Democrats have been trying to calibrate their message to cast themselves as agents of change, but repeatedly find themselves defending the status quo that voters have soured on.
The Democratic Party’s de facto message is that President Trump is moving the nation from bad to worse.
“Reality is, Democrats are defending the role of (good) government and the critical services we rely on, which DOES make them defenders of the status quo,” Christy Setzer, a Democratic strategist, said in an email. “It’s not sexy, and when people are in the mood for change, it absolutely works against us.”
“But under Trump, Americans are now seeing, in new and terrifying ways, just how important good government is,” she said.
The dynamic has spilled across television screens as Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and other Democrats rally against Mr. Trump’s effort to deport violent illegal immigrants in Los Angeles.
A similar story played out on Capitol Hill, where Democratic lawmakers have decried the president’s aggressive reshaping of the federal government.
Trump administration officials and Republicans say Democrats have not learned any lessons from the 2024 election after Americans voted for change.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently had a simple retort for Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington after she badgered him about his agency’s actions.
“I want to point out something here, senator, you have presided here, I think, for 32 years,” Mr. Kennedy said. “You presided over the destruction of the health of the American people. Our people are now the sickest people in the world because you have not done your job.”
Republicans also have a built-in response to the Democratic outcry over the administration’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education, arguing that something needs to change because the government has been spending more and more money on education, yet getting worse results in the classroom.
“If you want to create an uneducated electorate, you would continue doing exactly what we are doing,” GOP Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland said at a recent hearing.
Democratic politicians also warn that their party must do a better job of addressing the kitchen table issues — the cost of housing, health care and groceries — that pose challenges for the average American.
“If my party seems like we are calling for a return to the status quo from before, that will be both substantively wrong and politically it will fail,” former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said recently on MSNBC.
Mr. Trump dominated among voters in the 2024 election who cast their ballots based on which candidate they believed could bring much-needed change to Washington, sending a clear message about their concerns regarding inflation and the state of the southern border.
Democrats acknowledged that Mr. Trump benefited from voters who lost faith in institutions and blamed elected leaders for failing them.
Voters also moved in his direction because he promised to enact bold plans to reshape the economy, contrasted with President Biden’s assertion that the economy was good.
Now, seven months removed from an election in which Democrats lost the White House and both chambers of Congress, the party is still grappling with the best path forward.
The $4.5 million “Working Class Project” by American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic opposition research group, found it was “important for Democrats to speak up about what isn’t working, even when it confronts Democrats’ own shortcomings.”
“This helps connect with working-class voters, who largely distrust institutions or see the government as failing to address their needs, by mirroring what they already feel in their lives,” according to the project’s analysis of voter attitudes in 20 states.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, is making the case that voters of all political stripes want to overhaul parts of the government.
“Donald Trump tapped into people’s rightful anger on one thing: for too many, the status quo wasn’t working,” she said. “But the answer isn’t to burn it all down. It’s our time to build something new that actually delivers on the promise of the American dream.”
However, Democrats have struggled to define a fresh agenda that reaches beyond the anti-Trump messaging.
A recent CNN poll found that 40% of Americans believe Republicans have the strongest leaders, compared to 16% who think Democrats do. The poll found 36% believe the GOP is the party that can get things done, while 19% said the same about Democrats.
Perhaps most notably, nearly 60% of respondents said they want to see the federal government do more to address their problems, marking a record high in more than 30 years of the CNN poll.
“The Democratic Party has become a decline-management party,” Corbin Trent, a former Democratic strategist, said on a recent podcast in which he argued the party must not wait to offer a bold alternative vision to MAGA on the issues, including reforming the “broken and dysfunctional” health care system.
“A: We are always waiting. And B: It is never the time to go big,” he said.
It would be good for the party, Mr. Trent said, if every Democratic leader faced a primary challenge in 2026.
David Hogg, the recently minted co-vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, has attempted to move in that direction.
His plan to challenge Democrats in deep-blue districts who have been “asleep at the wheel” hit stiff blowback, and he is in jeopardy of losing his DNC post.
Democrats have opposed the status quo when it comes to extending the Trump tax cuts, which they want to let expire for wealthier Americans.
They also have a newfound interest in the national debt, following their approval of spending that added over $8 trillion to the national debt during the Biden years.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.