Natsec Dems go on the offensive

And they do a pretty good job!

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You may have read a few days ago that Donald Trump was calling for various Democrats to be arrested and executed for “sedition”. Their crime was posting a video on social media suggesting that U.S. military personnel and members of the intelligence community should refuse to follow any illegal orders that they are given by the Trump regime. If you haven’t seen the video yet, I recommend taking a look at it:

The Democrats who made this video are all veterans of either the military or the intelligence community, and have all made that fact part of their political brand. As a result, they’re part of a group that we might broadly call “Natsec Dems”. Other members of this group include Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherill, who just won the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey with blow-out margins.

Especially viewed alongside those wins, I happen to think that this video is really smart politics and is another sign that the Democratic Party is getting its groove back.

The reason why it’s smart politics starts with a simple premise: it positions the Democratic Party as patriotic and as the defender of the military and intelligence services, things that a swathe of voters often suspect it of not being.

At a time when trust in virtually every institution in America is low (and often split along partisan lines), the military remains unusually respected. In 2023, 60% of Americans said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in the military - compared to 41% for the government overall.

That military trust number likely also understates the figure today, because a right wing media campaign accusing the military of having gone woke under Biden depressed trust figures among Republicans when the poll was taken in 2023. As recently as 2020, 70% of Americans said they trusted the military, and with a Trump restoration, the number is probably closer to that today.

As a result, it makes sense for Democrats to align themselves with the military (~70% approval) versus Donald Trump (38% approval).

And that’s just the start. In their video, the Natsec Dems are telling military and intelligence personnel not to follow illegal orders. They don’t give a specific example of these orders, but it’s pretty widely understood that they’re referring to (a) Trump regime air strikes on alleged drug traffickers and (b) the deployment of the military to American cities to do law enforcement duties. And on these policies as well, Trump is way out of step with the public. Just 29% of Americans support the drug boat murders, and in a poll in September, the National Guard deployments were 10 - 18% underwater depending on how the question was asked.

As a result, the video is a classic example of taking a bold step to raise the salience of an issue on which the public backs you and disapproves of your opponent. Trump does this all of the time - consider the whole discourse about immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio before last year’s election.

What’s wild is not just how much Democrats are beating Trump at his own game here, but also the fact that they’re doing it on issues that the public is usually much more likely to align with Republicans on. As panicked swing-state GOP officials are starting to warn, the White House has actually managed to turn law and order into an issue on which the public favors Dems. That’s political incompetence on a massive scale.

What’s more, Trump has taken the bait. By going crazy and tweeting that the Natsec Dems ought to be hanged for sedition, he’s not only put his own worst qualities on display for the public - he’s made the story all the more irresistible to the media and ensured many more negative news cycles for himself.

There’s also another reason that I find this episode so heartening. It’s one of the first indications that the spell of fear and intimidation that Trump has managed to cast in his first year back in office is being dispelled, and that he’s headed back to where he has been for most of his political career: on the defensive and getting outplayed.