Democrats Claim that Trump is an Existential Threat to American Democracy. It's Time Their Leadership Acts Like It

Chuck Schumer at a news conference following the weekly Senate Democratic policy luncheon at the US Capitol, October 2, 2018. Source: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Democrats’ messaging since 2020 has been clear: Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy and aims to end Liberal Democracy as it has existed in the United States. They cite Trump’s unprecedented actions on January 6, 2021, to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. They point to his illegal firing of Inspectors General, his unconstitutional impoundment of billions of dollars in Congressionally mandated federal spending, and his disregard of court orders as evidence of his blatant disdain for this nation’s laws, institutions, history, and values. They are correct.

However, when given the chance to stand up to Trump this past month with the Congressional vote on the Continuing Resolution (CR) that included billions of dollars in cuts to the federal budget, Democrats waffled. The bill required the support of 60 senators to overcome the filibuster, an enormous challenge for such a radical piece of legislation, given that Republicans held only 53 seats. However, with cowardice that would make Benedict Arnold blush, the Leader of the Democratic Caucus, New York Senator Chuck Schumer, buckled under pressure and backed the bill without securing a single amendment. He, along with Democratic Senators Dick Durbin (IL), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), John Fetterman (PA), Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Gary Peters (MI), Brian Schatz (HI), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), and Angus King (ME), joined all but one Republican, Senator Rand Paul (KY), in advancing the legislation.

Schumer justified his actions by arguing that a government shutdown, which would have resulted from the bill failing the filibuster vote, would not be a preferable alternative. However, this simply does not check out in today’s political environment. Schumer, who was elected to Congress when John Lennon was a figure in current events, is horrifically out of touch with how things in Washington have changed, not just in the age of Trump, but also works with a playbook that has been outdated since the first half of the Clinton Administration. 

Let’s break it down. 

This Isn’t Your Father’s Congress (Or Your Grandfather’s) 

For most of the second half of the 20th century, both parties in Washington played by similar playbooks. There was a bipartisan respect for institutions and clean tactics. This was evident in several key moments. One example is the censure of Red Scare fear monger Joseph McCarthy in 1954. Another is the ouster of Republican President Richard Nixon in 1974, following the Watergate Scandal, which revealed enormous abuse of power and corruption. Even in less dramatic ways, this respect was apparent in the strong working relationship between Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill of Massachusetts from 1981 to 1987.

However, this period of relative harmony ended with Newt Gingrich’s rise to the House Speakership in 1994. Gingrich climbed the ranks of the House Republican leadership by championing a far more combative approach to politics, echoing the style of Reagan’s Communications Director and far-right figure Pat Buchanan, the man who popularized the term “culture war.” He urged Republicans to brand Democrats as “corrupt,” “traitors,” and “anti-American,” weaponized government shutdowns to obstruct the Clinton administration’s agenda, and consolidated power in the Speaker’s office, sidelining committee chairs and breaking long-standing institutional norms.

What emerged from the Gingrich era (1995-1999) was a brutally polarized political landscape where partisan warfare overtook governance, institutional norms were trampled, and Congress became more of a battleground for obstruction and gridlock than ever before. President Clinton responded not by fighting Gingrich head on but rather, at the advice of a Republican consultant, “triangulating” and moving closer to the center on issues, shifting the debate in a way that normalized Gingrich’s extremist positions and legitimized his norm-shattering means of doing so. 

Republicans continued to bend, sidestep, and shred the Washington rulebook when they found themselves in opposition again after Barack Obama’s landslide victory in 2008. By then, the leader of the Senate Republican caucus was Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who openly declared that the GOP’s top priority was to make “President Obama a one-term president.”

They pursued this goal by reviving tactics from the Gingrich playbook, including performative government shutdowns that achieved little beyond chaos. McConnell went further, pioneering a new level of obstruction by blocking dozens of President Obama’s judicial appointments after Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015. Most notably, he held a Supreme Court seat vacant for over a year under the pretense that it was an election year. When Obama left office, McConnell allowed his successor, Donald Trump, to fill the vacancy with the staunchly conservative Neil Gorsuch. This move denied what would have been the first liberal majority on the Court since the 1970s. What did President Obama do during all of this? He gave excessive deference to norms that his opponents had long abandoned. Rather than aggressively pushing for Merrick Garland’s confirmation, he largely accepted McConnell’s stonewalling as an insurmountable obstacle, making no attempt to force a recess appointment to the court. 

To add insult to injury, when a liberal seat opened on the Supreme Court just weeks before the 2020 election, McConnell rushed through Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation in near-record time, cementing a 6-3 conservative supermajority. It was this supermajority that gutted abortion rights, obliterated the effectiveness of the federal bureaucracy, and granted absolute immunity from all actions they take in office as a part of their “official duties”. 

Even as Republican members of Congress have continued to push norms and precedent over like dominoes over the last 30 years, none of it compares to the assault on the federal government that Trump 2.0 and his Congressional enablers have levied. It’s more important now than ever that Democrats abandon the rulebook that has confined them for the last 30 years and get on the same page as their Republican counterparts. 

