President Donald Trump's victory in November has left Democrats "leaderless, rudderless, and divided" with "no coherent message," according to a report in The New York Times of 50 Democrat leaders.
Democrats have gathered this weekend to pick Minnesota's Ken Martin as the new Democratic National Committee chair, but thus far their only rally cry is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's continued calls for obstruction of Trump as the lone goal of the party.
"We're not going to go after every single issue," Sen. Schumer, D-N.Y., told the Times. "We are picking the most important fights and lying down on the train tracks on those fights."
But Illinois Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker said Democrats must "stand up and fight," leading the charge to obstruct Trump's agenda at every turn.
"He is not somebody that you can appease," Pritzker told the Times. "And by the way, at the state level, I think many of us are. But I think that we’ve got to make sure that in the Senate and the House, that the people who have a platform are standing up."
But as conservatives repeatedly reminded Americans since the dawn of Trump's political career: You cannot just oppose everything in place of standing for something, Democrats told the Times.
"We have no coherent message," Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, told the Times
"There needs to be a message that is clear on at least the underlying thing that comes with all of this."
Martin is the new face of the DNC tasked with organizing a party that lost the Electoral College, popular vote, and all seven of the key battleground states to Trump in 2024.
"The policies that we support and the message that we have is not wrong: It is a messaging problem and a brand problem," Martin told the Times.
"Those voters are not connecting our policies with their lives."
Martin was able to topple the old Democrat guard as his DNC rival, Ben Wikler, was backed by Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and liberal billionaire donors Reid Hoffman and Alexander Soros, according to the Times.
"Within the party, we need to make sure we have a very clear direction to go," said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who is running for governor.
"We need to have our own ideas. We'll never win again if we are just playing defense."
The 2024 election taught Martin's Democrats that they are on the wrong side of history and not representative of American voters.
A Quinnipiac University poll revealed this week a 57% unfavorable rating for Democrats, an all-time high.
A Times/Ipsos poll after Trump's election victory was certified in early January revealed Americans' priorities more closely match that of Republican Party election messaging priorities.
Those polled found economy, immigration, taxes, crime, and healthcare costs to be priorities, the first three considered priorities. Those people sensed Democrats were most concerned about abortion, LGBT policies, climate change, and the state of democracy, though, according to the Times.
Trump stripped Democrats of their weaponization of abortion as he brought three conservative Supreme Court justices to the top court that kicked abortion law back to the states and the will of the American voters.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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