Dems win key messaging battles against Trump
Dems across the ideological spectrum are taking him on and emerging stronger.
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Last week, Democrats achieved two impressive, consequential, and very different messaging victories over President Donald Trump.
In the first, New York City’s Muslim mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, managed to get Trump to mostly endorse his vision of the city. In the second, a group of congressional Democrats with past service in national security pushed Trump to throw a tantrum so severe and damaging that even his White House confusingly disavowed it.
The approaches, and Trump’s reaction to them, were very different. But in both cases, Democrats took the initiative and then were focused and uncompromising. They also both demonstrate that standing up to Trump works a lot better than bending the knee.
Mamdani charms Trump without compromising his values
Mamdani has been a target of hyperbolic smears and hatred — especially from Republicans, but in some cases even from Democrats.
Sen. Ted Cruz, in a paroxysm of Islamophobia, called Mamdani “an actual Communist Jihadist.” Trump himself attacked Mamdani, sneering that “if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.” (Mamdani is not a communist, for pity’s sake.)
Perhaps in part because of Trump’s threats to withhold federal funds, Mamdani asked for a personal meeting to talk to the president “about what it means to actually stand up for New Yorkers, and the way in which New Yorkers are struggling to afford this city.” Trump, for his part, called Mamdani a communist again and nicknamed him “Kwame” because he’s a bigot and bully. Fox News even billed the meeting as a “Showdown with Socialism.”
Mamdani did as promised by focusing on affordability in his remarks to the press with Trump after their meeting. He pointed out that there’s a cost of living crisis in the city, that one in four New Yorkers live in poverty, and said he came back again and again with Trump to “what it could look like to lift those New Yorkers out of struggle, and start to deliver them a city that they could live in.” For Mamdani, that means policies such as rent control, free city buses, free childcare for low income families, and other initiatives that look a lot like socialism.
So Mamdani did his part to initiate Fox’s showdown. But Trump, to the surprise of most commenters, did not. Rather than criticize a redistribution agenda — as have conservative outlets like City Journal and National Review — Trump expressed enthusiasm for Mamdani’s efforts.
“I think he is going to surprise some conservative people, actually,” Trump said.
Even more surprisingly, Trump defended Mamdani when reporters asked if he agreed with New York Rep. Elise Stefanik that Mamdani is a “jihadist,” saying instead “I met with a man who’s a very rational person.” When Mamdani was asked to clarify if he still thinks Trump is a fascist, Trump interrupted his answer and told him, “That’s okay, you can just say ‘yes.’ I don’t mind.” To which Mamdani replied, with a certain satisfaction, “Okay.”
Suffice it to say that was not how that reporter, or really anyone, thought the exchange was going to go.
Mamdani is an extremely charismatic and magnetic politician. And while Trump likes to think of himself as a tough negotiator, he has in the past often shown a tendency to just agree with the last person he’s talked to. Most recently, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte convinced Trump to endorse an ill-considered 50-year mortgage plan by playing golf with him and showing him a graphic on poster board.
Some analysts have argued that Trump is genuinely impressed by Mamdani’s win in his hometown. And the president may be looking to at least pay lip service to the idea he wants to bring prices down, since polls found him getting crushed on that issue — a recent Marquette poll showed him 44 points underwater on inflation.
Whatever the reason for Trump folding like the cheap suits he wears, it’s notable that Mamdani did not fold. He repeated his core message of affordability. He didn’t disavow his condemnation of Trump’s fascism — and in fact reiterated that he views Trump as a despot during yesterday’s Meet the Press.
Nor did Mamdani endorse Trump’s ugly policies. In that, he distinguished himself from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who let herself be used as a prop in a meeting where Trump signed executive orders lawlessly targeting former aides who had defied him.
Mamdani also didn’t look like a punching bag, a la Chuck Schumer, who said Trump was not antisemitic even after Trump claimed that Schumer was “not Jewish anymore.”
