Dems On L.A.: ‘Impeachable’ Tyranny or Trumpian Distraction?
The party hasn’t yet settled on how to handle the moment.
AS THE ICE PROTESTS IN LOS ANGELES morphed into a playground for Donald Trump’s authoritarian fantasies, Democratic party officials watched in horror.
They were outraged at Trump’s use of the National Guard, his administration’s callous targeting of immigrant garment workers and day laborers, and his clear desire to stoke chaos and rile up (mostly) peaceful protesters. But they were also concerned about how, or even if, their copartisans would confront Trump over the situation in Los Angeles.
The worst of those fears haven’t been realized. But numerous Democratic officials over the past few days have relayed a related anxiety: Democrats remain unable to unite around a single, effective countermessage about Trump’s trampling of L.A.
Lawmakers in D.C. told us that they have not received concrete guidance from leadership about how best to talk about what is happening. A Tuesday morning House Democratic Caucus meeting meant to get the party on the same page left some members underwhelmed. One aide characterized it as “boring” with no forward movement.
A prominent immigration advocate told The Bulwark that Democratic leaders are “all over the place.” Other Democratic advocates and strategists who joined a regularly scheduled Monday meeting with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s staff gave mixed reviews on the clarity coming from his office. Some said there wasn’t any specific guidance offered and others said they discussed the need to condemn violence and frame the situation as a distraction from issues like the economy, health care, and the president’s plan to kick millions of people off Medicaid.
Jeffries has decried Trump’s actions, including in a Tuesday appearance on the Philip DeFranco Show. But even in that interview, he acted as though the mass deportations, ICE raids, and crackdown on protests were not the most pressing crisis of the moment but a sideshow: Trump, he said, “wanted to change the subject to distract the American people” from the debate over his Big Beautiful Bill.
Christie Stephenson, a spokesperson for Jeffries, insisted he is fully engaged with the ICE crisis. “As Leader Jeffries has repeatedly said and demonstrated, we are in a ‘more is more’ environment—fighting this reckless administration and the rubber-stamp Republicans in the House at every turn,” she told The Bulwark. “From Trump’s abuse of power in California to the One Big Ugly Bill, House Democrats are forcefully speaking out on all of the above. Any suggestion that this office has said anything otherwise is simply false.”
Elsewhere, high-profile Democrats have barely hid their desire to see a more assertive stance from leaders in the party, welcoming California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s speech Tuesday in which he warned that “democracy is under assault before our eyes.”
“With an autocrat, we don’t get to choose the battlefields to fight on,” said Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress—which sent a memo to party leaders this week arguing that very case. “That means making the convincing case on why it’s wrong to call the Marines on their fellow Americans in an American city. Make the case vociferously. And persuade the country that Trump is wrong.”
The diverging approaches and bubbling frustrations attest to the unease many Democrats continue to feel in conversations about immigration. It’s also highlighted that the Democratic party remains in disagreement over how much urgency and alarm it should offer in response to what many believe is an existential threat to American democracy.
The urgency of the moment left the Congressional Hispanic Caucus so distraught that they called an emergency meeting late Sunday night to figure out what their public response should be. According to two CHC members and an aide familiar with the meeting, a consensus emerged among participants: Trump was using mass deportations as a tool to test the limits of the power of the executive branch—and he was deliberately trying to provoke a Democratic response. Many members walked away with a belief that the party needed to make the stakes of Trump’s actions clear to the public, and quickly.
“We have to have a prevailing countermessage that is rooted in who we are as a country,” a member of Congress told The Bulwark, echoing a theme from Newsom’s speech. “They’re going to keep pushing the envelope, and where the American people need to be alert and aware is the overreach will eventually touch them.”
A second CHC member told The Bulwark: “Democrats aren’t going to be able to wish away the news coverage that for the last few days has been dominating the news cycle, simply because we decide we have nothing to say.”
Those convictions were palpable during a Tuesday press conference with leaders from the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. CBC chair Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) called Trump’s actions “unlawful.” Asked if they rose to the level of “impeachable offenses,” she didn’t back down.
“I believe it is,” she said. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CAPITOL, prominent Democrats sound more like Jeffries than Clarke. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) claim Trump is using the situation in L.A. to distract from his squabble with Elon Musk and a tax bill that would rip health care from 17 million people.
