Unrelated to Khanna’s bizarre behavior, Jamie Raskin, former ranking member of that committee, told his followers yesterday that “We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk, and this billionaire government contractor has no rightful power over our payment systems, our federal agencies, our legislative appropriations or our national defense. Musks’s illegal, unconstitutional interference with congressional power threatens American democracy and countless innocent lives. I’m hearing from my constituents who work for USAID, and USAID contractors, in Maryland, in Washington, all over the world. And they’re telling us that this is a killer in terms of their cutoff of HIV and AIDS prevention work. It’s a killer in terms of anti-malarial education and mosquito nets. It’s a killer in terms of all of the efforts to promote clean water, family planning and public health.”
He wrote that “We’re going to defend USAID and NIH, NOAA and the FDA, the Departments of Education and Labor, the J6 prosecutors and the FBI agents being targeted by Trump’s authoritarian lieutenants at DOJ, and all the federal workers, nonprofits, immigrants, refugees and members of the LGBTQ community being demonized and intimidated by this Nazi-saluting Broligarch billionaire and the kleptocrat president.”
Although plenty of Democrats in swing districts are absolutely not looking for a fight— that’s what they tell me— Andrew Solender reported yesterday that congressional phones are ringing off the hook with calls for them to fight harder. Angry constituents want the party to be doing more to combat Trump and his regime. “Some lawmakers feel their grassroots base is setting expectations too high for what Democrats can actually accomplish as the minority party in both chambers of Congress… ‘There has definitely been some tension the last few days where people felt like: you are calling the wrong people. You are literally calling the wrong people,’ said one House Democrat. More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers and aides said in interviews with Axios that their offices have received historically high call volumes in recent days… On social media sites such as Twitter and Bluesky, another aide said, ‘Every Dem is getting lit up by the neo-resistance folks being like 'do more.’”
Calls are coming in to House resistance fighters like Mark Pocan, Pramila Jayapal, Greg Casar and Jim McGovern and to… the other kind of Democrat, like Steny Hoyer, Pete Aguilar, Don Davis and Josh Gottheimer to the right-of-center, gutless freshmen like April Delaney (MD), Adam Gray (CA), Laura Gillen (NY), Shomani Figures (AL) and Suhas Subramanyam (VA).
Nicholas Wu, Daniella Diaz and Jordain Carney reported that “Senate Democrats are struggling to deal with a rising tide of anger inside their party” as Señor T and unelected, unconfirmed billionaire co-president Musk “run roughshod over federal agencies, with House members seething and activists demanding they ‘shut down the Senate’ in response. Instead, it has in many ways been business as usual in the Senate over the first two weeks of Trump’s second term. Republicans have ground through procedural obstacles to confirm nearly a dozen Cabinet nominees, a pace that alarms a broad swath of Democrats.” Especially with more conservative Democrats like Jeanne Shaheen and Mark Kelly as well as mentally ill John Fetterman voting for Trump’s nominees over and over.
The lack of organized pushback has many Democrats wondering when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other party leaders will put forward a more aggressive strategy for resisting the GOP blitzkrieg that has already gutted the U.S. foreign-aid agency, halted many federal grants and left government employees shell-shocked.
“This is not business as usual, and Senate Democrats should not be treating this as business as usual,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in an interview. “We need to see a halt on all Trump nominees.”
There are signs that Schumer & Co. are starting to step up their opposition. They have planned an all-night talkathon Wednesday to protest the impending confirmation of Russ Vought, Trump’s nominee for budget director, and a handful of Democratic senators have agreed to blockade Trump’s Cabinet picks until Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” initiative is reined in.
But a handful of others have continued to vote for some confirmations, and they otherwise have work to do to address the lingering sense inside the party that they are not meeting the moment.
Asked how Democrats should respond just moments after he voted to confirm Trump’s HUD nominee, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) said, “I want to read that story because I’m trying to figure that out.”
After voting to confirm Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Schumer told his members Tuesday he will vote against any remaining Cabinet nominees and urged his colleagues to do the same, an aide to the New York Democrat said.
Just hours later, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted for Pam Bondi’s attorney general nomination, and on Wednesday Fetterman and Welch voted for HUD’s Scott Turner.
Controversial nominees including HHS pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard have yet to come to the Senate floor, where Democrats are expected to pull out all the stops in opposing them.
Some Democrats have tried to capture a sudden wave of activism that has popped up over the past week as Trump and Musk’s assault on the federal bureaucracy has come into focus. Schumer, for instance, was among several Democratic lawmakers who protested Musk’s moves outside the Treasury Department on Tuesday.
He led a boisterous crowd of lawmakers and supporters in chanting, “We will win.” The crowd immediately followed by chanting, “Shut down the Senate.”
[No one believes Schumer’s kabuki theater and it’s becoming obvious that Democrats need a younger and more vigorous, aggressive leader, Moree in touch with the party’s grassroots and less in thrall to K Street lobbyists and the consultant class.]
It’s true that the Senate minority— any one senator, in fact— has considerable power to gum up the chamber’s business by objecting to matters typically conducted by unanimous consent. But with Republicans in the majority, and the 60-vote filibuster rule no longer applying to presidential confirmations, there’s not much Democrats can do to stand in the way of a united GOP.
