‘Where the hell are the Democrats?‘: Civil war within the party hampers opposition to Trump

Every year around this time, House Democrats take advantage of a recess to gather for an event they call the Issues Conference. Held in a convention hotel with dark carpeting and windowless meeting rooms, it serves as a kind of spiritual retreat where this diverse group puts aside their suits and ties to eat, drink, and engage in discussions — both among themselves and with experts from various fields — about the key “issues” facing the party, now and in the future.

The most recent conference took place between Wednesday and Friday in Leesburg, a charming Virginia town with a picturesque historic center, about an hour outside of Washington. And this year, there was only one pressing “issue”: how to recover from the crushing defeat in the November elections and confront Donald Trump’s agenda after the party lost control of two of the three branches of government — the executive and legislative — and has been in the minority in the Supreme Court for years.

The first two days of the conference went according to plan. Lawmakers seemed to regain their confidence, showing a renewed willingness to fight Trump and boasting of newfound unity. This was evidenced by the fact that 213 of their members (all but one) voted in the House of Representatives to oppose Trump’s temporary plan to fund the government through the fall. However, the slim Republican majority was enough to push the bill through and send it to the Senate before Friday — the deadline to reach an agreement and avoid a government shutdown.

In press conferences, interviews, and informal conversations with EL PAÍS in Leesburg, a dozen House Democrats said they were confident that their colleagues in the Senate would follow suit and force the partial freeze to oppose Trump’s “extremist” agenda — despite the serious consequences of such a move. But they hadn’t counted on Chuck Schumer. The Democratic leader in the Senate stunned everyone on Thursday by announcing he had secured the seven votes conservatives desperately needed.

The veteran politician framed it as an exercise in responsibility, arguing that a government shutdown would have given Trump and Elon Musk the chance to take “much more power” and that the obstruction maneuver would only have shifted blame onto others for the looming economic crisis, one seemingly fueled by the Republican’s aggressive and unpredictable trade policies.

In Leesburg, the announcement landed like a bombshell. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (representative from New York) stormed out of the meeting, seething, to share her “deep sense of outrage and betrayal” with reporters. “I think it is a huge slap in the face,” she added.

Shortly after, a statement from the House leadership arrived, reaffirming its “firm opposition to the Republican funding proposal,” which includes, among other things, cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. However, nothing underscored the latest civil war within the party quite like watching Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries respond “next question” on Friday when asked about the advisability of replacing the 74-year-old Schumer. By evening, 10 Democrats had ultimately voted with the Republicans.

In Leesburg, there was a growing sense of a missed opportunity. The party, constrained in the Capitol, had, for the first time, the chance to reject Trump and Musk’s cuts and make it clear they would not stand idly by while the system is dismantled. The gesture also aimed to send a message to their voters, many of whom have been asking since November: “Where the hell are the Democrats?”

According to a February Quinnipiac University poll, only 21% approve of their opposition work in Congress, a dramatic decline from 59% at this time in 2017, shortly after Trump’s first term began. While they didn’t control both chambers back then, the surprise rise of the reality star sparked a response on Capitol Hill and in the streets — one that has been sorely missing in the early days of this term, only revived recently by the mass layoffs ordered by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“If we look at the history of right-wing coups, to halt the advance of authoritarianism, it’s key that the parliamentary strategy be accompanied by a popular mobilization,” said Congressman Jamie Raskin (Maryland) on Thursday in Leesburg. “We alone will not be able to stop this nightmare.”

Raskin — who led the second impeachment trial against Trump after the assault on the Capitol — also pointed out that resistance has now shifted to the courts, urging patience because “this frontal attack on the Constitution is unprecedented.” “In World War II, it took the United States five or six years to convince itself to confront the threat of fascism. I don’t know if such frustration is justified after only five or six weeks,” he said.

