GUEST COLUMN, J. Basil Dannebohm
On March 31, Democratic Senator Cory Booker arrived on the floor of the United States Senate, determined to protest the Trump Administration.
“Our constituents are asking us to acknowledge that this is a crisis. So, I am going to stand here until I no longer can,” the Senator from New Jersey said as he began his marathon protest speech.
A little more than a day later, having spoken for over 25 hours, he broke the floor speech record.
A few months later, on July 9, Booker was one of 14 senators who enjoyed lunch and posed for a photo with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes.
Two days later, 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet, a Florida native, was pronounced dead after being viciously beaten to death by Israelis in the occupied West Bank. Israeli soldiers had blocked an ambulance from reaching Musallet for hours.
Democratic Senators Schiff, Schumer, Rosen, Cantwell, Coons, Klobuchar, and Booker, who were all smiles in the photo op with a war criminal just 48 hours prior to Musallet’s murder, were poker faced and maintained stone cold silence.
A month later, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 75 percent of Democrats opposed sending more military aid to Israel for its war in Gaza. The poll also found that 77 percent of Democrats believed Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. During the 2024 election, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict significantly affected Democratic voters, deepening ideological and generational divisions within the party, which ultimately presented a major political challenge for Kamala Harris.
Two of the seven Democrats who hobnobbed with Netanyahu, Booker and Klobuchar, are rumored to have presidential ambitions.
The Senators from New Jersey and Minnesota aren’t the only Democrats who appear to be grossly out of touch with the majority of their party.
Taking a cue from Booker’s Senate floor show, Senator Jeff Merkley wrapped up a 22 hour and 39-minute marathon speech on October 22nd. The three-term senator from Oregon railed against what he described as “grave threats” presented by President Donald Trump and his administration.
There were just two problems with Merkley’s theatrics:
1) Democratic voters were already keenly aware of the “threats” presented by the Trump administration. In fact, for months they had been imploring party leadership to do something tangible to combat what they perceived as Republican authoritarianism.
2) Merkley chose to offer his diatribe during a government shutdown. Thus, for nearly 24 hours, Senate staffers, pages, and U.S. Capitol Police were forced to work through the night without pay. As their families faced the possibilities of food banks and foreclosures, the Senator from Oregon rambled on incessantly in an effort to satisfy his insatiable appetite for grandstanding.
Though most Americans blamed the shutdown on Trump and the Republicans, Merkley’s poor timing no less loomed over his attempt to make history.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer’s idea of pushback against the administration is to write President Trump “strongly worded letters.” Senators Booker and Merkley seem to think marathon speeches will stop the spread of authoritarianism. Adam Schiff appears to believe that appearing on late night television will somehow bring an end to the executive branch’s abuse of power.
Meanwhile, James Carville, a Democratic relic whose crowning achievement was serving as the lead strategist in Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, is still looked to as a guidon for the liberal identity and approach in combatting democracy’s demise. His solution: Do nothing at all; just let Donald Trump implode on his own. This has left frustrated Democratic voters asking, “How’s that worked so far, Jim?”
A recent Cato Institute/YouGov survey found that 62 percent of Americans between the ages of 18-29 hold a “favorable view” of socialism. A recent Axios/Generation Lab poll among college students found 67 percent had a positive or neutral association with “socialism,” compared to 40 percent for “capitalism.”
Polls also suggest that establishment Democrats are seeing the lowest approval ratings in more than three decades.
Still, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries chose to play it safe, waiting until the zero hour to endorse Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist candidate for New York City Mayor.
Playing it safe or worse yet, doing nothing, isn’t working. It won’t stop Donald Trump, and it certainly won’t sway independent voters. In the words of Hall and Oates, establishment Democrats are out of touch and out of time. It’s imperative they change their strategy or face certain defeat in the midterms. Listening to their base would be a good place to start
