Opinion - Democrats, forget ‘resistance’ and focus on ‘betrayal’

Over the last month, we’ve woken up to many stories that sound a lot like this one, from the New York Times: “The Democratic Party emerged from this week’s election struggling over what it stood for, anxious about its political future, and bewildered about how to compete with a Republican Party that some Democrats say may be headed for a period of electoral dominance.”

But that piece was actually published on Nov. 7, 2004 — 20 years ago.

That doesn’t mean the story was wrong then or that the same notion is wrong now. It just means that the battle isn’t to figure out how to win the last war, but to win the next one.

The reality is that there is a need for Democrats to understand and learn about what happened in the 2024 election and how it can, and should, affect our approaches to the future. But the important part is focusing on approaches to the future.

So as Democrats in Washington and around the country prepare for a second Trump administration and Republican-controlled government, there are a few things we can do right now to drive down support for the GOP agenda and position ourselves to start winning again.

First, talk about “betrayal” instead of touting “resistance.” After the 2016 election, Democrats needed to show that there was still a heartbeat and build momentum for opposition to Trump’s agenda. But while that was successful and important then, Trump’s support has only grown. His low watermark was 46 percent of the vote in 2016. Even at the height of the pandemic in the 2020 election, he was backed by 47 percent of voters, and now by more than 49 percent in 2024. Our challenge this time isn’t to demonstrate the resistance; it is to reveal the betrayal.

Trump’s agenda — from higher costs on everyday goods, to tax breaks for his billionaire buddies, to health care ripped away from young families with kids and seniors in assisted living — is not the agenda that his voters actually want. The very things he’s poised to undercut, like Medicaid, are important to the very people who elected him. You could see the first inkling of this on the day after the election, when Google searches for “tariffs” surged as people started to worry about what his presidency would mean. Democrats’ responsibility now is to show people how Trump’s agenda betrays the very people who put him into office — selling them out and leaving them behind.

Second, don’t say “I told you so.”Over the next months and years, there will be countless moments where people who supported Trump are worried about what he’s trying to do. We’re already seeing that from some Republicans in Congress, who are concerned about Trump’s unqualified Cabinet picks. Soon after the new administration takes power, we’ll start to see it from voters too. People will speak up about the damage that Trump’s agenda is doing to them, from Americans who lose friends to deportation to women who lose access to abortion.

But Democrats have to resist the temptation to say “I told you so” or “We warned you.” The worst possible way to persuade anyone to agree with you is to start out by telling them that they were wrong and you were right. Don’t try it, no matter how good it makes you feel or how many likes it gets you on social media.

Third, remember what they say about “sticks and stones.”Having observed Trump’s behavior on the national political stage for nearly a decade, we know he will say things that will concern us all. It was true the day he first announced his candidacy in 2015 and it was true at his Madison Square Garden rally just before the election — and every day in between.

But when voters feel like their lives are out of control and are focused on getting by day to day, they truly don’t care about what Trump says. In fact, when Democrats’ focus is on what he says (instead of what he does), we’re reminding those voters that we’re not focused on the things that they care about.

It’s been true since grade school that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” If we want to persuade people, we have to focus on the harmful “sticks and stones” of Trump’s agenda, not the words.

Fourth, don’t own the status quo. About two-thirds of the country thinks we’re on the wrong track. Those numbers climb among the swing voters who decide elections. Regardless of whether Republicans have had total control of government (2017 to 2019), Democrats had total control (2021 to 2023) or government was divided (2019 to 2021 and 2023 until Jan. 20), Democrats have managed to make themselves the defenders of the status quo.

Democrats can no longer be the party talking about “protecting” the system of government or its institutions. We need no longer be the ones defending the status quo in an economic system that Americans feel is broken. When we say that we are here to “save democracy,” a large share of people wonder why we want to save something that doesn’t work for them.

We can be the party that is growing the economy so it works for working people, reforming health care so costs come down and fixing democracy so it delivers for constituents again. We don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater — but we’ve also got to stop taking a bath ourselves.

When that New York Times story was written in 2004, the party was in dire straits. Two years after it was written, the first woman ever became Speaker of the House. Two years after that, America elected its first Black president. And two years after that, the Affordable Care Act became law.

Jesse Ferguson is a longtime Democratic strategist and general consultant.

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