Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists Michelle Goldberg and Bret Stephens and the contributing Opinion writer Frank Bruni on the problems and challenges for the Democrats as President Trump seeks unchecked power.
Patrick Healy: In my 20-plus years writing about politics, I’ve never seen the Democratic Party in such trouble nationally. They lost the White House and Senate and are seen unfavorably by record numbers of voters and out of step on key issues, according to recent polls. I think part of this is a trust problem — you still hear from independents and even some Democrats that the party tried to pull a fast one on America by circling the wagons around a cognitively diminished president and then subbing in a new nominee whom voters didn’t pick. I think the damage to the party is worse — and maybe longer lasting — than Democratic leaders may realize, and these problems make it harder for the Democrats to persuasively counter President Trump. How do you see the state of the party?
Michelle Goldberg: I agree that the damage to the party is profound, but I’m not sure there’s reason to think it will be lasting. After 2004, another devastating election for Democrats, absolutely no one would have predicted that Democrats would triumph four years later by nominating an urbane Black first-term senator from Chicago whose middle was Hussein. After Jan. 6, many of us naïvely thought that Trump’s brand was irreparably damaged. The one constant in American politics, it seems to me, is that things tend to change faster than people predict.
The last Trump administration ended in absolute mayhem, and the signs so far suggest that this one will be worse. I’m not sure how much anyone will be thinking about Joe Biden’s age in 2028, or even 2026.
Bret Stephens: Democrats don’t seem to realize how profoundly out of touch they are with that segment of America that they can’t identify through a collection of letters or neologisms: BIPOC, L.G.B.T.Q.I.+, A.A.P.I., the “unhoused,” the “undocumented,” and so on. They have lost themselves in forms of identity politics that divide Americans into categories many don’t recognize or from which they feel excluded. And I don’t just mean white, male, Christian Americans. For example, ask many Hispanics what they think of the term “Latinx,” a nonsensical term in a gendered language like Spanish, and you might begin to grasp why more than 40 percent of Hispanic men voted for Trump. Similarly, ask many feminists what they think of the term “birthing people” or “persons with vaginas” and you might risk a well-deserved slap.
Healy: I know plenty of regular Democrats who dislike those terms for the reasons you mention.
Stephens: You’re probably right that most Democrats don’t use those terms. But it’s also true that liberal elites do. And that’s what average American voters dislike: a party whose ostensible leaders lack the nerve or moral wherewithal to resist the progressive tide.
Frank Bruni: Democrats can’t figure out exactly where they are, how they got there and the route back out of the wilderness. So they’re frozen in place. I sympathize. All told, they didn’t, arithmetically, lose in 2024 by all that much, but the overly tidy narrative is of some huge political realignment.
Stephens: I think it’s a mistake to look at the raw numbers of the 2024 election and not appreciate the tidal shift it represents. Americans didn’t replace the Biden administration with just a generic Republican. They replaced him with one of the biggest pariahs in our history. It may not be a mandate for Trump but it is a massive rebuke of what the Democratic Party had become under Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the rest of the Democratic leadership, including at the state level.
It wasn’t just that Biden held on too long. It’s that the entire Democratic establishment, in politics and media, seemed to have colluded to cover up the state of the president’s health. And after that deception was exposed, it anointed his successor in a single day without bothering with even a mini-primary. The dishonesty and highhandedness of it is part of the Democrats’ problem, which is a perception that they are the party of the self-dealing, self-deluded elite.
Bruni: All fair, and I’ve said it all myself. But can we please note that such words and concepts as “dishonesty” and “highhandedness” apply even more so to, um, Trump and the Republican Party under Trump? The tragedy of what happened with Democrats is that they frittered away some of their moral advantage. A crucial measure of it, in fact. But, let’s be clear, not all of it. They didn’t try to overturn a legitimate election. Just some necessary context for the very legitimate criticism of what happened with Biden.
Healy: Trump is a master at fraudulently flipping the narrative — it’s Biden who is the dishonest one, the criminal or the pardon-his-son norm-breaker, and it’s Trump who won THE BIGGEST VICTORY EVER. Do the Democrats have the credibility right now to convince more Americans to see Trump for what he is? Trump made these flabbergasting comments about taking over Gaza, and the Democratic playbook was the same old, same old, calling him dangerous and insane. Democratic leaders are trotting out the same old news conferences and rhetoric, acting like the party of lawyers, and so far showing no compelling strategies for holding him to account.
