Before dawn on the first day of the year, The Times published an OpEd by New York’s most “bipartisan” Member of Congress, Tom Suozzi, Let’s Try Something Different in How We Deal With Trump. He just came off a successful reelection effort that… should have been more successful. He won, 187,651 (51.8%) to 174,693 (48.2%) against a little-known Republican with no money. Suozzi spent $6,098,472; Mike LiPetri spent $79,656. Trump beat Kamala in the district by 6 points.
Suozzi, who is unlikely to have written the column without the OK of Hakeem Jeffries, wrote that he knows that the Democrats “will be tempted to hold fast against Trump at every turn: uniting against his bills, blocking his nominees and grinding the machinery of the House and the Senate to a halt. That would be a mistake. Only by working together to find compromise on parts of Trump’s agenda can we make progress for Americans who are clearly demanding change in the economy, immigration, crime and other top issues.” OK… Bernie and Ro Khanna have been saying the same thing.
But Suozzi, a more conservative Democrat, wrote, gratuitously, that he rejects what he called the Democrats’ “significant leftward shift” and referred to himself as “a common-sense Democrat,” implying that progressives aren’t. But, still, he claimed to not be a “dupe: Some of Trump’s actions offer little reassurance that he is ready to embrace the bipartisanship and compromise essential to a functioning democracy. His radical cabinet picks, such as the Project 2025 contributor Russell Vought and Matt Gaetz (now withdrawn); his last-minute demands on last month’s government funding bill; and the recent demonstrations of hubris, such as Republicans bringing Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to Capitol Hill and refusing to include Democrats in the meetings, offer no reason for optimism about compromise. But if Trump wants to have a more effective presidency than he had in his first term, he needs to embrace his inner dealmaker and negotiate with the other party that holds just shy of half of the seats on Capitol Hill and key governorships around the country. And if he does that work, Democrats should meet him halfway rather than be the Party of No.” Again— sounds like Bernie and Khanna… to an extent.
The election was a mandate. But it wasn’t for one-party rule— Trump won with less than 50 percent of the popular vote, and Republicans have thin majorities in the House and the Senate. But as I see it, the results of the 2024 campaign were a mandate for border security, immigration reform, low inflation, economic stability and common ground on culture-war fights. That’s good for America. So let’s make that our shared agenda in 2025. There are a majority of votes for all of it.
And let’s try something different when it comes to the president-elect.
Since the day Mr. Trump announced his candidacy at the tower bearing his name almost 10 years ago, many politicians, pundits, activists and members of the news media have detailed every one of his failings and missteps. Every word he’s ever spoken has been criticized. Yet he just won again. People are exhausted by the endless finger-pointing, nit-picking and daily battling for political advantage. They want leaders to work together to get things done.
Some members of my party and left-leaning advocacy groups are now branding themselves as the leaders of a national “resistance” movement, reflexively opposing ideas from the incoming administration. That’s a bad idea.
Resistance has a role. During the prior Trump presidency, I resisted his efforts to undo the Affordable Care Act and to deport the Dreamers. And we can and should continue to resist Mr. Trump’s efforts to retaliate against his perceived political enemies by weaponizing the Justice Department, his pledge to gut policies that combat climate change and protect our environment, and his threat to bring the United States back to an isolationist view of the world. To lead effectively, we must find common ground, build consensus and offer solutions. Democrats must resist when necessary, but our general outlook must be to go beyond resistance and articulate a vision that inspires.
For instance, while it is essential to secure the border and deport criminals, we must also reform the broken asylum system and modernize legal immigration to provide pathways to legalization for Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status recipients and farmworkers. Immigration must be governed by the rule of law while protecting immigrant families from fear and ensuring our economy is kept stable while treating human beings like human beings.
Under President Biden, Democrats refocused national policy on rebuilding the middle class by creating solid job opportunities with the Infrastructure Law and promoting manufacturing under the CHIPs Act. Unfortunately, we failed to communicate the effort effectively. While Mr. Biden was often quoted saying, “It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” no one really understood that he was talking about creating more solidly middle-class jobs and putting forth a real policy to do just that.
Republicans claim they are for working families, but it is Democrats who support an increase in the minimum wage, adoption of the union-friendly PRO Act and a robust enhancement of the child tax credit. Voters need to hear that.
Democrats cannot abandon our zeal to combat climate change. At the same time, let’s balance our commitment to environmental protection with pragmatic measures that safeguard affordable utility bills and manageable costs at the pump. Let’s move beyond the relentless attacks on widely held religious values while ensuring that the rights, safety and dignity of all are upheld. And Democrats should be supportive of efforts to make government more efficient and effective, but we must fiercely defend and advocate the strengthening of Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act.
Both parties should seek new ideas and leaders to demonstrate a willingness to break away from the restrictive orthodox ideologies of some of the more extreme members of the Democrats’ Progressive Caucus and the Republicans’ Freedom Caucus, who limit our ability to seek common ground and get things done.
This time in history is both a warning and an opportunity. My New Year’s resolution is to rise above partisanship and bickering, reject extremism and embrace common sense, and keep building relationships with Republicans and Democrats to get things done. I’ll work with anyone who wants to solve problems and make things better for people, but I’ll never abandon my values. If Republicans and Democrats choose the path of division and overreach, they will deepen the partisan divides that have already weakened our democracy. But if they embrace bipartisanship and cooperation, 2025 can be a better year for all Americans. We have to remember that the ultimate goal of government should be serving the American people, not our respective parties.
While defending popular progressive economic ideas, Suozzi equating the Congressional Progressive Caucus with the Freedom Caucus is demagoguery if not just plain ole dishonest. But he's is a New Dem and that caucus is determined to turn the Democratic Party in a more corporate-friendly, conservative direction. He wrote that he’ll “work with anyone who wants to solve problems and make things better for people.” I hope that includes progressives as well as the right-wing loons.
Every Member of Congress I spoke to today had read Suozzi’s piece. I asked Mark Pocan (D-WI) how it struck him. “I wish the author remembered the last Trump presidency,” he told me, “because if he did, he would have deleted the column. Trump and MAGA values are a threat to this nation’s values, and we need everyone ready to be the resistance. Trump claims to be for working people but his policies are directly opposed. Democrats act most often on helping working Americans, but need to talk AND act like we have since FDR. Waiting for Trump to not be Trump is futile at best.”
Another Member who prefers to remain nameless said they think that “the Suozzi Op Ed could have been worse, because Suozzi does, in fact, make something of a pitch for the Democrats, unlike Manchin or Sinema. The core of it, however, is capitulating to the Republicans on large parts of the GOP platform, without getting anything in return. Not one Republican voted for the Affordable Care Act. Virtually no Republicans voted for any Democratic bill when Obama was President, and Obama tried to cultivate them all the time. Same thing with Biden. They are the party of “no.” Suozzi says that the Democrats should try to work with Trump, but there is no sign whatsoever that Trump wants to work with the Democrats, and he never did (not even once) during his first term. The only thing that the Democrats and Republicans have been able to agree on, for years, are CRs. So I think that Suozzi probably is coming from a good place on this, but what he is describing is just not realistic. What Suozzi is trying to do, basically, is walking into a Chinese restaurant and ordering a panini. Bipartisanship is not on the menu, and there is nothing that he can do to change that.”
You may recognize this singer— maybe more than one in fact— but right now “Go Light A Candle” is an anonymous musical chain letter that I thought says something like what Suozzi is sorta/kinda trying to say… but, better. Please give it a listen and pass it along:
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