How Democrats are already mobilizing against Trump

Here's a secret about politics: Sometimes you do your best work when you're in the opposition. Having your party in power means policy successes that improve people's lives, but it also means compromise, setbacks, and sometimes defending things you aren't too crazy about. Fighting the power, on the other hand, is energizing, exciting, and righteous. After a month of despair about November's election result, Democrats may be rising to their feet to mount a genuine opposition to Donald Trump.

Not that they're over their despair, nor should they be. Trump hasn't even taken office yet, so the harm he's going to do is still theoretical. But the evidence so far suggests that everything he does will feed that opposition's rage and determination, from satisfying every not-so-secret desire the right has been saving up for eight years, to his continued petty, impulsive, erratic jerkishness. Remember when Trump was "gonna be so presidential that you people will be so bored"? Not gonna happen, ever.

The challenge facing the left is this: How do they go about mounting an effective opposition to Trump and the Republicans? It's not enough to just say you're going to stand and fight — you need a plan.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

They don't have one yet. But there are some encouraging signs:

• The Center for American Progress, the left's most prominent think-tank, is creating a "war room" in its advocacy arm devoted to opposing the Trump administration.
• Democratic attorneys general are preparing to mimic a strategy used by Republicans for the last eight years: a constant stream of lawsuits against the administration to tie its hands and hinder its efforts.
• The leading contenders to become chair of the Democratic Party are Rep. Keith Ellison and Labor Secretary Tom Perez, both of whom are admired as smart and effective players.
• Other Democrats are considering specific challenges and producing things like this "Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda," written by former congressional staffers with advice on how the left can duplicate the success the Tea Party had.

That's just for starters; all across the country Democrats are putting their minds to the goal of creating an effective opposition. But before they get too excited, they should understand that coming together around a coherent plan with a clear division of labor and sticking to that plan is no easy task. That's particularly true for the left, which has a history of fractiousness (to say the least). In the past, liberals have sometimes found themselves making plans for coordinated action only to find them come to nothing as different individuals, groups, and factions wind up pursuing their own interests and ideas.

It's also true that Republicans have a tremendous amount of power right now. Democrats may be able to stop a nomination here or a regulation there, but with the White House and both houses of Congress, Republicans will inevitably make significant progress on their agenda of high-end tax cuts, eliminating regulations for corporations, rolling back reproductive rights, and slashing the safety net.

But there are also lots of opportunities, many presented by the fact that the Republican agenda isn't very popular. If they go through with repealing the Affordable Care Act, they could toss tens of millions of Americans off their insurance and take away health security for tens of millions more. They hope to move on their long-dreamed-of plan to privatize Medicare, which would be a political suicide mission. The public isn't exactly salivating at the thought of a gift of deregulation for Wall Street or tax cuts for the wealthy either.

In short, just by doing what they've promised to do, Republicans will court a furious backlash. The question is whether Democrats will have the skill and organization to take advantage of it and make their opponents truly pay a price, in both the short term, the medium term (like the 2018 elections), and the long term.

But there's no question they have a chance, and there's also no question that Trump and the congressional GOP will give them plenty of things to get mad about. So just as Barack Obama's election in 2008 produced the Tea Party and George W. Bush's election in 2000 gave rise to the netroots, Donald Trump's election could produce a new grassroots energy among liberals and Democrats, and maybe even the creation of an infrastructure they can call on in the future. Goodness knows they need it.