Recently, political commentators have urged the Democratic party to take a passive approach to the second Trump administration. Leading Democratic consultant James Carville echoed this popular sentiment in an op-ed in The New York Times, claiming that “the most radical thing [the Democrats] can do is nothing at all.” Carville argues that the Democrats can only hurt themselves politically by constantly responding to Trump. Instead, he argues, the Democrats should “allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us.”
I can understand how Carville reached his line of reasoning: the Democrats have hammered Trump’s faults for a decade only for him to win the popular vote in 2024. However, the last thing the Democratic Party needs to do right now is to voluntarily mute itself. Believe it or not, an apathetic party does not win over Democratic-leaning voters. If anything, taking a mellow approach may dissuade prospective voters from getting involved in politics. Moreover, Carville’s strategy would only allow Trump to dominate media narratives and further exacerbate the Democrat’s existing media problems.
However, there is a way out of this predicament. Former Republican strategist Kurt Bardella argued that the Democrats should look to the Republican Party from 2009–10 as an example of how an effective opposition party functions. He argued that the Democratic Party needs to realize that, like the Republican Party in 2009, they are not in the policy-making business but rather in the media business and should adjust accordingly. I wish to take Bardella’s argument a step further. I believe that the Democratic Party needs to exclusively focus on messaging and leveraging political power if they want to be viewed as an opposition party.
Democrats should constantly seek to beat, or at least compete with, Trump at the attention game. Currently, Elon Musk and Trump are doing laps around the Democratic Party in terms of communication on both social media and traditional media platforms. Not only has Trump benefited from social media, podcasts, and other alternative forms of media, but he manages to draw the spotlight on every action of his administration like he did with reality television. Joe Biden, on the other hand, could never really command attention as the president. The Democratic Party paid dearly for this attention deficit in the 2024 election.
Moreover, the Democratic Party’s attention problem has persisted as the vast majority of Americans do not know the answer to a simple question: who is the current leader of the Democratic Party? UsaToday investigated what political figures Americans believe that title belongs to. The strongest contenders — Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries — are practically missing in action in comparison to their Republican counterparts, who dominate the news cycle with their frequent televised appearances. In politics, attention is a major commodity, and the Democratic Party needs to start valuing it.
Democrats can rectify their attention deficit using a two-pronged strategy: increasing traditional media appearances and investing in nontraditional media — namely podcasts, radio shows, and nonpolitical stations. Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett and former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg seemingly understand the importance of winning the attention game. They have countered Republican narratives not only on MSNBC and The Voice but have also made a point to go on podcasts, talk shows, and even Republican outlets. If these representatives were to coordinate with the Democratic leadership to launch an effective messaging campaign, it would pay dividends for the Democratic Party not only in the 2026 midterm elections but in the 2028 presidential election.
But Democrats must pull out all stops to grab the attention of both nontraditional and traditional media. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy recently managed to blame the Trump administration for the Potomac River midair collision. Although many Democrats would have questioned the logic of attributing plane crashes to the Trump administration, Murphy understood the crashes struck a particular nerve amongst the public. Therefore, is it not fair game to question why the Trump administration would cut the Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control staff after several plane crashes? Regardless of the political significance, plane crashes capture the average American’s attention far more than the dismantling of USAID.
Furthermore, it is necessary for Democrats to attack Republicans where they are vulnerable instead of passively waiting for public backlash. If the Democrats seriously oppose the recent House-passed Medicare cuts, for example, they should bus seniors on Medicare to the town meetings of House Republicans. Above all, the Democrats must remember that public backlash against the Trump administration will emerge only if they are proactive at commanding the public’s attention.
Moreover, the Democratic leadership needs to be able to leverage political power if they want the public to view them as a serious opposition party. While initially viewing his party as powerless, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has increasingly warmed up to the idea of using a government shutdown to gain leverage against the Republican Party’s broad ambitions. The current Trump administration has stripped Congress of their “powers of the purse” by allowing Elon Musk to unilaterally access the Treasury Department data. Democrats should not accept any deal that does not correct this enormous seizure of power. While the Republican Party has been hurt in the short-term for instigating past government shutdowns, the Democratic Party can either take this risk or they can consign themselves to political impotence.
And if the government shutdown fails to net any gains, the Democrats should concentrate on slowing down Trump’s agenda by launching investigations into any of his administration’s countless constitutional violations. Regardless of the tangible benefits, the Democrats should rely on theatrics to demonstrate to the public that they are doing something.
On the other hand, I can see why Democrats may be hesitant to immediately confront Trump every step of the way. Many Democratic leaders and political commentators are eager for the party to reinvent itself and focus on representing people who either did not vote or voted for Trump. I realize that relying on tired anti-Trump rhetoric would limit the Democratic Party’s ability to expand their base, especially as Trump has expanded his electorate in the past three presidential elections.
However, the Democratic Party leadership will be committing a major error if they choose to watch the chaos of the Trump administration from the sidelines. Failing to respond to the Trump administration will only hurt the Democratic Party’s chances and diminish their standing amongst the large percentage of the public that opposes the administration. Moreover, the Democratic Party has a major opportunity to expand their electorate by seeking to regain the attention of Americans.
