Dems Don’t Have to Inspire, They Have to Oppose
A party out of power doesn’t have to be in splendid array. It has to be pugnacious.
Is the war in Ukraine over yet? I was told it would be over.
Happy Wednesday.
The Democrats in Opposition
by William Kristol
On our Bulwark livestream last night, Will Saletan described watching a press briefing by a bunch of Democratic senators earlier in the day. His assessment was mostly bleak: When it comes to pushing back against Trump, the Democrats are in disarray.
The good news is that it doesn’t matter that much.
The Democrats were recently—very recently—in power. They held the White House for the last four years, along with the House for the first two of those years and the Senate for all four. That recent reality—not what some Democratic senators say today—is, inescapably, what defines the party for now.
And the sad truth is that the 2024 election was, fairly or unfairly, a negative judgment on their party’s performance in power.
That judgment can’t be changed overnight. It’s going to take time for the Biden Democratic party to recede, and for a new Democratic party to emerge. There are a few green shoots. For example, Will reported that yesterday Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy provided a moment of energy and a ray of light in the otherwise gloomy parade of uninspiring Democratic talk that he witnessed.
But even if Democrats were being more inspiring, the fact is that for now, no one is that interested in listening to them. The Democrats aren’t the story. Donald Trump is the story. Trump has power and is exercising it.
Of course, I’d like it if Senate Democrats were more outspoken and more compelling in making the case against some of Trump’s terrible nominees, like Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel. But the fact is Democrats can’t defeat them. At the end of the day, some Republican senators will have to step up. There’s not that much Democrats can do to inject courage into Republican veins.
And Democrats can’t do anything about Trump’s appalling pardons. Nor can they do much about his executive orders, which as the minority party in Congress they have no ability to stop or overturn. They can’t do a lot, if anything at all, to block what Trump intends to do in foreign policy.
So they don’t have power. For that reason, for now at least, people won’t care much about their positive agenda, their policy recalibrations, their plans and hopes, their efforts to prove they are ready to govern. They won’t have a chance to govern for four years. Even if they flip the House in 2026, what they’ll be able to do is check Trump. Which would be good! But not yet governing.
So what can they do now? Tell the truth—and do it clearly, and do it loudly. Tell the truth about Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel. Tell the truth about Trump’s cruel and damaging immigration policies. Tell the truth about Trump’s plutocrats and corruption and grift. Tell the truth about Trump’s assault on the rule of law. For now, the public’s wondering what to think about Trump. Explaining how damaging and dangerous Trump’s policies will be would be important. Do it forcefully. Do it often.
Behind the scenes, there does need to be rethinking aplenty of the Democratic agenda. There needs to be a fresh start. But for now Democrats need to oppose. They should read up on the Lincoln of the 1850s not the 1860s; on the Churchill of the 1930s not the 1940s; on the Havel of the 1980s not the 1990s.
The irony is, despite their disarray, the Democrats aren’t actually in bad shape. The party has won the popular vote in seven of the nine most recent presidential elections. In the 2024 presidential election, after having to substitute a new candidate in mid-July, Democrats won more than 48 percent of the popular vote. Democrats now hold 49 percent of the House, 47 percent of the Senate, and 46 percent of governorships, including six of the ten largest states.
This isn’t a party in shambles. It’s not even a party in the wilderness. What it is, is a party in opposition. Obviously, they’d prefer to be governing. But opposing Trump’s plans and schemes isn’t ignoble at all. It’s important. And it’s what the Democrats for now can do, and what they must do.
So do it. Don’t worry. Oppose.
Quick Hits
HE SAID, SHE SAID AND SHE SAID AND SHE SAID, AND . . . : If you watched Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, you might remember Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked a lot of hypothetical questions. Many were phrased like this: “You have admitted that you had sex [with a woman who later accused him of assault] while you were married to wife two after you just had fathered a child by wife three. You’ve admitted that. Now if it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be secretary of defense, wouldn’t it?”
Or this: “So you can't tell me whether someone who has committed a sexual assault is disqualified from being secretary of defense?”
Or, notably, this: “But you would agree with me that if someone had committed physical violence against a spouse, that would be disqualifying to serve as secretary of defense, correct?”
Hegseth’s responses ranged from “That was a false claim,” to a refusal to address a “hypothetical,” to “I will allow your words to speak for themselves.”
Well, now we have a clearer sense of what Kaine was getting at. Per CNN:
Pete Hegseth’s former sister-in-law gave an affidavit to the Senate Armed Services Committee accusing him of being “abusive” toward his second ex-wife, according to a copy of the affidavit obtained by CNN. . . .
Danielle Hegseth, who was married to Hegseth’s brother from 2011 to 2019, wrote in the affidavit that Hegseth was “abusive” toward his ex-wife, Samantha Hegseth. She did not specify the nature of the abuse and said she did “not personally witness physical or sexual abuse by Hegseth.” Danielle Hegseth wrote that Samantha Hegseth at times feared for her safety and that she had a code word if she needed help to get away from her husband. She said she once received a text from Samantha Hegseth with the code word sometime in 2015 or 2016. The affidavit also alleged that she witnessed Hegseth abusing alcohol at multiple family gatherings, and that she also witnessed him drinking to excess in public twice during 2013.
The ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I), had a more or less normal response to the affidavit. “The alleged pattern of abuse and misconduct by Mr. Hegseth is disturbing,” he said. “This behavior would disqualify any servicemember from holding any leadership position in the military, much less being confirmed as the Secretary of Defense.”
The committee’s chairman, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), had a, uhm, different reaction, expressing “grave doubts as to the substance” of the accusation, and adding, “I think the nomination is going to [go] forward by Thursday.”
I JUST CALLED TO SAY I’M SORRY: Turns out there is accountability for some people. The New York Times reports that News Group Newspapers, part of the vast Murdoch media empire, has agreed to pay the U.K.’s Prince Harry an undisclosed sum to settle a lawsuit over gross invasions of his privacy. But that’s not it—the settlement apparently also included a public apology:
News Group Newspapers offered Harry a “full and unequivocal apology” for hacking his cellphone and intruding into his personal life, and acknowledged “unlawful” conduct by private investigators hired by one of the tabloids, The Sun. It was the first time News Group has admitted wrongdoing involving that paper.
The company also apologized for past intrusions by its journalists into the private life of Harry’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 while being pursued by photographers.
News Group Newspapers did not disclose how much it paid Harry or his fellow claimant, Tom Watson, a former deputy leader of the Labour Party. But it was reportedly quite the sum, which fits the Murdoch playbook: Pay for the problem to go away. Somewhere, top executives at Dominion are experiencing a bit of déjà vu.
MAKE AMERICA CUBAN AGAIN: Mark Cuban, who seems to be trailed by presidential buzz these days, had an interesting rejoinder to Donald Trump’s launch of a meme coin right before assuming the presidency. The entrepreneur and erstwhile Kamala Harris surrogate suggested that he too would launch a digital currency, but with one difference: the revenues from it would go to the U.S. Treasury.
Now, we don’t actually anticipate that Cuban is going to do this (but if you’re reading, Mark, give us the scoop!). What’s interesting to us is the shrewd politics here. Cuban thinks Trump’s meme coin is a corrupt grift. But instead of calling him out, he’s calling his bluff.
Notable still is that Cuban got the attention of at least one Democrat in higher places—Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s first White House chief of staff:
Cheap Shots
Regarding the cheap shot, it really speaks volumes that a basic message of kindness and grace offends Republicans so much.
Look at the stunned, confused, disapproving faces of the most powerful people in our country as a Christian bishop asks them to show mercy to the most vulnerable. We need look no further to know every damning thing about them.