Democrats knew in real time last year that they had bungled their response to President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, making themselves a distraction rather than offering a cohesive message of resistance to his policies.
Representative Al Green, a liberal septuagenarian from Texas, was ejected from the chamber (and later censured) after disrupting the speech with a cane-waving tirade. The paddles that some Democrats waved with short messages on them — “Save Medicaid,” “Musk Steals” and one that just read “False” — were widely panned as a hokey and incoherent response. It was all out of step with the sober, centrist counter to Mr. Trump that party leaders had wanted to project that night.
They’re trying something different on Tuesday, when Mr. Trump is scheduled to deliver the first State of the Union address of his second term. A substantial number of Democrats are planning to boycott the speech and attend an alternative event, a rally called the “People’s State of the Union,” which will take place on the National Mall near the Capitol.
The event, which is being coordinated by the left-wing advocacy group MoveOn and MeidasTouch, a progressive media company, will feature Democratic lawmakers speaking with people who have been negatively affected by Mr. Trump’s economic and health care policies, as well as federal workers who lost their jobs and immigrants who have been targeted by the Trump administration. It will be hosted by the liberal political commentators Joy Reid and Katie Phang.
“He’s made a mockery of the State of the Union speech and he doesn’t deserve an audience,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said of Mr. Trump in an interview, explaining why he planned to attend the rally instead of the speech. “He’s going to tell 40 different lies, call Democrats names; he’s going to paper over his corruption; and I don’t feel like what he’s doing dignifies having Democrats there to cloak the speech in a veneer of respectability.”
Mr. Murphy, who also skipped the address last year, added: “These aren’t normal times, and we have to stop doing normal things.”
Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, attended Mr. Trump’s speech last year but walked out before the end. (Last year, the president spoke for roughly 100 minutes.) This year, Mr. Van Hollen said, he won’t be going.
“We cannot normalize this moment when Trump is marching our country toward fascism,” said Mr. Van Hollen, who will also speak at the rally. “I refuse to be a prop in the chamber as Donald Trump shreds our Constitution and attacks our democracy.”
It is unclear how many Democratic members of Congress will attend the speech. Some have expressed concern that boycotting en masse would leave Mr. Trump with a purely sycophantic audience.
But even a sizable boycott would break with a tradition, which most Democrats adhered to even through the first Trump administration, of the opposing party dutifully sitting through a speech they mostly disagree with. Even when they registered their disapproval with acts of protest — like when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up Mr. Trump’s speech when he was finished delivering it — they mostly showed up.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and minority leader, has encouraged members to either sit silently through the speech or boycott it altogether, rather than attend and create distractions in the House chamber.
Mr. Jeffries on Tuesday said it was his “present intention” to attend. “We’re not going to his house, he’s coming to our house,” he told reporters at a news conference. “Having grown up where I grew up, you never let anyone run you off your block.” (Mr. Jeffries grew up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.) Lawmakers who are skipping the speech for the rally so far include Senators Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota, as well as House Democrats including Representatives Becca Balint of Vermont, Greg Casar of Texas, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Delia Ramirez of Illinois.
Another contingent of lawmakers is expected to walk out of the address while Mr. Trump is speaking and make their way to the competing event.
“We know that he is going to use the State of the Union to mislead the American people and lie,” said Sara Haghdoosti, the chief of program at MoveOn Civic Action. “We want to make sure we’re focusing on the impact his horrendous policies have had. We want to shift the focus from Trump’s lies to the stories of people.”
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times.
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