The Republicans’ Marxist Smear Campaign Is Nothing More Than A Coward’s Playbook
How afraid of Trump and the MAGA movement are congressional Democrats? There are an uncomfortable number in the Senate who, for example, voted to confirm most of his nominees; even an extremist like Kristi Noem got 7 Democratic votes (Fetterman and Shaheen of course, but also Andy Kim, Tim Kaine, Maggie Hasan, Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin) and austerity-fanatic Scott Bessent attracted 15 Democrats including Cory Booker, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper and Kirsten Gillibrand! In the House 46 Blue Dogs and New Dems backed the latest far right assault on immigrants.
Yesterday, former Congresswoman Marie Newman (D-IL) warned Democrats to show voters they can stand and fight like hell. She addressed it to congressional leaders and urged them to “at a minimum, stand up to the grotesque and brutish bullying. We do not see you standing up in solidarity showing fierce unabashed fearlessness. Forgive me, but to the average American, it looks like you are hiding. I apologize for the bluntness. It is not meant to be disrespectful, but this exact statement has been made by millions of Democrats nationwide at this point. I hear it every day at events, at the grocery store, on social media and at the pharmacy. Let me be clear, we need you to show us you can stand up, speak out and fight. We need it now.”
She noted that “Bullies do not back down. Fascists do not back down. Authoritarians do not back down. They keep the deluge of authoritarian actions coming. Intimidation and gas-lighting never stop. Being quiet, collaborative, compliant or ‘letting them hang themselves’ or ‘fall into chaos on their own’ is not only ineffective and not useful at all, it is never going to happen. In fact, it feeds the bully beast. Their goal is to confuse, create chaos and generate fear, all day long in order to keep people scared and compliant. It does not end. I’m sorry to say this but the Trump administration and their supporters find our lack of response ‘hilarious’ and ‘helpful.’… [R]ank and file Democratic/Independent voters… are truly traumatized by your inaction and they are furious.”
She urged them to communicate clearly and:
Demonstrate there is a strategy to let the American people know when Trump craters the food and construction industries as a result of mass deportations and tariffs, and Democratic leaders are here to help.
Share exactly how you intend to prevent Republicans from gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or at least minimize the negative effects. Tell Americans how they can help.
Present the Democratic Party as a phalanx of power and obstruction to the cruelty and lawless attempts to ruin our economy by the Republicans.
Have a clear, humane statement and strategy on immigration reform in contrast to Trump.
Address why these outrageous executive orders, new republican laws and early actions will affect everybody’s everyday negatively:
Small business owners will lose their life’s work and their ability to support their families in the months.
The labor shortage will be astronomically worse and the food and construction industries will be decimated.
Families will be torn apart.
American streets are not safe with the violent insurrectionist criminals Trump unleashed back into society.
Disease and death rate will skyrocket as a result of stopping funding to the National Institutes of Health and leaving the World Health Organization. We will not be ready for another virus such as the H5N1/Bird Flu that is threatening us.
The income gap will be so dramatic that bankruptcies will be an everyday occurrence.
As Trump bullies other countries, it makes our country less safe.
Newman commended Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chis Murphy and Bernie, as well as 4 House members: AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Ro Khanna and her own Rep, Delia Ramirez for showing backbone and not backing down. “The Democrats,” she wrote, “have a huge opportunity to win back the house in 2026 with an FDR 2.0 agenda, ‘A Promise To Americans’ to protect them, keep them safe and make their everyday lives better and more prosperous, but first you must fight. It will be exhausting… Stop listening to lobbyists and consultants who do not understand we are a nation of context/issue voters, not party-line voters. Stop having silly, glib social media fights with individual Republicans on inconsequential matters. Listen to Americans in all fifty states, in rural, suburban and city areas… We stand ready to help you. Unleash your badassery. Tell us what you need and we will be there for you.”
Trump did make life a little easier for congressional Dems this week. As Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan pointed out, that OMB Monday night memo ordering a freeze in federal grant and loan programs went over with a thud and may even help explain why a 2024 Trump +21 state senate district in eastern Iowa flipped blue the next day. “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Trump as ‘lawless, destructive, cruel.’… Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR), ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, demanded that the panel delay its confirmation vote for Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee for OMB director, for two weeks due to the controversy… The White House wasn’t ready for the pushback from the Hill or the national media uproar, and it forced a partial retreat by Trump officials. The top Senate GOP appropriator, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, complained that the funding freeze was ‘far too sweeping and will have an adverse effect on the delivery of services and programs.’ During a Senate Democratic Caucus lunch on Tuesday, Schumer urged his colleagues to make the freeze ‘relatable’ to their constituents back home, a clear play for the messaging upper hand. Schumer also plans on doing several local TV interviews today.”
Desiderio and Bresnahan went on to printout that “There’s more where that came from. Trump’s firing of 18 inspectors general has prompted bipartisan pushback. The pardons for 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters have been heavily criticized. One of the pardoned rioters was killed by Indiana police during a traffic stop while another is being sought for soliciting a minor. DOJ officials who worked for Special Counsel Jack Smith on the Trump criminal investigations have been ousted, spurring claims of retaliation by a vengeful president. New Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered an investigation into former Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley. ‘We need to act with some urgency,’ said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who has taken an active role in Democrats’ post-election messaging. ‘We can’t continue business as usual here when there is a literal constitutional crisis unfolding.’”
