It began when Rep. John Lewis and nearly 70 other Democrats boycotted President Trump’s inauguration. Ever since, there’s been a steady stream of protests and posturing, outrage and obstruction, accompanied by incessant fundraising, by Democrats who claim Trump is, to quote Lewis, “not legitimate” and has no right to govern.
This evident untruth — yes, he’s your president whether you like it or not — demonstrates plainly that Democrats would rather signal what they believe is virtue, and put the interests of their party before the interests of the country, by pandering to their increasingly unhinged activist base.
“As long as the president continues down this path, there is nothing Democrats can work with him on,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at a Democratic congressional retreat Wednesday.
To what “path” is Pelosi referring? The one on which Trump campaigned and was elected to lead America. Democrats’ fulminations and refusal to accept facts, does not change the actual election result, that put Trump in the White House and Republicans in the majority, while rejecting the Democrats’ tired appeals to ideological conformity and identity politics.
Pelosi also declared, “To protect the security of our nation, the future of our working families and the sanctity of our Constitution, Democrats will fight this administration every day with every fiber of our being.” She has stuck her finger in the wind and, like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, sees political advantage in sustained recalcitrance and a refusal to cooperate with the governing party even when there is common policy ground between them.
There are plenty of things Democrats could work on with President Trump and Republicans if they were genuinely interested in protecting the “future of working families,” including infrastructure, tax reform and trade issues.
A Wall Street Journal poll in January asked 1,000 adults which issues they wanted Trump and Congress to focus on. A majority cited trade, infrastructure and the appointment of a conservative justice to the Supreme Court to be addressed in Trump’s first year. But Democrats are instead following their activist base in refusing all compromise.
Consider Booker, the New Jersey senator and as-yet undeclared presidential candidate. He served on the board of a school-choice group with Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos. But when DeVos was nominated, Booker dutifully voted against her to appease the teachers unions that are his party’s paymasters.
Or take Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator who was compelled to quit speaking in the Senate after breaking chamber rules to impugn her colleague, Jeff Sessions. Warren, another likely 2020 presidential candidate, read a 30-year-old letter written by the late Coretta Scott King that traduced Sessions’ reputation on racial issues. The implication was clear: A vote for Sessions was a vote against Martin Luther King and civil rights.
Then there’s Neil Gorsuch, whom Trump has nominated to the Supreme Court. Some Senate Democrats have candidly conceded that they’ll oppose him not because he isn’t eminently qualified, but purely for political advantage. “We cannot have a Supreme Court that is delivering politically conservative outcomes,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. “I think the point now is not so much that this guy is or isn’t qualified, the point right now is that we’ve got to make sure we try to protect the court from becoming the political delivery system the five Republicans have made it.”
Democrats are playing a dangerous game. Their protests and posturing have been successful in galvanizing the hardcore Left, and in refilling their coffers. They feed into the air of discontent that pervades the party’s activist base.
But two or four years of perpetual obstruction and outrage mongering won’t convince voters that Democrats deserve another shot at governing.
