Democratic Party Leaders Are Asleep at the Wheel

https://jacobin.com/2025/02/democrats-trump-musk-jeffries-opposition

26 comments

  1. Primary Jeffries. He had essentially ceded all leadership anyway. Schumer too if he doesn’t retire

  2. So was/is our entire national defense industry. All those tax dollars for the NSA, CIA, FBI and they couldn’t even arrest trump despite having all the evidence they needed. Unfortunately it took pretty much everyone not doing their jobs to get to this point.

  4. Christ, Democrats — perhaps start by fucking addressing the American public every single day? Youtube, ads, broadcast air time, anything! Use your goddamn social media/communications teams to broadcast the protests that mainstream media is reluctant to cover. Start interviewing all of the fired federal workers. Start drawing media attention to yourselves, fucking bang pots if you have to. Show the receipts of how the Trump admin is screwing the general public. Hammer over, and over, how grocery prices are not being addressed by this Admin, juxtapose it with the several dozens of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-woman actions that this Admin is prioritizing. Expose how the Admin is trying to end no-fault divorce, how Musk is buying the Wisconsin judicial election, how Trump recently said that there won’t be blue states in 2026. Do AMAs every single day. Get on podcasts. Start meeting with union leaders. Show people how Trump’s actions are affecting their lives *right now*, make it fucking personal, throw up easy to use tools to demonstrate how much they are losing. Show people how a rising tide lifts all boats, start combating this inane zero-sum rhetoric being pushed by conservative media, combat the “empathy is a sin” nonsense. Lead a general strike. Help grow people’s self-sufficiency and community organization in the face of an autocratic government.

    If you can’t do it, then step out of the goddamn way and let the members of your party who actually understand how to communicate take the lead. There are rich fucking Democrats among you, put some skin in the game and put up that wealth for the public good.

  5. Protests, whining on Reddit, calling your bought and paid for congressperson, donating to parties, etc. doesn’t do anything at all. Those haven’t worked for a long time.

    Your ONLY power in a capitalist country is money, that’s it. What you purchase directly feeds the power structures, nothing else you do matters to those in power. So what are you supposed to do? Stop giving them your $. If you care about saving the USA, stop feeding the monsters that are devouring it.
    1. Buy local as much as you can. Farmers markets, locally owned businesses, local online market places, friends selling stuff, estate sales, etc.
    2. Avoid chains and franchises like the plague, especially those owned by large corporations. Avoid large purchases if possible.
    3. Cancel subscriptions you don’t really need or use.
    4. Use your local library for books and streaming content, most offer amazing digital services now.
    5. Eat in much more, it’s healthier and will save you money, which you will probably need more than ever.
    6. Help folks you know, work as a team and support each other like you are one big family…and make new friends if you don’t have many.
    7. Don’t click on any links for large media companies, starve the advertisers.
    8. Get out and enjoy nature more, it’s free and will clear your mind and improve with anxiety.
    9. Get off X if you are still on it. Sell your Tesla if you own one. Stop using Starlink if you have it. DO NOT SUPPORT MUSK.
    10. Spread the word…RESIST WITH THE ONE SUPER POWER YOU HAVE…$$$$

  6. Voters are in a coma. How much reporting was there on Musk giving out 1M a day to register Republicans? And no one cared. Voters are immune to this stuff. I don’t think anything will change unless there’s severe economic pain.

  7. Ahh, Jacobin. 

    The fuckwits who spent the entire election cycle telling Democrats why they shouldn’t vote Democrat.

    And now they have a problem?

    Yeah, the problem is you… Jacobin.

  8. The Democrats are out of power right now. Perhaps their strategy is to sit back while Trump takes a flamethrower to everything in order to show the American people exactly what they get when they vote to “burn it all down.” It’s not as though Democrats really have the power to stop what’s about to happen, or even slow it down significantly, so they probably figure that it’s best to let America get exactly what they asked for and see if it’s really what they wanted.

  9. Uh, it is the fascists that are behind the wheel. The democrats are desperately trying to find their footing.

  10. They’re not at the wheel. They’re locked in the trunk.

  11. Everything going wrong with our country: democrats WHY ARENT YOU DOING ANYTHING!

    Everything going right with our country: democrats ARENT DOING ENOUGH.