Adriano Espaillat, who represents Harlem and other parts of Upper Manhattan and is the leader of the Hispanic Caucus, later outlined a two-phase plan in one of the resort’s meeting rooms: “Identify a message that the American people can understand, something we unfortunately haven’t been able to do lately, and, once polished, present it strategically. A message without a strategy is useless, and vice versa.”

“What we have seen is the Democratic brand, as defined by Republicans, is the problem,” added Jennifer McClellan, the first Black woman elected to Congress from Virginia. “We have to fight to redefine ourselves.”

The Leesburg meeting, at least, served — through repetition — to identify the arguments for this reinvention. Namely: that Trump doesn’t care about “working families” but only about “the billionaire class”; that he promised to lower inflation on day one and 55 days later seems to be pushing the country into a recession with tariffs; and that the purge of federal workers only demonstrates the cruelty of the new administration. They also agreed to target the man driving the cuts: Musk.

“He’s an easy target for us,” said Raskin of the world’s richest man. “He has a plan to establish a techno-authoritarian state, and it was inevitable that in this century we would have to face something similar, so maybe it’s not a bad idea to do it now and not leave the task to our children or grandchildren.”

The podcast strategy

Another point of agreement is that during the campaign, Republicans not only succeeded in making undecided voters see their opponents as more concerned with woke agenda issues than with so-called “real” problems, but they also failed to communicate effectively.

“I’m a regular consumer of mainstream media, but my 18-year-old son isn’t, and that’s a problem,” Marc Veasey (Texas) told EL PAÍS at the retreat. To engage with these voters, the congressman launched a podcast on Monday, just as California Governor Gavin Newsom began his earlier this month, although Veasey has not yet decided whether he will invite right-wing voices, as the governor does.

Newsom’s goal is to engage in dialogue “outside the bubble.” So far, he’s managed to anger his supporters with talks with national-populist ideologue Steve Bannon and with the young ultra-conservative Charlie Kirk, who managed to extract a statement from him opposing the participation of trans athletes in women’s sports — one of the fronts of the culture war where conservatives in this country feel most comfortable. Newsom said “it’s deeply unfair” to the competition.

In Leesburg, Sarah McBride, the first trans representative in House history, said: “I appear to live rent-free in the minds of some of my Republican colleagues.” She added: “I wish they would spend even a fraction of the time they spend thinking about me, thinking about how to lower the cost for American families.”

Newsom is one of the names most frequently mentioned as the party’s presidential candidate in 2028, given that the leaders in the Senate (Schumer) and the House (Jeffries) each have their own challenges. For Schumer, it’s overcoming last week’s vote and Trump’s praise, who hailed his “guts” and “courage.” Jeffries' challenges are summed up in one: the difficulty of succeeding the charismatic Nancy Pelosi.

Before that, there are the midterm elections in November next year. While there is some confidence in achieving success, there is disagreement on the best approach to take.

In an article published by The New York Times, veteran strategist James Carville proposed the “the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party”: “roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight.”

In a closed-door meeting in Leesburg, Carville seemed, according to one of those present, to have changed his mind in just three weeks (an eternity in Trump’s time). Carville recycled the slogan that made him famous during the Clinton administration against Bush Sr. (“It’s the economy, stupid!”), because, he argued: “it’s still the economy, stupid!” He was referring to the hope that the markets, which registered their worst day of the year last Monday amid the back-and-forth of tariff threats, would bring Trump to heel.

Carville, a pragmatist, finds strategies for confronting the new administration anywhere except within his own party, a party that, as Georgetown historian Michael Kazin, author of a biography of the Democratic Party, recalls in a nod to Walt Whitman, “contains multitudes.”

This was again demonstrated in Leesburg, where the succession of press conferences by House caucuses was reminiscent of that famous sequence in Life of Brian in which The People’s Front of Judea wants nothing to do with the Judean People’s Front. However, nothing could compare to the spectacle sparked after 10 Democratic senators supported the Republican funding bill. A show that once again confirmed that famous quote from comedian Will Rogers: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

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