President Trump did the nation a big favor in his State of the Union message: He brought home the dark secret behind his success. His one and true genius is hating on other people — Democrats always, immigrants and racial minorities (Mexicans one day, then Somalis), trans people, mythical election fraudsters, street criminals, drug dealers, foreign enemies and anyone else he finds it convenient to hurl a brick at.
His speech was thus an unhappy marriage of bloody images designed to scare people and borrowed glory as he handed out medals to those who earned the honors by accomplishment and bravery, not flimflam. Mr. Trump demonstrated something too often overlooked: He can win when he’s not the incumbent and can go on the attack (2016, 2024), but he leads his party to defeat when he has to govern and fails to deliver (2018, 2020).
The lesson for Democrats here is obvious: They need to get over their terror over Mr. Trump’s assumed magic and mastery — they’re ebbing — and their anxiety that the voters who decide elections share his contempt for so many of our fellow Americans. For the next eight months, Democrats must shelve their affection for gloomy self-analysis and needless arguments over which word to pick between “oligarchy” and “authoritarianism.”
Between now and November, their task is to keep the country focused on Mr. Trump’s failures on the issues that elected him: The economy (especially prices) and immigration. They are failures bred by what everyone outside the “Make America Great Again” base knows: Mr. Trump reserves his energies for his own interests and those of his allies. Everyone else — a majority of our fellow citizens — amounts either to extras he occasionally brings onto the set for his performances or villains he invokes to make himself the hero of the story.
This is why the Democratic response to Tuesday’s speech from Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia was in exactly the right key. She summed up this year’s midterm elections in three questions: “Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family? Is the president working to keep Americans safe — both at home and abroad? Is the president working for you?” That’s it. That’s the campaign. For good measure, Ms. Spanberger explained how voters can tell that Mr. Trump’s focus is not on working Americans. “Who benefits from his rhetoric, his policies, his actions and the short list of laws he’s pushed through this Republican Congress?” she asked. “He’s enriching himself, his family, his friends. The scale of the corruption is unprecedented.”
As important, she went straight at Mr. Trump’s cruelty, confident that most Americans don’t share it. She reframed the immigration debate in one sentence: “Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed — not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.” Repair something that’s not working? Yes. Rip “nursing mothers away from their babies”? No.
Democrats being Democrats, they could not content themselves with just the single response from Ms. Spanberger. Many members of Congress showed up to sulk or shout during Mr. Trump’s address. Others boycotted his speech altogether. There was a rally on the National Mall, alternative messaging from the party’s left flank and a seeming competition among Democrats over who could give the toughest response. Politico naturally characterized all this as “a snapshot of a party divided over how best to approach the midterms.”
Well, sure, but this popular take is past its sell-by date. Much of the commentary about Democrats assumes that the country is still stuck in November 2024. It’s not. The wild pace at which Mr. Trump has made unpopular decisions has fundamentally altered the electoral terrain. The Democrats’ strong performance at the ballot box last fall and in special elections across the country (including three on the day of Mr. Trump’s speech) shows that the exasperation many Democrats feel toward their own side — and, yes, there’s a lot of it — has little relationship to how people are casting ballots. Paradoxically, the same discontent that is driving impatience with the party in the abstract is producing huge turnouts in support of its candidates. The backlash against Mr. Trump is undercutting Republican support among the key groups that swung his way in 2024, especially Latinos, young men and independents. If he thinks he can woo back these defectors with his version of the “Two Minutes Hate” that George Orwell depicted in “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” he’s wrong.
If there’s one thing Democrats in the center and on the left agree on, it’s that the party has to reverse its declines among working-class voters. Mr. Trump is making their job a lot easier. The president used to be quite good at hiding his solicitude toward the very wealthy who contribute to his political and personal coffers. Not anymore. How many clips and photos have you seen of Mr. Trump happily hobnobbing with the superrich? And how many with men and women toiling on assembly lines or in warehouses? His alignment with billionaires is so obvious that even his loyal white working-class supporters are beginning to break away.
The left’s anti-oligarchy messaging is often seen as conflicting with the anti-authoritarian, pro-institution messaging of more moderate Democrats. But Mr. Trump is leading an increasingly authoritarian government dedicated, above all, to his own narrow interests and to those of very wealthy people who help him achieve his ends. By definition, opposing his authoritarianism requires opposing the forms of oligarchy on which his power depends.
To distract attention from this battle, Mr. Trump regularly tries to provoke hostility toward the groups he hates. Maybe he could pull it off if Americans were happier about the economy. But since so many feel let down, the message of his diatribes is that the only thing he can deliver after 13 months in office is fear itself. It’s a tired act. A presidency built on reruns is rapidly losing its audience.
E.J. Dionne Jr. is the author of “Why Americans Hate Politics,” “Our Divided Political Heart,” “Why the Right Went Wrong” and, most recently, “100% Democracy,” with Miles Rapoport.
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