“It’s Medicaid Monday, don’t let Trump distract you from what he is trying to do. Cut millions [of people] from Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the rich,” Gallego posted on social media. Similarly, in an interview with MSNBC, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said that while Trump’s actions were alarming, people need to focus on the Medicaid cuts. In his view, the L.A. situation is “probably also a distraction from the main story.”
Some Democrats who spoke with The Bulwark said they weren’t fretting about the lack of a consolidated message. But others fear that their party’s differing approaches to the issue would allow Trump to continue to dominate the debate. They worry that the lack of unity reflects the Democratic party’s habit of relying on polls and consultants to guide them on what battles to pick rather than tackling the debates directly in front of them. And their concern is that unless party leaders all sing from the same hymnal, Americans won’t hear their warning about Trump’s creeping (or sprinting) authoritarianism.
Julie Chávez Rodriguez, who was a senior adviser to Joe Biden, served on the leadership team for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, and now advises Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, underscored the importance of intraparty unity on the subject of immigration. She praised Newark Mayor Ras Baraka before chiding Democratic leaders who are reacting tepidly.
“That, to me, is very powerful and something we need to continue to cultivate,” she said in reference to Baraka’s arrest and brief detention by federal officials while protesting at an ICE facility last month. “Some in leadership may think this is a distraction, but a hell of a lot of others are seeing this moment as a moment of solidarity.”
As Democrats continue to struggle to find their footing, Trump is not backing down. Despite Newsom’s fierce opposition, Trump on Tuesday plowed ahead with his threat to send marines to Los Angeles—a significant escalation.
The idea that this could spread beyond California has clearly worried Democratic governors, all of whom issued a joint statement condemning Trump’s actions as “an alarming abuse of power” and “ineffective and dangerous.” So some Democrats, far from seeing Trump’s actions in Los Angeles as a distraction, see them as inherently dangerous and worth opposing.
Colorado Rep. Jason Crow said that there was a perception that the Democratic party was “weak” in part because of its tendency to overthink certain issues and not pick fights when it matters.
“I’m somebody that feels like if there’s something that needs to be said or an argument you need to have . . . then have it with strength and conviction and don’t back down,” Crow said in an interview with The Bulwark. “Let’s weigh in and have the fight.”
🫏 Donkey Business:
— The Democratic National Committee launched a new daily YouTube show this week called “The Daily Blueprint.” It’s the party’s latest effort to try to break through a fractured media environment and experiment with different ways of reaching voters. The show is a fifteen-minute recap of the day’s news, hosted by DNC Deputy Communications Director Hannah Muldavin. But the initial metrics on the show aren’t great (YouTubing is harder than it looks, y’all!). The first episode, which aired Monday, racked up about 9,000 views and today’s episode had around 700 at the time this newsletter was published. The DNC and the larger party clearly have a long way to go in their quest to make the party more relevant online.
— This weekend is shaping up to be another big moment for anti-Trump activists around the country. While Donald Trump is busy with his military parade in Washington, D.C., pro-democracy organizers have planned protests in all fifty states to make the case that Trump is abusing his power and using the U.S. military to celebrate himself (the parade falls on his 79th birthday). Organizers say they expect the demonstrations to be the largest single-day rally against Trump since he took office and that the events in L.A. have driven interest in the events.
My open tabs:
— The Real Problem With the Democrats’ Ground Game
— How politics and image control destroyed the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
This article, and other similar news analyses, focus on the distraction element of the ICE raids. Is it conceivable that the Democratic Party has the ability to highlight simultaneous opposition to both the breach of California's sovereignty and the sly effort to finance tax cuts for the rich on the backs of Medicare and Obamacare recipients? Newsom's response was short and hard hitting. There ought to be similar and constant direct attacks on the Trump Administration. The Big Beautiful Bill and the use of Federal troops in LA both involve taking something away from the majority of Americans to benefit a minority. We are slowly losing our liberty to these Putin wanna be's, like frogs in boiling water. Who among the Democrats can echo Newsom's call for action?
"Democrats remain unable to unite around a single, effective countermessage about Trump’s trampling of L.A." Trump could care less about L.A. Or you. Or me. He cares about himself. Michael Flynn, a lieutenant general and national security adviser during Trump's first term famously suggested cancelling the Constitution and declaring martial law. This time around, it appears that Mr. Trump is considering Mr. Flynn's recommendation with fervor. One might conclude from his actions that Mr. Trump is provoking confrontation and hoping for blood in the streets so that he can enact his cherished dream. It's right there at his fingertips. It is so close.