    Getting old that this is all democrats fault. Not just their fault.

  12. I agree with portions of this article but if your button / conclusion is “Kathy Hochuls is setting a good example” you need to fuck directly off.

    I love in a city more directly under Trump’s control than any other in America. Trump can throw my mayor in jail whenever he wants, and has given my mayor a chance to avoid jail if he does *everything* Trump wants.

    Hochul is the person letting this happen. Fuck her.

  13. How many on this thread bitching and griping now sat out the election because the democratic candidate wasn’t left enough? If you sat out, you’re part of the current problem.

  14. So tired of blaming Dems for the Republicans actions.

    Y’all voted for this

  15. And what, exactly, do you think they should be doing that would actually matter? Challenge them in Congress? Nope, no majority. Challenge them in court? Nope, SC is compromised. Challenge them in the executive? Nope, no seat in the executive branch. It is almost like their own voters gave the Dems a giant middle finger and are now only starting to realize that it was a really fucking stupid idea.

  16. While I agree it’s be nice to see what the Democrats can do to save the country, the blame needs to remain on the Republicans.

    They have majority in the Senate and judicial branches and rather than selling our entire country to Trump and allowing it to become an authoritarian dictatorship, they are ignoring their oaths of office and ignoring the will of the people for their own personal gain.

    The democrats are doing what they can. Bernie is touring cities to try to get a grass roots support, AOC is rallying people and talking online, but the major bodies are all controlled by traitor Republicans and we need to be calling them out on it and doing whatever we can to force them to do their jobs.

  17. They’re quite literally NOT AT THE WHEEL

    THEY DID NOT GET THE VOTES

    DEMOCRAT VOTERS DID NOT GET OUT AND VOTE

    anyone who is blaming democrats for the current political climate should have their fucking voting rights stripped from them. How you could possibly watch democrats run a progressive campaign about helping america and republicans run a campaign and administration about destroying the country and then blame the democrats is beyond me.

    Anyone who thinks like this, FUCK. YOU. YOU are the problem.

  18. Voters stripped them of any real power or leverage. We own this, not them.

  19. A majority of Americans voted for the Republican party to have complete and total control of the government.

    It wasn’t the Democrats fault, they weren’t screaming woke shit everywhere, they were trying to make things better but American believed Trump and blamed Biden for everything.

    So, if I was a Democratic congressman, I wouldn’t be doing jack shit except voting against anything Trump wants. People don’t listen when they tell them the truth so why bother?

  20. Fuck the media. They were asleep at the wheel and normalized this shit. Fuck you Jacobin. You were part of this too.

  21. Start blaming spuriously elected GOP representatives. Contact them. Tell them to stop abdicating their duties to preserve, defend and protect our Constitution. Stop blaming Democrats, GOP owns all of this.

  22. Complete nonsense.

    * [Senate Democrats filibustered a confirmation hearing](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/us/politics/trump-senate-democrats-russell-vought.html) and [did another marathon session to point out issues with DOGE and Ukraine](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/wireStory/democrats-channel-outrage-doge-ukraine-marathon-senate-session-119034954)

    * [protesting with federal workers](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AfwVRDZq4y0)

    * [launching lawsuits to block the Executive orders](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/immigration/democrat-led-states-sue-trump-over-birthright-citizenship-order)

    We got into this mess when people did not vote for Democrats. And Democratic politicians need our help. Protest Republicans! They’re in charge right now.

    And the lost important Solution: vote for more Democrats!

    I’m doing my part by going low and telling everyone to vote for Democrats now & forever, 100% of the time

  23. You mean the party whose power was voted away so they have very limited options on what they can do because Americans are stupid as all fuck?

  24. Fuck off… They warned this would happen how can they make this better when the GOP has the house president and Senate

  25. What’s up with these disingenuous article titles? Democrats aren’t at the wheel of anything because this country voted them into the passenger seat of every branch of government. Fuck this article

  26. I know that there’s blame to share, but most of the criticism should be levied at the Republicans in Congress, not the Democrats. The Republicans are the ones with real power and who are selling out their constituents, not the Democrats.

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