How Dems Can Avoid Falling into Trump's Trap

Democrats must find a way to push back against Trump without becoming the defenders of a broken political system

While preparing for Pod Save America this week, I felt a sense of déjà vu. Every hour, we seemed to rewrite the show’s outline to account for the latest absurd Cabinet announcement from Trump. Hegseth, Gabbard, then Gaetz, and then finally, the coup de grâce — vaccine-truther Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the person in charge of the nation’s health care. Less than two weeks after the 2024 election, it’s 2017 all over again. Presidential-level trolling, policy-making and personnel decisions by tweet, pure chaos, and behind-the-scenes stories about dangerous decision-making.

We have been here before (Did we ever leave?).

In the days since the election, I have been ruminating on the first Trump presidency and trying to formulate strategies to chart our way out of the wilderness. Let me be clear, Democrats successfully pushed back against Trump. We prevented him from repealing the Affordable Care Act. We took the House and the Senate and defeated Trump in his reelection. Thanks in part to Democratic messaging, Trump is the only President in modern history to never have a positive approval rating.

So, I am not second-guessing the work we all did together. However, in hindsight, we made one miscalculation that sowed the seeds of our defeat in 2024. And I worry that too many elected Democrats, progressive media personalities, and online activists may make it again.

With his dangerously unfit Cabinet selections and outrageous conduct, Trump is once again threatening to violate every norm and burn down the system. Oftentimes, the Democratic response defaults to defending a political system that too many Americans distrust.

A Rational Response to Trump’s Offenses

We are all somewhat numb to the Trump Show after all these years. Trump’s conduct and rhetoric now closely mirrors the median Republican elected official. Trump is the new normal for the GOP. But it was very different in 2017. Almost everything Trump did was unprecedented. No President before had so openly abused the office, so brazenly attacked the media, or sown so much distrust in institutions. Unlike those before him, Trump disregarded the gravity of the office. He made Richard Nixon seem like a fairly circumspect patriot.

Our opposition to Trump was so strong that we rushed to defend that which he attacked. Trump attacks the media? Democrats defend the media and subscribe to the New York Times and Washington Post as acts of resistance. Trump attacks his own law enforcement and intelligence agencies? We rush to their defense — elevating figures like Robert Mueller to hagiographic status. We became fluent in various laws and norms of our time and treated every trespass as something that ranged from deeply disturbing to worthy of impeachment.