Whitmer suffered serious political damage from her White House visit and hurt any presidential hopes she might have had. Schumer’s approval is so dire that this particular instance of cravenness barely registered … though it certainly didn’t help him either.
Mamdani, by contrast, made himself look more formidable, secured federal funding for his city (at least for the moment) and made it much more difficult for the right to target him with bigoted fear-mongering. There’s a lesson there.
Centrist Dems bait Trump into a meltdown
Mamdani isn’t the only one who has figured out how to deal with Trump.
Last week, a group of Democratic members of Congress who served in the military and intelligence communities (including Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, and Jason Crow) recorded a video message for US service members.
“The threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad,” they said, “but from right here at home.” Then they emphasized repeatedly, “You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders.”
The video does not mention Trump directly, though of course it is about his administration. Trump has murdered some 77 people so far through strikes on boats near Venezuela; he claims without without evidence that the boats are carrying drugs, but even if that’s true, the strikes violate US and international law. Trump has also threatened to illegally send troops to storm US cities in the name, supposedly, of immigration enforcement, escalating his brutal and violent use of ICE and the National Guard.
Trump is already issuing illegal orders; he may well issue more. That’s why Slotkin, Kelly, and the others thought this video was necessary.
Trump’s response was, even by his standards, shockingly irresponsible. In a series of raving posts on Truth Social, he screamed that the video was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL” and said that the Democrats were guilty of a crime “punishable by DEATH!”
Unsurprisingly, the president’s barely veiled death threats led his followers to make death threats that were not at all veiled. Slotkin, Houlahan, Deluzio, Goodlander, and Crow were all subsequently targeted with bomb threats at their homes or offices.
Press reaction to Trump was very negative, not least because outlets covered the passionate and courageous responses from the Democratic lawmakers who had been targeted.
The White House was quickly forced to do damage control. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt brazenly lied and said Trump has not suggested Democrats should be put to death. She then launched into an off-topic spiel about how dangerous it was to threaten the chain of command — notably failing to discuss the dangers that could result if troops obeyed illegal orders.
Trump himself, of course, couldn’t stay on message. When asked if he was threatening death, he said he was not — and then threatened the Democrats with death again: “I think they’re in serious trouble. I would say they’re in serious trouble. I’m not threatening death, but I think they’re in serious trouble. In the old days, it was death. That was seditious behavior.”
The effect of Trump’s tantrum was to massively amplify the original video in a context where Trump’s irresponsibility could not have been more clearly underlined. If service members missed the video when it was released, they would have been hard pressed to miss it after all the coverage of Trump’s response.
The Democrats also pushed Trump to display himself at his absolute unhinged worst at a time when his polling is terrible. Voters aren’t going to be thrilled that Trump is banging out stochastic terrorism with his tiny fingers on Truth Social rather than dealing with the economy and inflation.
You can’t control Trump. But you can still beat him.
Mamdani said Trump was a fascist and Trump practically got on his knees to kiss his shoes. Kelly and other Democrats asked the military to not obey illegal orders, and Trump called for their deaths. Trump’s actions are often explained as if they are all part of some big master plan, but recent days have shown him to be incredibly erratic. There isn’t any reliable way to get him to do what you want him to because he’s unstable.
But while you can’t predict Trump, you can at least ensure you don’t embarrass yourself. Democrats can put forward a message that expresses core values — making life affordable for everyone, telling military personnel they must not obey illegal orders— no matter whether Trump responds with bizarre flattery or fascist rage. His inconsistency can make him seem difficult to confront or defeat, but it is in fact a weakness. Principled, consistent opposition can be a Democratic strength.
That’s it for today
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The felon is visibly deteriorating, his erratic behavior only emphasizes the danger he poses to democracy, but both Mamdani and the former military members stood their ground and won the day. Succumbing to the felon is definitely a losing proposition, it would be good if corporate media followed the example of these courageous people and printed the actual truth, instead of trying to placate a man who sees capitulation as weakness, not cooperation.
This would almost be funny if it were a movie…😒