In the end, Donald Trump has Democrats to thank for delivering the first legislative victory of his second term.
Hours after he was sworn into office, a dozen Senate Democrats joined all Republicans in approving a bill that would require the detention and deportation of migrants accused of theft-related crimes. Moments later, the chamber unanimously confirmed their colleague, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, to be Trump’s secretary of state.
The votes marked a sharp reversal from the early days of Trump’s first term, when his narrow electoral college win sparked a nationwide resistance movement and a succession of Democratic victories. But unlike eight years ago, Trump won the popular vote as well while making significant inroads with the voters that are core to the Democratic coalition: people of color and young people.
His stunning return to power – four years after his refusal to concede defeat led his supporters to storm the US Capitol and months after a New York jury convicted him on 34 felony counts – has propelled Democrats deep into the political wilderness. Facing a fusillade of executive orders on everything from trade and immigration to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs and federal hiring, Democrats are still working to reconcile the politics of a new Trump era with their alarm over his plans to radically reshape American government.
“Democrats need to get back on track, otherwise the GOP will continue to bulldoze them – and people will get hurt,” Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, a nationwide organization that was founded as part of the resistance movement to Trump’s 2016 election, said in a statement this week. “Many Democrats are unhappy with the direction the leadership is going, and rightly calling out the shortsightedness of the current plan – or lack of plan.”
Trump’s first week has left little room for reflection. Leaderless and locked out of power in Washington, national Democrats have vacillated between accommodation and confrontation amid the blitz of inaugural-week actions. Some progressives have cast their relatively muted approach as “spineless” while others see a strategic recalibration after the enormity of their losses in November.
Those looking for reassurances that Trump would face resistance found solace not in the actions of their leaders on Capitol Hill, but in the words delivered from a pulpit across town, where a bishop used her sermon to confront the president, seated a handful of feet below.
During an interfaith service on Tuesday, Bishop Mariann Budde, the leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, pleaded directly with Trump to show mercy on “people in our country who are scared now”, including immigrants and LGBTQ+ Americans. Budde told the New York Times that she hadn’t initially planned to address the president in her sermon, but wondered after his inaugural address: “Was anyone going to say anything about the turn the country’s taking?”
Trump’s extraordinary pardons of more than 1,500 people involved in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, including those who were convicted of assaulting police officers, ignited Democrats’ collective fury.
“This moment is a test for our nation’s leaders,” Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, wrote on X. “We need to speak out – strong and unafraid – in defense of our democracy and in outrage at the endorsement of violence by the President of the United States. Not a time to shrink or be shy.”
Earlier this week, Murphy blocked an attempt to fast-track Trump’s nomination of John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA, demanding a more robust debate on his qualifications and ability to be objective in the role. The Senate ultimately confirmed the Trump loyalist, with many Democrats objecting. Senate Democrats also united to block a Republican-led anti-abortion measure from advancing in the chamber where 60 votes are needed to pass most legislation.
Taking stock of Trump’s first week, the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, told reporters on Thursday that his caucus was “going to continue to make decisions based on what’s right for the districts that we represent, and the politics will take care of themselves”.
Perhaps no issue has underscored Democrats’ uncertainty more than immigration. With his pen alone, Trump has already attempted a wholesale dismantling of nation’s immigration system, closing legal pathways into the United States while directing the military to assist with efforts to stop illegal immigration.
On Capitol Hill this week, Democratic leaders and vulnerable Trump-state Democrats telegraphed their willingness to work with the president on border enforcement, while many of their colleagues warned of the harm an immigration crackdown will have on families, farmworkers and the so-called Dreamers.
“I believe it’s our collective responsibility to move past the divisive rhetoric and work with our colleagues to find the solutions that our Americans truly care about,” New Mexico Democratic congressman Gabe Vasquez, who represents a border town, said during a Congressional Hispanic caucus press conference at the Capitol on Thursday.
Other Hispanic and progressive Democrats implored the party not to play on Republicans’ terms, and instead to lead with their own solutions and messaging. The American public has long supported a pathway to citizenship for young undocumented people who were brought to the country as children, while many business leaders have warned that mass deportations will hurt the economy and drive up costs for families.
Illinois congressman Chuy García assailed Trump’s immigration plans as “hateful and xenophobic” during a press conference with members of the Progressive caucus. “I am an immigrant who represents a district with many immigrants,” he said, calling on the president and his Republican allies to bring “real solutions, not propaganda to stoke fear and chaos disguised as policies”.
