Democrats must remain the party of institutions

The needle will swing back, and they must be ready

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It’s no exaggeration to say that what is unfolding in the United States right now is a constitutional crisis. The attempt by the Trump administration to unilaterally shut down USAID, an agency whose existence is mandated by Congress, is a fundamental assault on the constitutional system. The fact that Republicans in Congress are letting the administration do it because they’re scared of Trump does not make it any less so - in fact, it only deepens the scale of the crisis. As Jamelle Bouie has written in one of the most perceptive takes on the crisis, we’re past a point of no return - if the president can do this and Congress can let him, the rules of American politics have already been rewritten forever.

A lot of ink has been spilled on the question of what Democrats ought to do in response. As it has been so frequently in the past ten years, the party is torn between an awareness of the stakes and the belief that if it acts as if those stakes are real, it will somehow end up out of step with the country and be defeated. The party’s pusillanimity in making Trump face the legal consequences of his actions during the four whole years that it controlled the federal government was the greatest example of this dynamic. But there have been many others.

In this case, earnest Democratic “strategists” have emerged to wring their hands over whether USAID is, to quote one, “the hill to die on”. Foreign aid, they reason, is unpopular with the American public, and so by defending it Democrats would be “walking into a trap”. They would end up looking like the party that wants to give money away to foreigners rather than the one that wants to feed the constitution into a wood-chipper. That, apparently, would be a sure-fire election loser.

In fact, these observers have the nature of the “trap” entirely the wrong way around. They’re right about defending USAID is somewhat politically problematic for Democrats versus, say, defending popular welfare programs like Social Security. But USAID’s precariousness is precisely why it has been chosen as a test case by Trump and his lackeys - they are seeking to use it to establish a precedent that they can then apply elsewhere. The trap would be to let it slide, not to attempt to stop it.

But letting it slide is exactly what the hand-wringers would have the party do. Just listen to David Axelrod:

The situation, Axelrod said, reflects the Democratic Party’s broader existential crisis. How, he has been asking himself lately, “did the party of working people become a party of elite institutions?”

“Part of the problem for the Democratic Party is that it has become a stalwart defender of institutions at a time when people are enraged at institutions,” Axelrod said. “And they become — in the minds of a lot of voters — an elite party, and to a lot of folks who are trying to scuffle out there and get along, this will seem like an elite passion.”

Axelrod is here leaning into a fairly common narrative on the left of late - the idea that Trump managed to win the last election because of his deep connection to the American people, a connection Democrats lack because of their fastidious dedication to protecting Americans’ rights/living in the real world/the constitution. The secret to beating Trump and Trumpism, according to this analysis, is to be more like Trump . If Democrats can shed this silly attachment to the constitutional order and start doing more Joe Rogan appearances, they’ll be back in power in no time.

I think this line of reasoning is profoundly wrong, and I think so for electoral rather than sentimental reasons. Presuming that the United State will hold meaningful elections again - and I’m becoming less sure of that by the day - then by the time that happens, defender-of-the-institutions is actually going to be the electoral sweet spot, not a place from which the party will lose.