Goldberg: I’ve been stunned by how unprepared Democrats are for this moment. Many leaders seemed mired somewhere between introspection and self-flagellation. Some of that is necessary after such a calamitous loss, but the time for processing was months ago. Trump has turned Elon Musk loose to disassemble the American government and Democrats seem unable to get off the proverbial mat.
I get that Democrats have decided that the cost of living is everything. But they’re failing to meet the moment when they respond to a rapidly unfolding constitutional crisis with talking points about the price of eggs. Being an effective politician is partly about meeting voters where they are, but it’s also about showing leadership and explaining where things are going.
Stephens: Democrats tried the politics of “resistance” against Trump by painting him as a beyond-the-pale threat to the constitutional order. Maybe that’s right, but I don’t think it’s effective. Instead of resistance, maybe the party should try simple opposition — which can also mean cooperating with Trump when it makes policy sense. Do Democrats really think that our $7 trillion federal government can’t stand a bit of pruning? Or that every regulatory scheme imposed by the E.P.A. or the Labor Department is smart and sensible? When everything is a “constitutional crisis,” according to some liberals, it means that pretty soon nothing will be.
Goldberg: But, Bret, they have been cooperating! The Senate voted to confirm Marco Rubio as secretary of state by 99-0, and he repaid this bipartisan vote of confidence by cooperating in the possibly illegal gutting of U.S.A.I.D. And yes, obviously Democrats think the federal government is bloated and inefficient, and several have expressed their willingness to work with Musk’s “efficiency department” on finding waste and abuse, especially in the Defense Department.
But that is very different from letting Musk potentially exercise some sort of unilateral line-item veto by hijacking the Treasury Department payment system, or letting a 19-year-old software engineer whose nickname is “Big Balls” run riot in the bureaucracy. It’s not just us hysterical liberals who think what’s happening is a constitutional crisis — thoughtful conservative policy wonks like the Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl are saying the same thing.
Stephens: I may be wrong, but I can’t recall a single instance during the Biden administration when Democrats made a significant cut to a government program. It’s a sharp contrast to the Clinton years, when Al Gore — yes, Al Gore — called for privatizing much of the Federal Aviation Administration. Also, we can argue over the merits of cutting this or that government program. But Democrats are also saddled with the perception that they are the party of misgovernance, whether it’s in Democratic cities like Chicago or Portland or Democratic states like California.
Goldberg: I’m sorry, but you’re changing the subject. None of this has any bearing on the legitimacy of what Musk is doing to us right now.
Stephens: For the record, I disliked Musk long before it was cool. And I’m mindful of some gigantic conflicts between his role in the White House and his business interests. It’s almost as troubling as the Pelosi family’s stock trades that liberals show no interest in. But what I think many regular Americans see happening there is a businessman taking a businesslike approach to the government, including by paring bloat and offering buyouts. To which some of them, including me, are saying, “About time.”
Goldberg: For the record, a recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 53 percent of respondents disapprove of Musk’s role in the Trump administration. Only 39 percent approve.
Stephens: The same superb pollsters who a year ago showed Biden with a lead over Trump. Please, Democrats, stop trying to see the world through data and analytics. If there’s one lesson in last year’s race, it’s that Democrats need to relearn to trust what their eyes, ears and guts tell them.
Bruni: A great deal of this Democratic not-meeting-the-moment paralysis is a function of being overwhelmed. Why would a Democratic politician be all that different from any one of us? I scroll through the news in the morning, feel the circuits of my brain frying and dying and find myself staring into space for the next 10 minutes. Maybe Democrats are just my catatonia writ large.
Healy: Michelle, you’ve been talking to and hearing from Democratic officials and activists recently about the state of the party. What are Democratic leaders saying privately that they may not be saying publicly?
Goldberg: Democratic activists are absolutely livid about the party’s tepid response to some of Trump’s more outrageous moves. Here is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, illegally gaining access to the private data of the citizenry, torpedoing whole agencies without authorization and seizing control of payment systems that could let him wreak havoc on the social safety net. This should be an easy thing to mobilize against: “Elon Musk is selling your government for parts.” The party has started to wake up in the last couple of days, but it’s still been alarmingly listless.
