Do these Democrats look capable of making Trump and the GOP pay for their inevitable political mistakes and miscalculations?
If you squint pretty hard, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin’s “official” response to President Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress might be a comeback message for a Democratic Party that’s currently lost in the political wilderness.
But is the wider Democratic Party even listening?
Slotkin focused on three subject areas: inflation and the economy; a vision for a confident American leadership in the world; and a recovery of small-d democratic norms in our politics.
“Whether you’re in Wyandotte or Wichita,” Slotkin said, “most Americans share three core beliefs: That the middle class is the engine of our country. That strong national security protects us from harm. And that our democracy, no matter how messy, is unparalleled and worth fighting for.”
This is an attempt to concentrate Democrats’ minds on a message of middle-class prosperity, a John F. Kennedy–style foreign policy, and Trump’s to-this-day unpopular governing eccentricities. It’s a speech from Normie Town USA, directed at Normie Town USA.
Notably, two words didn’t appear in Slotkin’s ten-minute speech: abortion and trans. There wasn’t a single reference to “choice” or a defense of men in women’s sports. This wasn’t a woke speech. In fact, it could have come from the mouth of a moderate ’90s-era Third Way Democrat.
But Slotkin’s vision of a future Democratic Party, such as it is, paled in comparison to the televised images of the sclerotic, tired, out-of-ideas Democrats sitting in the House chamber. In comparison with the supercharged political theater put on by Trump and his Republican allies, it was a sad and pathetic scene.
The Democrats’ mood was visibly dour. They were berated by the president, and mocked. Their titular leaders, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, were nonentities, totally overshadowed by the energy on the dais and on the Republican side of the chamber.
As the cameras panned across the representatives and senators, Americans took in the sight of an ancient Al Green (78 years old) shaking his cane at the president, an ancient Nancy Pelosi (84) grimacing at Trump’s call for federal legislation to ban the participation of men in women’s sports, an ancient Elizabeth Warren (75) doom-scrolling on her phone, and, then, a young-but-witless Rashida Tlaib impotently holding up her miniature white board.
A few Democrats, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chris Murphy, and Ron Wyden, didn’t even bother showing up.
The Democrats are not a party that looks capable of making Trump and the Republicans pay for their inevitable political mistakes and miscalculations. Who are their leaders? Who is going to insist that the Democratic Party takes up Slotkin’s normie, middle-class message? We’re a long way from the Democrats finding someone that they can rally around going into the 2026 midterms, let alone the 2028 presidential cycle.
In the meantime, are AOC and the Squad willing to give up a decade’s worth of progressive rhetoric and move to the political center? I have my doubts!
For now, the only thing that can save the Democrats is if Trump is plainly seen by the American people to have failed to fulfill his promises to grow the economy and keep inflation in check.
Events, dear boy, events — that’s the Democrats’ only hope. But hope isn’t a strategy.