Slashing hundreds of billions of dollars from social safety-net programs to pay for tax cuts is a tougher vote than it’s portrayed. House and Senate Republicans are a long way from reaching a deal with each other or Democrats on government funding as a March 14 deadline looms. Raising the debt limit by trillions will need a lot of GOP support, and conservatives hate it. There are so many places where Republicans can overplay their hands— and they just might.
Dan Pfeiffer had the same type of reminders to Democrats that Marie Newman had, noting that “No one seems interested in standing up to Trump and his MAGA minions… What the hell are the Democrats doing? Where the hell are they?… We must start fighting back whether or not we have all the answers... Congressional Democrats’ primary function is to oppose Donald Trump, to make his life as hard as possible, and to use every tool in our admittedly limited toolbox to stymie his dangerous agenda and to use every media opportunity to proclaim Trump’s failures. If Trump is the existential threat Democrats claimed he was during the election (and the first week makes it clear that we understated the case), then we need to wake up every day on defense… Our task is clear. Democrats need to stop complicating the simple. Stop voting for Trump’s nominees [John Fetterman and Jeanne Shaheen] and endorsing parts of his agenda [Blue Dogs and New Dems] because we think it will endear us to swing voters in 18 months… ‘At -1.6 unfavorable, Trump is a juggernaut. At -18 unfavorable, Trump is weak. Pushing him to -18 is Democrats’ job. Their entire job. In fact, I’m not sure that anything else they do over the next year even matters.’ … Confirming Trump’s nominees with substantial bipartisan majorities could make Trump more popular. Allowing him to sign a border security bill that Democrats only supported because they didn’t want to seem soft on the border (in an election that takes place in November of 2026?) seems like a bad idea.”
Despite creeps like Fetterman and Shaheen this was a Reuters headline yesterday: Americans sour on some of Trump's early moves, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds. “Overall, the poll showed 45% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance as president, down slightly from 47% in a Jan. 20-21 poll. The share who disapproved was slightly larger at 46%, an increase from 39% in the prior poll… Some 59% of respondents— including 89% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans— said they opposed ending birthright citizenship… Seventy percent of respondents oppose renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, an action Trump ordered on his first day in office. Only 25% of respondents supported the idea, with the rest unsure.”
Democrats in Congress— especially the corporately funded New Dems and the reactionary Blue Dogs— don’t seem to grasp that they are facing a fascist movement, not a normal opposition party. The GOP is not interested in governing— it’s interested in domination, dismantling democracy and entrenching minority rule through fear, corruption and raw power. And yet, too many Democrats are still playing by the old rules, voting for Trump’s nominees, giving oxygen to his agenda, and pretending that bipartisanship can tame an authoritarian on the march. It won’t.
Trump is already purging the federal government, pardoning domestic terrorists, and signaling his intent to unleash mass suffering— from mass deportations that’ll crater the economy to slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. His movement has been emboldened by Democratic cowardice. Every vote for a Trump nominee, every concession, every failure to meet his cruelty with forceful resistance is an endorsement of his regime. Marie Newman is right: bullies don’t stop unless they are fought, and fascists don’t moderate unless they are crushed. Congressional Democrats have a choice: either stand as a unified, unapologetic force against Trumpism, or be complicit in its rise. The time for hand-wringing is over. This is an existential fight for the country, and history will remember who resisted— and who cowered. This song— any version— should be played every time John Fetterman and Jeanne Shaheen walks into a room:
"No one seems interested in standing up to Trump and his MAGA minions" More importantly, no one seems prepared. Considering how his plans were far from secret, and the position that Trump's plans were an existential threat to Democracy in America, that's inexcusable. Protecting American Democracy was your primary job. What have you done since 2015 to protect us from Trump? "Congressional Democrats’ primary function is to oppose Donald Trump" You mean use their governmental positions to attack their political enemies? Oppose the blatant abuse of power, oppose all the Executive Orders that harm Americans and America. Oppose the lying, the hypocrisy and the incompetence. Oppose emoluments. Oppose corruption. Oppose the cracked foundation (like state voter suppression) and the low standards th…
Somewhere, this man weeps:
From 1992-2016, the donkey, more often than not, downplayed /repudiated the legacy of the president who revived a then-moribund party and fundamentally changed the country's direction to benefit tens of millions of ordinary Americans. In 2020, the party repudiated FDR's most fervent apostle (for a 2d time), but they at least offered an FDR Lite platform. Alas they didn't do a very good job of delivering on that platform, and, by 2024, no one could pretend that the mandarin-selected 2020 nominee was remotely capable of the rigors of the office.
As a direct result, they've posted a 1-2 record against this guy (and lost 5 of 8 election cycles after passing the ACA, their signature initiative):