Where are the Democrats?

On March 4, 2025, President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress. It was a hodgepodge of misinformation, lies, and nonsense. But for the Trump faithful, it was great political theatre. And, if you can suspend your abhorrence of the hate and the harm embedded in the theatrics, you have to give it to Trump. He is an absolute master at playing to an audience, especially a friendly one.

None of this was unusual. In fact, the most surprising part of the whole night was the absence of anything bordering on a coherent message or philosophical pushback from the Democrats. In contrast to Trump’s performance, they were a no-show.

Consider the defiant but solo protest by Texas Representative Al Green who continuously shouted “no mandate” at the President until Speaker Mike Johnson had him removed from the chamber. Green’s exile made every other Democrat look cowardly, offering no support to the seventy-seven year old Black man, walking with a cane, as he was escorted out by the Sergeant-at-Arms.

Then there were the little placards the Democrats held up at various times displaying words such as “False” and “Save Medicaid” and “Musk Steals.” The words “ineffectual” and “dull” came to my mind as I watched this muted response that bordered on capitulation. Next time, wear a shirt with one of Vice President Vance’s quotes about Donald Trump or a hat with Foxtrot, Delta, Tango on it or just do not show up at all. Do something that makes a real statement, not placid placards of perfunctory protest.

Then there was the craven response the next day by Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who took to social media and described the scene as: “A sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance.” Senator Fetterman is elbowing his fellow Democrats out of the way trying to make sure he has a life preserver as the Party sinks into the sea of irrelevance. Of course, he has offered nothing in terms of rebuttal to the Republicans. He made me think of a snake devouring itself

Also furiously floundering about, Senator Chuck Shumer offered only that “The best answer in my judgment is to organize. Organizing is hard, but it’s effective — and that’s what we’re doing.” Someone needs to break it to the minority leader that organizing is not an answer, it is what you do after you have an answer.

Helping to set the stage for all this, of course, was the Democrats, the day before the speech, filibustering a vote on a bill banning transgender female athletes from competing in female sports. This was monumentally foolish on a number of levels. It allows the Republicans to continue to use an issue that has been repeatedly overblown. It makes the Democrats continue to look out of touch with mainstream America, still wedded to identify politics and wokeism. And, most importantly, it actually hurts the movement to secure transgender people some modicum of acceptance in our divided society.

The argument that letting transgender women compete in female sports is fair to cisgender females is simply not supported by the science. As I have said in an earlier blog post, there is a workable compromise to be had here, and the quicker Democrats get to it, the better it will be for their political fortunes and the fortunes of transgender activism.

Then there was the milk toast rebuttal to the President’s address offered by Senator Elissa Slotkin, a first-term Democrat from Michigan. She talked too much about herself and then mostly about the things Trump has been talking about for some time, offering as a rebuttal that the Democrats would do everything in a nicer, less chaotic way. It was a silly “we can do that better” approach that seemed desperately hollow.

She also praised Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy and hung her hat on Trump being a threat to people’s pocketbook but offered nothing resembling a vision. She did not mention gun violence as the number one killer of children in America, or the income inequality destroying our democracy. Her speech showed only that Democrats are still letting Trump set the agenda, that the Party seems vision-less and vacuous, a shill of its former self.

And now comes the vote for the GOP funding bill to keep the government running. In a grand act of capitulation, Senator Schumer has lined up enough votes from Democratic Senators to pass the bill. His articulation of his reasoning in a New York Times op-ed is a study in cowardice and confusion.

A study in cowardice because it again highlights the Democrats unwillingness to go toe-to-toe with Trump’s illegal dismantling of the government underway at the hands of the DOGE. Sure, they whine and complain, but they continue to do nothing of substance. As I said, they should walk around with little placards (this time hung around their necks) saying “ineffectual.

Schumer’s op-ed is a study in confusion because he is doing nothing but debating with himself – and losing! His false narrative that he is choosing the lesser of two evils simply shows his complete lack of vision and principle.

Schumer should have made his support for the GOP funding bill contingent on President Trump stopping Elon Musk’s illegal hatchet job to essential government services. But he just does not seem to understand that what the DOGE is doing is exactly what he claims he is trying to avoid with his vapid capitulation, shutting down the parts pf the government they want to shut down. The confusion is obvious, and it leaves anyone who is concerned about the fate of our country wondering: where, oh where are the Democrats?