Democrats and the Ruthless Aggression Era
America needs a real opposition party.
We’ve got another moment in which professional wrestling provides the key to understanding American politics. But we have to build up to it. I hope you’ll take the ride with me.
1. Irrelevant
Democrats in Washington are, as a matter of governing, irrelevant for the next year.
They cannot pass or propose legislation. They cannot hold hearings. They are in no position to stop the Trump administration from doing whatever it wants.
The job of the Democratic party, then is to get into position to get into position. That job comes in two parts.
First: Do not help Republicans. Not in any way. On any issue. Republicans can’t pass a budget, or raise the debt ceiling? Tough luck. Do not provide them any bailout votes on any issue. Period, the end.1
Second: Make Donald Trump own every bad outcome that happens, anywhere in the world while paying special attention to areas where Republicans are particularly vulnerable. Like housing and Ukraine.
I’m kind of obsessed with housing costs. To start with, housing was the one valid economic complaint people had during the Biden years. Take a look at the Case-Shiller index, which tracks changes in U.S. home prices:
Biden didn’t start the housing affordability crisis—that train left the station in the late ’90s. It got worse under Trump. And then it got even worse under Biden.
Housing affordability is a real problem and there is no reason to believe Trump can solve it. Why? Because housing supply is in tension with his proposed deportation regime.
Something like a quarter of the construction workers in America are here illegally. That’s just the national average. In Texas the number is estimated to be 60 percent.
You can’t address housing affordability without substantially increasing the housing supply. But if Trump is serious about mass deportations, then housing starts will be under downward pressure.2 Housing, as an issue, is a trap for Trump and Republicans. It’s a problem they can’t solve without creating other problems for themselves.
Democrats ought to talk about housing all day, every day. Make it the new price of eggs.3
Then there’s Ukraine.
For starters, Trump has set up impossible expectations: He promised to end the war in 24 hours. Starting on January 22, Democrats should ask, every day, why the war is still ongoing.
If Putin wants to do Trump a solid, he could halt offensive operations and be content to walk away with the territory he currently controls. But its not clear that Putin would be satisfied with a quarter loaf when the whole thing is suddenly there for the taking. And if Putin pushes forward, things could go horribly wrong in Ukraine. It is not inconceivable that Ukrainian defenses could collapse and Russia could start advancing with alacrity.
Presidents own the wars they inherit. Always. Nixon didn’t send troops to Vietnam, but he owned the conflict anyway. Biden didn’t sign the surrender with the Taliban, but he owned the withdrawal and everything bad that came with it.
If things go south in Ukraine, Democrats should make sure that Trump owns every death, every horrible picture, every atrocity.
Ukraine is like housing for Trump in that the only solutions for avoiding disaster are actions that would put him at odds with his base.4
2. Prediction: Pain
The job of an opposition party is to impose political pain. The point of political pain is to make the president unpopular. By driving up the president’s unfavorable numbers, you make him a millstone for his party’s congressmen and senators as they prepare for midterm elections. To the extent that the president becomes an electoral liability for members of his party, it curbs the ability of his coalition to govern. Which, in turn, takes his marginal agenda items off the table.
I feel silly even saying this because it’s Politics 101. It’s like explaining to a fish that water is supposed to be wet.
But Democrats aren’t acting anything like an opposition party. Joe Biden is bragging to USA Today about how Trump said something nice about him. Merrick Garland is deferring to Aileen Cannon. John Fetterman is vouching for Kash Patel’s sacred honor. Chuck Schumer is playing footsie with Trump’s Gulf of America nonsense.
What is wrong with these people?5