Schumer has been measured in setting expectations for resistance in the chamber, and he has to navigate a caucus that might not be totally united on tactics. While they forced Republicans to stay in session for one Saturday last month, Democrats have agreed with the GOP at other times to arrange votes so senators can return home for their traditional long weekends and otherwise avoid late-night or early-morning votes.
… [T]heir House counterparts have little patience for any pretense of normality in the Senate, preferring that senators do more to obstruct Trump’s nominees— joining, for instance, Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), who publicly announced her blanket opposition to his Cabinet picks [after she had already voted for some, including Scott Bessent].
“If you are looking at all those dynamics and think you know what’s important is that Ted Cruz is my friend, you are completely incompetent and completely misunderstanding the moment,” said Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL). “We’re in a different ball game right now. Y’all gotta stop playing checkers.”
To be sure, the House minority has not itself been a hotbed of righteous protest targeting Trump. Much as in the Senate, members are sending sharply worded letters, holding news conferences and otherwise trying to win public attention. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, feeling similar heat as Schumer, huddled with his caucus last week on the now-paused spending freeze and sent a [pathetic] letter to colleagues this week laying out his plan for pushback, including using upcoming appropriations talks for leverage.
But with Trump’s Cabinet confirmations being the central pressure point at the moment, the Senate is where the action is. And many on the left want the party to pull out every procedural tool they have to stand in the way.
Ocasio-Cortez urged Democrats to “blow this place up.”
“We should not comply in advance,” she said. “We should not make it easy for them to do what they need to do if they’re going to do it anyway. Make them do it anyway, but not with our help.”
Not many answers, anywhere. Although Robert Kuttner has some to offer at the American Prospect yesterday: America needs a true opposition party instead of just corrupted capitalism and dithering Democrats. “[W]ithout a clear ideology and narrative,” he wrote, “voters don’t connect the dots between corporate concentration and their own daily frustrations. Instead, voters vaguely blame a corrupted system. Voters perceive, all too accurately, that neither party is addressing their frustrations and that both are part of an establishment that someone called the swamp. And they’re right. Donald Trump got elected a second time because Democrats failed to use the Biden interlude to articulate a general critique of corrupted capitalism and its impact on ordinary people. Instead, a talented demagogue deflected inchoate grievances against predatory capitalism onto immigrants, trans people, and condescending metro liberals. Trump and his corrupt crony, the world’s richest man Elon Musk, epitomize the marriage of faux-populist rhetoric and personal grifting. Too many people admire the sheer nerve of Trump and Musk, and imagine that it will somehow spill over and benefit them. Democrats can try to point out Trump’s hypocrisy, and they have. But that’s not sufficient. And the reason why Democrats have failed to tell their own compelling story is all too obvious: Democrats are part of the corruption. Not all Democrats, but enough Democrats to blur a coherent opposition narrative.”
Noting that there is an epic “vacuum of leadership” among congressional Democrats with pitifully “few plausible as national leaders or possible candidates for president,” he wrote that “this era of American politics will be a populist era. Either it will be the fake populism of billionaires scapegoating various categories of ‘other’ while they use the power of the state to further enrich themselves and further debase democracy with the power of money. Or it will be authentic economic populism. It’s too much to expect the Democratic Party to be reborn as an anti-capitalist party. But Democrats should at least be narrating the impact of concentrated capitalism on ordinary voters. If 2024 demonstrated anything, it was that a medley of left positions on social issues and modest economic measures are no match for Trumpism.”
Yesterday Norman Solomon wrote that “Ken Martin, longtime chair of the party in Minnesota, is replacing DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, whose four-year term was marked by steady subservience to his patron, former President Joe Biden. Martin has the opportunity to be a leader instead of merely following self-focused directives from the president. It shouldn’t be difficult to improve on Harrison’s job performance. The DNC headquarters has functioned as a fortress, notorious among grassroots party activists as an unwelcoming place. Martin might be inclined to change that… The national party has remained in the grip of leaders who have never acknowledged their abject failure. That failure can be summed up in a notorious statement Schumer made a few months before Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016: ‘For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.’ Rather than dissipate after Clinton’s shocking loss, this elitism lingered on and guided the strategy of former Vice President Kamala Harris eight years later… To shed its well-earned reputation for elitism, the DNC should stop running away from populism and instead embrace it— not by making peace with Trumpism, but by moving toward genuine progressive populism. That means showing that the party actually means business about siding with the interests of low- and middle-income Americans against the rapacious effects of unfettered corporate power— from systematic price gouging to regressive tax rates to runaway military spending— at the expense of programs that meet human needs.”
Elizabeth Warren's Stop Wall Street Looting Act could be the most important bill in a generation. But only 6 Democrats co-sponsored it last year: Bernie (VT), Jeff Merkley (OR), Tammy Baldwin (WI), Tina Smith (MN), Ed Markey (MA) & Sherrod Brown (OH). What about YOUR senator?
Let’s face it, with a handful of conservative Democrats enabling Trump’s nominees, the “resistance” remains fractured. The question now is whether Schumer and his caucus have the stomach for real opposition— or if they’ll keep playing footsie with the billionaire co-president and his authoritarian benefactor. Because the truth is, this moment demands more than press conferences and symbolic gestures. The right-wing coup of the federal bureaucracy is already underway, and Democrats can either fight like hell or roll over and let Trump and Musk dismantle the institutions that protect millions of Americans. The base is watching. The country is watching. And history won’t be kind to those who chose appeasement over resistance.