Step 1: You Can’t Teach an Old Donkey New Tricks 

For Democrats to succeed, they must realize that it is their leadership that has led them down this hole. Chuck Schumer has led the party for the entirety of the Trump era and has little to show for it. He has consistently been passive in his opposition to Donald Trump in contrast to his far more fiery equivalent in the House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. 

Though she is herself no gateway to the future, Pelosi aggressively pursued impeachment against Trump in 2019. She led the charge in preventing Trump from securing funding for his border wall the same year, handing Trump a clear failure to deliver his key 2016 election promise, and whipped even the most unruly members of her party, through what she has perhaps self-righteously dubbed “the art of power” into passing transformative pieces of legislation during the Biden era. This created major and much needed substantive talking points for Democrats regarding how they were addressing the greatest challenges of the 21st century.

In contrast, Schumer often failed to control Former Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kysten Sinema (AZ) throughout Democrats’ 4 years of control of the US Senate from 2021-2025. This led to Pelosi and Biden’s enormous wins in the House either dying or being entirely watered down in the Senate.

When Schumer was slammed by Democrats for voting for the March 2025 CR, he responded that he planned to hold press conferences to very sternly condemn the Trump Administration’s move. While communication is certainly important, Schumer’s message went straight to the Trump Administration's spam folder. He might as well have been handing out thoughts and prayers coupons on the Senate floor. 

If Democrats are serious about blocking the Trump 2.0 agenda, they need to have a leader who is capable and willing to do whatever it takes within reason to face down Trump. 

Step 2: Ditch the Washington Consultant Industrial Complex 

After their decade of political decimation in the 1980s, Democrats were desperately searching for direction. They found this in the Consultant Industrial Complex, an apparatus of consultants, pollsters, and politicos who would advise Democrats to focus their messaging and policies to cater to the largest number of Americans as possible and renew their branding. 

President Clinton was the embodiment of this culture like no other. Clinton had a poll commissioned for nearly everything he did, even where his family should go on vacation in 1997 to improve his margins with “married people with kids”. 

While this worked in the Clinton era, the last decade has been full of incorrect predictions from all who are a part of the consultant industrial complex. If you polled any of the issues that Trump ran on in 2016, 2020, or 2024, the majority of his positions were less popular, sometimes significantly, than the Democratic alternative, and some even unthinkable to the politically conscious. However, Trump didn’t give in to public opinion and instead tried to influence it by normalizing an entirely new set of ideas, shifting the political conversation in America. 

This complex denied a generational and ideological shift in leadership in the Democratic Party. For example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps the most charismatic rising star in the Democratic Party, was denied the Chairmanship of the House Oversight Committee, losing to a firm believer in the party’s status quo, an uninspiring, geriatric, Clintonite Representative from Virginia who had just been diagnosed with cancer two months prior. 

Democrats need to stop being afraid of change, because as they are, Democrats aren’t delivering. 

Step 3: Let Change Come From the People 

One of the few bright spots for Democrats in early 2025 was the remarkable energy generated by Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), whose rallies drew tens of thousands of enthusiastic attendees. This is an impressive feat considering the next midterm elections were more than a year and a half away, and the next presidential race was still three and a half years down the road. The rallies were the largest Sanders had ever headlined, even bigger than any of the rallies held during his mostly grassroots-driven 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. 

Additionally, angry constituents are packing into GOP town halls demanding that their Representatives stand up to the Trump Administration and its agenda. The town halls have become such a spectacle of voter dissatisfaction with Republicans that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has advised his caucus to stop holding town halls altogether.

Voters are angry and demanding action; that much is clear. They’re frustrated with Donald Trump and Elon Musk and are seeking a change in leadership, but that change can’t simply be “not Trump.” Many Americans were willing to give Trump a second chance because their desperation for real change outweighed their fading trust in the Washington establishment, including much of the Democratic Party. New leadership must do more than oppose Trump; it must address the needs of everyday Americans, restoring access to the American Dream by reviving opportunities for social mobility that have eroded in the era of neoliberal economics.

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have demonstrated that bold, unapologetic leadership rooted in economic and social justice can inspire and mobilize tens of thousands. However, their rallies weren’t just about rejecting Trump, they were about offering a vision of the future that puts working people, the underprivileged, and the disenfranchised at the center of the political conversation. Democrats must embrace this approach, championing policies that uplift all Americans and give them an equal chance regardless of their identity. The party’s path forward isn’t found in tepid centrism, triangulation, or corporate-friendly moderation. It lies in the courage to fight for real, transformative change.

What Now?

If Democrats truly believe Trump is an existential threat to democracy, then their actions must match their rhetoric. That means rejecting the outdated, consultant-driven, play-it-safe strategies of the past and embracing the grassroots energy that Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have ignited. It means fighting unapologetically for policies that serve the working class, the underprivileged, and all Americans regardless of their identity. Schumer and the Democratic establishment must step up or step aside, because the stakes are too high for spinelessness. While the strategies of the boldest members of the Democratic caucus remain untested on a national scale, the party has already lost the White House, both chambers of Congress, many federal courts, most governors’ mansions, and state legislatures. Sticking to the same cautious playbook has only led to continued defeats. At this point, what do they have to lose by trying something new?