A month ago, James Carville, the highly influential Democratic strategist, advised his party to “play dead” and allow President Trump and his Republican allies who control Congress to self-destruct under the weight of unpopular policies.
House Democrats are rejecting the strategy outright.
Heading into the high-stakes battle over Trump’s sweeping domestic agenda, Democratic leaders are instead launching a forceful, in-your-face battle over the GOP’s plans for tax cuts, tougher immigration laws and steep reductions in federal spending, vowing to take the fight directly to the public in hopes that voter backlash will sink the Republican wish list before it can reach the president’s desk.
"We are going to fight every day, tooth and nail, to make sure that the American people get the benefits they have paid for, like Social Security, and that they deserve, like good public schools,” said Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip, who also singled out proposed cuts to veterans programs and health care benefits as particularly egregious.
“We are ready to match the fire we are hearing at home from people — the outrage and the fear — here in Congress."
From the minority, Democrats have virtually no power to block Trump’s domestic agenda on Capitol Hill, where Republicans control both chambers of Congress and GOP leaders are planning to move the legislation on an obscure procedural track, known as reconciliation, that makes Democratic opposition irrelevant if Republicans stay united.
But with Republicans clinging to slim majorities in both chambers, Democrats are ramping up a series of highly public campaigns designed to aggravate voter anxiety surrounding Trump’s domestic agenda — particularly cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs providing basic services to lower- and working-class people — and maximize the political risk for vulnerable Republicans who choose to support it.
The campaign features a series of hardball tactics aimed not only to persuade a handful of centrist Republicans to oppose the package, but also to demonstrate to the Democrats’ restless base that they’re fighting the good fight against Trump’s efforts to dismantle the federal government and the services it provides. Health care is at the center of the battle.
As part of the effort, Democrats have staged a national “day of action” to highlight the GOP’s proposed Medicaid cuts. They’re ramping up in-person town halls in their own districts. And they’ve taken the unusual step of venturing into Republican-held districts to meet with voters behind enemy lines — a concept that gained steam after Republican leaders advised GOP lawmakers to avoid such public events.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has called it an “all hands on deck” moment, and other Democratic leaders have adopted the message.
“It is critical that we convey to the country the seriousness of the moment with respect to the health care that is at risk for hundreds of thousands of Coloradans, and millions of Americans, across the country,” said Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), the fifth-ranking House Democrat.
“I don't think that's a fight that we can take lightly. I think we have to lean in, which is precisely what we're doing,” he continued. “And you're going to see that over the course of the next several weeks become even more pronounced."
The “lean-in” approach is precisely what Carville and like-minded Democrats have counseled against. In a much-discussed New York Times op-ed last month, the former Bill Clinton adviser urged Democrats to lay low heading into the debate over Trump’s domestic priorities — a ...
