Opinion: While Trump Bleeds, Democrats Forfeit the Fight
Let us state the obvious, because the Democratic Party seems unwilling or unable to state it themselves. Donald Trump is politically exposed right now in a way he has not been since January 6, 2021.
His approval ratings have been underwater for months. A majority of Americans, 54 percent in the latest Quinnipiac survey, say he has exceeded his authority. The war in Iran, a conflict of his own making sold to the public as a quick surgical strike that turned into a protracted slog, is broadly unpopular and cost the Treasury an estimated $80 billion the Pentagon now needs to replenish. His signature tariff policy has driven up the cost of everything from groceries to gasoline, and 57 percent of Americans disapprove of his management of the economy. The Supreme Court just slapped down his attempt to end birthright citizenship in a clean 5-4 ruling that reminded the country the Constitution is not a suggestion box. Even his former pollster, Tony Fabrizio, has warned that Democrats hold a significant lead on the generic congressional ballot.
By every objective measure, this should be the Democratic Party’s moment. The opposition party in a midterm election historically gains an average of 26 House seats. Republicans hold a nine-seat majority. Democrats need a net gain of five seats to take back the House. Five seats. That is not a mountain. That is a speed bump.
And yet the party cannot clear it.
The question is not whether Trump can be beaten. He can be. The question is whether the Democratic Party is capable of beating anyone anymore.
Look at the leadership vacuum. A USA Today poll published early last year asked Democratic voters who should lead the party into the next election cycle. The top two answers were “Don’t know” and “Nobody.” Not Hakeem Jeffries. Not Gavin Newsom. Not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Not Gretchen Whitmer. “Don’t know” and “Nobody,” the political equivalent of a shrug. Nearly two years later, that void remains unfilled. The party has no single national voice, no unifying message, no agreed-upon answer to the question “What do you stand for?”
What it does have is a civil war.
In New York City last week, the party’s left flank scored a series of primary victories, knocking off sitting House incumbents and the handpicked successor of a retiring congresswoman. The candidates were backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist whose political style the party establishment views as electoral poison in swing districts. Progressive Democrats called it an ascendant moment. Former DNC chair Jaime Harrison responded by suggesting the insurgents should start their own party if they hate the Democratic brand so much. Another party veteran, Donna Brazile, accused Mamdani of trying to “blow up” the party.
This is the current state of opposition: one wing of the party celebrating primary victories over the other wing, while Trump sits in the White House.
The DNC itself is a mess. Chair Ken Martin, barely a year into the job, has been described by critics as “weak,” “whiny,” and “invisible.” His vice chair, 25-year-old David Hogg, clashed publicly with him over whether to target “ineffective” incumbents, prompting calls for Hogg’s removal and exposing a generational fracture that runs through every level of the organization. The DNC has refused to release its long-awaited autopsy of the 2024 losses, citing a desire to focus on the elections ahead. That may be a convenient excuse. But it also means the party has not formally reckoned with why it lost to a candidate who had already lost the popular vote once, been convicted on felony counts, and was facing multiple criminal indictments at the time.
The policy divisions are equally stark. On Israel, liberal Democrats overwhelmingly believe the United States provides too much support; moderate Democrats are split. On economics, the party cannot decide whether to run as populists or centrists. On immigration, the left wants decriminalization while the center-right wants border enforcement. None of these positions are irreconcilable in theory, but the party has no mechanism for reconciling them because it has no leader empowered to do so.
And the voters are noticing. A recent NPR/PBS News/Marist survey found that 62 percent of Americans disapprove of the job congressional Democrats are doing. Among independents, approval sits at 19 percent. That number is catastrophic. It means the party that should be the natural vehicle for anti-Trump sentiment is itself viewed with suspicion by the very swing voters it needs to flip.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have their own problems. Internal GOP polling shows erosion of support among mainstream Republicans and even within the MAGA base. The party’s narrow congressional majority is held together by the political equivalent of tape and prayer. Trump’s decision to hold a first-ever midterm convention in Dallas in September, an event with no modern precedent, is a transparent acknowledgment that the normal mechanics of party politics are not working.
But the difference is this: Republicans know who their leader is. They may not agree with him. They may be quietly terrified of him. But when November comes, they will line up behind him because there is no alternative center of gravity. Democrats, by contrast, cannot agree on whether they should be led by a Brooklyn moderate, a California progressive, a Michigan pragmatist, or nobody at all. And they have been unable to decide for nearly two years.
The midterms are four months away. Democrats hold a polling advantage. The fundamentals favor the opposition. Trump is as vulnerable as he has ever been.
None of this will matter if the party cannot get out of its own way.
History offers a warning. In 2016, the Democratic Party watched Trump win an election many believed was unwinnable for him. In 2024, they lost again. In 2026, the conditions for a comeback could not be more favorable, and yet the party seems intent on running a campaign built on the hope that Trump will lose the election for them rather than on any affirmative vision of what they would do if they won.
That is not a strategy. That is a gamble. And if the Democrats lose this year too, they will have no one to blame but themselves. The opportunity is there. The question is whether they are capable of seizing it, or whether the party has finally become so fractured that nothing can stop Trump, not even his own weakness.
- George, 1ban.news