Bruni: Can I express some concern about what Democratic officials are saying publicly? In the run-up to last weekend’s election of Ken Martin as the new Democratic National Committee chair — congratulations and condolences, sir — I heard him and others talk about organization, fund-raising and the rest of the usual script. Kamala Harris had an extensive organization, a formidable ground game, oodles of money and … here we are. Big emotions drive the big contests. Overarching messages. Ambient impressions. Those are created by visionaries and — a tip of the hat to Trump here — performers. Do Democrats get that? I’m not sure I feel enough of an “out with the technocrats, in with the acrobats” vibe for this juncture in the American melodrama.
Stephens: I’m trying to recall a head of the Democratic, or Republican, National Committee who made all that much of a difference. What Democrats need are some charismatic faces and compelling voices for the party, not backroom engineers.
Healy: So why aren’t the Democrats doing more to fight against Trump? Why did it take them so long to go down to federal agencies or stand alongside fired federal workers or take some kind of action?
Stephens: Trump is simply moving much faster than they are. Democrats are fighting yesterday’s wars; Republicans, each day, start a new war. What matters isn’t that the party needs to figure out its media strategy. It needs to decide who it stands for before it can figure out what it won’t stand for.
Goldberg: A lesson that a lot of people took from this election was that voters don’t care about democratic norms or institutions and aren’t moved by talk of authoritarianism. What I think this ignores is that voter sentiment is thermostatic — a lot of voters want radical change until they see what that change actually looks like. (Think back, for example, to how the electorate punished Joe Biden for the Afghanistan withdrawal.) And people respond to strength — failing to mount an aggressive response to Musk’s depredations just makes the Democrats look weak.
Stephens: Michelle, I think this is a misreading of the electorate. Voters, including conservative ones, don’t want an authoritarian state. But liberals and progressives consistently failed to recognize the way in which their own side violated those norms, or sought to impose their own forms of authoritarianism.
Do any Democrats understand that trying to throw your opponent in jail, or bankrupt him with doubtful suits, or strike his name from the ballot, isn’t democratic? Do they understand that they can’t credibly talk about Trump’s threats to our governing traditions when they also are calling to pack the Supreme Court or end the Senate filibuster? Do they comprehend that trying to strong-arm Facebook into suppressing “misinformation” violated the spirit of the First Amendment?
Do they understand that lying about Joe Biden’s health was reminiscent of Soviet propaganda during the reigns of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko? (Nothing to see here but a “cheapfake”!) Do they recognize the chilling effects of the progressive speech police? One of the reasons Trump won is that Democrats all but erased the difference between them and Republicans when it came to the question of adhering to “democratic norms.”
Bruni: To your question about why Democrats aren’t doing more, Pat — they’re cowed by how popular Trump is with a big chunk of the electorate and they’re worried about seeming to be reflexively against him in a manner that’s unappealing to voters beyond their base. But even more than that, they don’t want to play into the caricatures of their party and they’re trying to figure out whom they can champion and what they can defend and extol that doesn’t do so. Pat, you mention “federal agencies” and “federal workers” — I agree that the nature, intensity and scope of Trump’s assault on them is dangerous, destructive and cruel. But “federal agencies” and “federal workers” aren’t romantic figures to many voters, and many voters agree with Trump that the federal government is bloated. So Democrats are understandably cautious about any steps or words that could be considered a tone-deaf defense of the status quo.
Stephens: Thank you, Frank. The Democratic Party has, to an astonishing degree, become the party of government workers and union workers. They should try to make inroads with the rest of us.
Healy: I get what you’re saying, Frank, but I also think part of a big part of any leader’s appeal — and certainly Trump’s appeal — is being seen as a fighter. Many Trump supporters feel he is fighting for them tooth and nail. Do Democratic voters feel the same way about their leaders?
Or let me put it this way: Last week, the morning after the midair collision between the American Airlines jet and the Black Hawk helicopter, Trump held a news conference and blamed D.E.I. and Biden and Barack Obama for the accident. Biden and Obama didn’t engage. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wrote a tweet denouncing Trump’s remarks as “despicable.” But why didn’t Buttigieg hold his own news conference on the banks of the Potomac calling out Trump’s baseless smears in a way that would go viral and command the news cycle and political narrative? Why don’t Democrats fight fire with fire?
