Democratic base's anger puts some party leaders on shaky ground

Chicago Tribune

31-03-2025

PHOENIX — The Democratic base is angry.
Not just at President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the 'Make America Great Again' movement. Rank-and-file Democrats are mad at their own leaders and increasingly agitating to replace them.
Arizona Democrats pushed out their party chair, and Georgia Democrats are on their way to doing the same. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York postponed a book tour in the face of protests amid calls from progressives that he face a primary challenge.
The losing party after a presidential election often spends time in the wilderness, but the visceral anger among Democrats toward their party leaders is reaching a level reminiscent of the tea party movement that swept out Republican incumbents 15 years ago.
'They should absolutely be worried about holding onto power, because there's a real energy right now against them,' Paco Fabián, deputy director of Our Revolution, a grassroots group allied with independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, said of Democratic incumbents. 'And as soon as somebody figures out how to harness it, they're going to be in deep trouble.'
A deeper hole than previous losses
Elections on Tuesday could give national Democrats a boost. In Wisconsin, the officially nonpartisan race for a state Supreme Court seat has become a test of Musk's influence as his political organization boosts conservative Brad Schimel and progressives back liberal Susan Crawford, who has made anti-Musk messaging a centerpiece of her campaign. And two U.S. House special elections in Florida feature Democrats who are outraising their Republican counterparts in sharply pro-Trump districts.
But the current depth of frustration among Democrats is clear and shows no signs of going away.
According to a February Quinnipiac poll, about half disapprove of how Democrats in Congress are handling their job, compared with about 4 in 10 who approve. That's a stark contrast from the beginning of Joe Biden's presidency in 2021, when more than 8 in 10 Democrats approved of how their party was doing its job in Congress, and the start of Trump's first term in 2017, when about 6 in 10 Democrats approved. In 2017, as they do now, Democrats lacked control of either congressional chamber.
A February CNN/SSRS poll found about three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents thought Democrats in Congress weren't doing enough to oppose Trump.
Facing a coordinated and long-planned Republican effort to remake government and fire tens of thousands of federal workers, Democrats have struggled with a unified response.
Frustration on the left with elected Democrats began early, when some Democratic senators backed Trump Cabinet nominees and supported legislation targeting illegal immigration. It escalated following Trump's joint address to Congress, when Democratic lawmakers protested by wearing coordinated clothes and holding up signs expressing their discontent. A handful of Democrats then voted with Republicans to censure U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who interrupted Trump's speech to Congress and was escorted out of the chamber.
Schumer faced the most serious backlash after he refused to block a Republican-led government spending bill and shut down the government. Schumer said blocking the bill would have backfired and played into Trump's hands, but many on the left saw it as capitulation.
'I want the opposition to be a lot more animated,' said Stefan Therrien, a 22-year-old engineering student in Tempe, Arizona, who called Democratic leaders in Congress 'very passive' in a misguided effort to appeal to centrists. 'Democrats should attack harder.'
Ken Human, a retired attorney who went to a town hall organized by Democrats in Lexington, Kentucky, said: 'You have to stand up to bullies because otherwise they'll walk all over you.'
Anger from a party's base is not unusual after a party loses the presidency.
Establishment Republicans faced fierce backlash after Democrat Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, which fueled the rise of the tea party movement that overthrew some of the party's most powerful incumbents and brought in a new cadre of lawmakers laser-focused on obstructing Obama's agenda.
Democrats, likewise, were dejected after Republican President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, but his popularity soon tanked and Democrats could foresee the massive wins they would notch in the 2006 midterms, said Robert Shapiro, a Columbia University professor focused on American politics.
Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980 was a bigger shock to Democrats because it brought with it a period of Republican ascendance. The GOP won a Senate majority for the first time in nearly 30 years, though Democrats retained control of the House.
'The setback was significant and startling, but not as much as what's happened today, where you have Trump winning the election at the same time the Republicans have control of both houses of Congress,' Shapiro said.
Grassroots Democrats were incensed by Trump's first victory — with some talk then of primary challengers to leaders — but they mostly channeled their anger toward the president and the GOP, planning marches and organizing community groups to prepare for the midterms.
Those midterms led to at least one primary upset with future implications: New York Rep. Joe Crowley, the No. 4 House Democrat, fell to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then a virtual unknown.
Angry town halls and new challengers
Thousands have packed rallies to hear Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, outsiders who rose to prominence for their sharp criticism of the Democratic establishment.
Democrats are getting an earful from constituents at some of the town halls, including events they're organizing in GOP-controlled districts to draw attention to Republicans avoiding unscripted interactions with voters.
In Arizona, which went for Biden in 2020 before flipping to Trump last year, furious party leaders ousted their chair, Yolanda Bejarano. The result was a shock; Bejarano had support from every prominent Democrat in the state and was widely expected to get a second term.
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, the chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, is in a similarly perilous position after Trump flipped Georgia in 2024. The Georgia party's state committee approved a rules change Saturday making its chairmanship a full-time role, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. That will make it increasingly likely that Williams, keeping her congressional seat, will step down as chair before her term ends in 2027.
Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old liberal journalist with a big social media following, decided to run for Congress, saying most Democrats 'work from an outdated playbook' in an announcement video that's fiercely critical of party leaders.
'They aren't meeting the moment, and their constituents are absolutely livid,' Abughazaleh said in an interview. She said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, the 80-year-old Democrat who has represented a suburban Chicago district since 1999, has an 'admirable' progressive record, but 'something needs to change culturally … about how we do politics and how we campaign.'
'I'm done sitting around waiting for someone else to maybe do it,' Abughazaleh said.