I’m watching the United States fall to fascism in real time and yet the alarm bell that I, and so many others, are ringing is being ignored by the majority of the country. Republicans are all-in on Team Fascism. That’s a lost cause. But where are the Democrats?
I read a book once about “zombie insects.” These are insects that are infected with a type of fungus or other parasite that gradually kills them. All the while, the parasite takes control of the insect. The end goal is to further spread the parasite to other insects, starting the zombie life and death cycle all over again.
I now find myself comparing Democratic elected officials to zombie insects. It’s as if Republicans have taken control of Democratic brains so that Democrats think that they are working in opposition to the racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, Christian nationalist Republican agenda, but what they are really doing is helping this harmful agenda survive and spread.
Can there be any other explanation for the Democrats who keep voting to confirm Trump’s grossly unqualified nominees to cabinet positions? For the Democrats voting for legislation that makes it easier for the Trump Administration to harass, arrest and deport immigrants? For why Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is posting inane shit about tomatoes and guac on social media while Elon Musk and his minions have broken into the Treasury’s payment system? For why Democrats are more or less silent as the CDC demands that terms like “LGBT” and “transgender” be scrubbed from medical research, not to mention the tsunami of anti-trans proclamations Trump keeps issuing?
According to a Jan. 28 NBC News article, the eerie silence from the Democrats is part of their grand plan.
“Burned by their failures to end the Trump era the first time, Democrats are crafting a new playbook for his second administration that departs from the noisy resistance of his first presidency,” NBC reports. “The new approach…will be to zero in on pocketbook issues as they lay the groundwork for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. And they plan to focus less on his cultural taunts and issues that don’t reach the kitchen table.”
I see. So the Democrats have decided to only focus on the important things — or at least what they deem important — and ignore Trump’s “cultural taunts.”
Keep in mind that what’s being dismissed as “cultural taunts” is Trump’s demonization of transgender people and immigrants and his positioning of them as enemies, which is laying the groundwork for state-sanctioned violence. And might I add that transgender people and immigrants sit at kitchen tables just like everyone else.
“I think we have to pick our fights and not chase after every crazy squirrel,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) said, according to NBC News.
It is true that Trump’s playbook is to “flood the zone” so that the average person can’t keep up. But Schumer and Schiff aren’t average people. They’re United States senators. Their job is to keep up and fight against the abuse and lawlessness of this administration. They need to “chase after every crazy squirrel” because all of these squirrels have rabies. People who pay even marginal attention to politics are alarmed at what the Trump Administration is doing right now.
They’re also alarmed at the absence of Democratic response. And the idea that this silence is intentional is not at all comforting.
Look, you don’t win by ignoring this stuff. Michigan Sen. Mallory McMorrow gave a master class in 2022 about how to directly address hateful garbage when her Republican colleague accused her of being a “groomer” because she stood up for LGBTQ kids. McMorrow’s floor speech went viral.
She received praise from all over the country. Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville called McMorrow’s speech an “enormously effective piece of communication” that should be used as an “instructional video” for Democrats. She even got a phone call from President Joe Biden.
Apparently, the Democratic Party writ large didn’t take McMorrow’s example to heart.
When Democrats ignore the persecution and scapegoating of transgender people, when they ignore the inhumane treatment of migrants, what they are doing is normalizing it. Their silence is essentially saying to the majority of the country, “This is not such a big deal.” And to the people directly affected they’re saying, “You’re on your own.”
For decades now I’ve heard, “Democrats are terrible at messaging.” It’s true that messaging is hard. Especially when there’s non-stop noise from the opposition party. What Democrats need to be doing is getting a megaphone and screaming from the highest mountain. Instead, they have decided to say nothing.
Which is the worst message of all.