Some Dems say they don’t want to stoop to Trump’s level or play his game on his terms. But whether it’s the midair collision blame, Elon Musk’s raid on government agencies, the firing of inspectors general and the targeting of F.B.I. officials doing their jobs, or some of Trump’s cabinet nominees, the president is running circles around the Democrats, while the Democrats have a credibility problem.
Goldberg: Patrick, to answer your question, a great many Democrats are furious that their leaders aren’t doing more to fight back. Their politicians are never going to be able to match Trump’s demagogy, and I don’t think we’d want them to. As Buttigieg pointed out, it was Trump who fired and suspended key airline personnel, but while Trump is happy to blame D.E.I. for the crash and slander a dead Black Hawk pilot, Democrats are generally not shameless enough to pin the blame on Trump until they know what actually happened.
But that doesn’t explain why there was no coordinated effort to back up Buttigieg and amplify his message. Nor has there been a sustained effort to explain the way Trump and Musk are gutting the agencies meant to keep Americans safe, so that when disaster happens — and it will — there’s a clear narrative to slot it into.
Stephens: I watched Trump’s news conference with my jaw dragging the floor. And I’m against D.E.I. in the military! Sometimes, the smartest way to oppose Trump is to just let him talk.
Healy: I watched some recent news conferences by Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, and I can’t say they inspired confidence that Democratic Party leaders know how to effectively oppose Trump’s testing of the Constitution and the separate branches of government, or have persuasive rhetoric to convince more Americans to rally to their side. Do the Democrats have the leaders they need?
Goldberg: No. There are Democrats who are rising to the occasion, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senators Chris Murphy and Brian Schatz. But the leadership has been abysmal.
Stephens: If any of those progressives are the future of the Democratic Party, then you can look forward to many, many, many years of Republican government. Try, instead, Ritchie Torres, John Fetterman, Elissa Slotkin, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper or any other Democrat who sometimes tries to think outside the woke, urban, anti-Israel, soak-the-rich bubble.
Bruni: The Democrats do not have the leaders they need. To different degrees, Schumer and Jeffries are party insiders who have been around a long time. If this were an era that valued expertise and institutionalism — great! But it’s not. Election results last year showed that in the developed world and in one established democracy after another, the ruling party’s share of votes shrank, often significantly. You cannot meet this moment by promising delicate and deeply considered refinements to the status quo and with leaders steeped in that status quo. I’m not endorsing disruption. I’m noting the appetite for it — which won’t be sated with the political equivalent of three balanced meals a day in line with a food pyramid brought to you by longtime federal health officials.
Healy: Bret, in your conversation this week with Gail Collins, you described several things that Trump has done well and ended on this point: “Most of all, Trump is forcing at least some Democrats to start coming to grips with the ways their party totally lost touch with regular Americans. That alone is valuable.” What are some ways Democrats lost touch with Americans that Trump brought to light?
Stephens: Democrats have become the Party That Misses the Point. They spent the Biden years talking about the strength of the economy when it came to employment figures and the stock market — while downplaying the effects of inflation and higher financing costs that really mattered in the lives of non-affluent voters. They insisted for at least two years that there wasn’t an immigration crisis, only a “challenge,” at the border — and seemed to discover the problem only when migrants were sent up to blue states and began straining their social safety nets to the breaking point.
They claimed that serious crime was coming down — but they ignored the reality of rampant shoplifting, public drug consumption and other assaults on quality of life. They talked about how America was globally respected with Biden in the White House — when what Americans saw was a swift collapse of global order following our shambolic Afghan withdrawal and our involvement in wars we didn’t quite want to win.
I could go on.
Healy: How can the Democrats rebuild trust?
Stephens: Democrats should make an effort to get to know Trump voters, and not just through data analysis or comments by their most idiotic, caricaturish champions. If Democrats continue to stereotype those voters as a bunch of racist, misogynistic yahoos, they will be unable to understand the country we’re all living in. And they’ll be doing themselves no favors politically, either.
Goldberg: They need to find a bunch of messengers who don’t speak in clichés and talking points and can defend their ideas in hostile territory. Pete Buttigieg does this well, but too few Democrats can do the same. They need to recruit more working-class candidates who have a natural feel for the concerns of their communities. And they need to polarize against the rapacious billionaires strip-mining the state.