Many of the major immigration battles will play out in the states, where Democratic governors and attorneys general are on the frontlines of the battle over the administration’s “shock and awe” immigration agenda. The rapid-fire pace of Trump’s executive actions have forced Democratic-led states and civil rights groups to launch an immediate legal response to his first week of actions, and that strategy has already paid dividends.
This week, a federal judge sided with a coalition of Democratic attorneys general challenging Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. District judge John C Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said the order was “blatantly unconstitutional” and temporarily blocked it from taking effect.
“He’s been in office less than a week, and you’ve already seen a federal court with a judge who was appointed by a Republican president – a president that much of the conservative movement in America upholds – say that he’s operating blatantly unconstitutionally,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of the non-profit legal group Democracy Forward. “I think what you’re going to see is more sophisticated legal responses this time because civil society, I think, is much more organized and savvy to this playbook.”
Democracy Forward is one of more than 350 organizations that have joined a coalition known as Democracy 2025, which has the explicit aim of “disrupting any efforts by the Trump-Vance administration to attack our rights”.
“The message that we want to send to all Americans across the country is that there are lawyers and advocates who are going to be in court every single day fighting for your rights, and what we need to be doing is demanding a president and a Congress that does the same thing,” Perryman said.
That project will largely depend on the Democratic party leaders who are searching for a path out of political exile as they stare down four more years of Trump.
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Democrats are at a “low point”, Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic party, who is running to be the president of the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC), conceded. “We need a reset.”
A post-election survey by Pew Research found that Democrats were notably more pessimistic now than they were after Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016. Republicans, by contrast, were more optimistic about their party’s future than at any point since Trump’s 2016 victory.
The multi-candidate race for chair of the Democratic national party has so far not produced the robust where-do-we-go-from-here debate that many crave. Faiz Shakir, who managed Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, made a late entrance into the race out of a growing frustration that the contestants were more focused on mechanics than vision.
“We cannot expect working class audiences to see us any differently if we are not offering anything new or substantive to attract their support,” Shakir wrote in a memo announcing his decision to seek the chairmanship.
Kleeb said the race was naturally centered around nuts-and-bolts issues because the national party provides the infrastructure and its candidates develop the messaging. She acknowledged that Democrats have much work to do to change their image as “elite wimps” and reconnect with the working-class voters who once formed the cornerstone of their political base.
“Democrats have to start connecting the dots,” Kleeb said, pointing to Trump’s pledge of mass deportations as an example of a policy that would ultimately hurt working families. “Instead of $3 to $5 a pound of ground beef, you’re going to be paying $13 to $20.”
“This is about corporate consolidation, and Republicans always protecting big corporations,” she continued. “Democrats have to start laying it out for voters or we’re going to continue to lose.”
As they soul-search, many Democrats are looking to the states for fresh leadership and direction. Governors of swing states like Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania will probably help shape their party’s path forward – as blue state governors recalibrate for Trump 2.0.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom, who clashed frequently with Trump during the president’s first term, greeted Trump warmly on the tarmac in Los Angeles, where he came to survey wildfire damage.
Trump has been sharply critical of Newsom’s response to the fires that have devastated Los Angeles and suggested Republicans might condition federal disaster aid to the state – a threat that has forced the governor to walk a fine political tightrope. Before Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Newsom invited him to visit the city and see the destruction for himself. At the same time, the governor launched a website to correct misinformation about the fires that Trump and other high-profile figures such as Elon Musk have amplified.
But they set politics aside on Friday. “I have all the expectations we’re going to be able to work together,” Newsom told the president.
“We’re going to get it fixed,” Trump replied.
Earlier this month, Democrats prevailed in a pair of special election contests for the Virginia legislature – an early test of the political mood and a glimmer of hope for the party in a state where Republicans have made gains in recent years.
Kannan Srinivasan, who won the state senate race ensuring that his party maintained control of the chamber, said voters in his district – a diverse suburb of the capital with large populations of immigrants and federal workers – “absolutely” expect Democrats to fight.
“The fear and the uncertainty that I can feel among my constituents is real,” said Srinivasan, himself a naturalized citizen who came to the US as a student from India. “We have a covenant to Americans, to Virginians, that we will stand by them and we will push back on any policies that are not favorable to working families.”
Joan E Greve contributed reporting from Washington
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