Democrats need to learn how to be mean and funny

Lessons from the dull Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing

Sens. Al Franken and Jeff Sessions.
(Image credit: Images courtesy AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

For anyone looking for a strong initial attack on the Trump presidency, the confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions as attorney general were mostly disappointing. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee raised a series of largely ineffective questions about immigration, voting rights, religious liberty, and other issues. Sessions mostly dodged or batted them down by affirming his sole duty is to enforce the law as written.

However, it does provide a window into the developing Democratic strategy against the Trump administration. The raw material with which to attack Sessions was there, and there is palpable vulnerability on many points. All that Democrats are missing is a grasp of the current politico-media environment.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.