Healy: Let’s wind down with a lightning round. What will be the issue where Democrats find their voice/spine/groove against Trump?
Goldberg: Musk’s outsized, unaccountable power.
Stephens: Trump’s blunderbuss threats to our international partners and friends. I love Canadians and Mexicans! I like Danish design. Let’s have no wars with any of them.
Bruni: I’m with Michelle. Musk. As a target, he’s growing riper than a late-summer peach.
Healy: Who will be the key Democrat helping the party out of the wilderness in the next two years?
Goldberg: I wish I knew! There’s a yawning void for some ambitious politician to try to fill.
Stephens: I don’t know, but I’d guess that he — yes, he — will speak with a Southern accent.
Bruni: Dunno who will actually help, but in terms of who gets a hearing? Keep an eye on lawmakers — like Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona — who won impressively in places where Harris lost.
Healy: As you see it, which of Trump’s choices for the cabinet or for senior administration roles will most come back to haunt him?
Goldberg: Kennedy, especially if, God help us, there’s another pandemic.
Stephens: Agree.
Bruni: Musk. See above. Plus, this Jurassic Park has room for only one T-Rex.
Healy: There are arguably five Senate races in 2026 that, more than others, are tossups, and we’ll be obsessing about them sooner than we think — Georgia, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire and North Carolina. Which interests you the most?
Goldberg: Georgia. I’ve been following Jon Ossoff since he ran for Congress in a special election in 2017. He lost that race, but the excitement around him was an early sign of the electoral strength of the Resistance, and Democrats eventually won that seat. He has a very tough re-election coming, but disillusion with Trump could make it easier. And if he wins, I think he’d be a dark horse presidential contender.
Stephens: Michigan. A Republican, Mike Rogers, came within 20,000 votes of beating Elissa Slotkin in November; he might have won if the G.O.P. had invested a little more money in the race. Gary Peters, the incumbent, isn’t running for re-election; Gretchen Whitmer, the governor, has ruled out running for his seat; and Buttigieg, a possible Democratic pick, would be a carpetbagger. If Republicans win, it might consolidate the G.O.P.’s Rust Belt ascendancy.
Bruni: Georgia. Ossoff won so narrowly before, Georgia just swung to Trump and Ossoff has made some smart moves from left closer to the center — or tried. If he succeeds, the method becomes a Democratic template.
Healy: Will Kamala Harris run for California governor in 2026 or, again, for president in 2028?
Goldberg: I have no idea. But I feel confident that in 2028 she will not be the nominee.
Stephens: Please. God. No. Isn’t there some U.N. agency she can run instead?
Bruni: She left it all on the field. I hope she treats herself to a comfy perch in a skybox with a very tall glass of her favorite wine — but doesn’t allow photos! It’s a beer-y epoch!
Healy: Final question. Democrats may well bounce back and win the House in 2026, given the narrow margin there. But on the national level, in presidential elections, are we looking at 1981 all over again, with the Democratic brand so damaged and the party leadership so out of step with the country that Republicans could hold the White House for 12 years? Or is this more like 2017 or 2021, where a slim majority of the country wants the presidency to be a four-year gig and then change it up?
Goldberg: Comparing this moment to 1981 seems crazy to me. Ronald Reagan won a genuine landslide. Trump won by 1.5 percentage points, which was, as The Washington Post pointed out, the smallest winning popular vote margin since Richard Nixon in 1968. Democrats won Senate races in a bunch of swing states, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona. Don’t get me wrong — the Democratic Party isn’t in good shape, and it lost ground with almost every demographic. But there is not a majority coalition for right-wing rule.
Stephens: Who knows? Trump’s capacity to screw things up is well established. But I do think that, culturally, the “vibe shift,” to use a term everyone seems to be saying, is very much toward the right. That’s a trend that won’t dissolve soon.
Bruni: I don’t think analogies from the past four decades work. Trump has shown a willingness to smash traditions, junk rules and defy the law in a singular way that, I think, moves him outside of any normal American political context. How much will he warp the system and rig the game so that the only context is his will, his wiles and his movement’s anti-democratic fervor? It is neither solipsistic nor narcissistic for those of us beholding this to believe we live in highly peculiar times. It is rational. And really, really scary.
