The intra-Democratic debate that I despise above all others is the one that holds that Democrats must either do X or Y but cannot possibly do both X and Y. It has made me insane for years. The people who lead these simple-minded arguments are alleged to be antagonists, because some of them support the Democrats doing X and others Y; but in fact, they are partners, symbiotic co-conspirators in a debate on which hours of time and millions of dollars are wasted and that repeatedly keeps the party from acting on its core historic convictions.
Think of it this way. Have you ever, once in your life, heard conservatives and Republicans engage in an argument like: Well, we can cut taxes, or we can prosecute the culture wars, but we surely can’t do both! I hope you’re laughing, because the idea is laughable on its face. When they have power, Republicans do both of those things and about five or six others besides (and under Donald Trump, 50 or 60 other things). This is why they frequently win over persuadable voters: They come across to people as a party of conviction and ambition, while the Democrats appear to be a party of caution and calculation.
I have in mind, of course, the current debate about whether congressional Democrats should use their newly gained power next year to focus on “affordability” or “accountability.” This started the very morning after the historic victory last Tuesday, when Hakeem Jeffries went on Morning Joe and said his House Democrats next year would not be interested in “retribution.” “The American people don’t want us to get even. They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive,” he said. In fairness, Jeffries has, at other times—and no doubt in part because of the fierce blowback to those comments—vowed that the Democrats will launch muscular investigations into Trumpworld. And he did come out Sunday for impeaching Pete Hegseth, an action that could happen this week.
But why he felt the need to emphasize the idea that the Democrats wouldn’t aggressively target Trumpian corruption—and indeed, why he used the petty-sounding word “retribution” instead of the more credible “accountability”—on the same morning when every Democrat and liberal in America was dancing on cloud nine was, let us say, a misjudgment. It sounded like something that either a) some consultant told him to say or b) some kind of assurance to particular big donors that he wasn’t going to let the crazy lefties have the run of the place.
Obviously, the Democrats mostly won because people are furious about the economy and the cost of things, so, obviously, trying to do something about all that is job one. It’s not clear to me how much they can really do here, and I fear they may have over-promised on that front, which will be the subject of a future column. But they can try to raise the minimum wage and restore the Obamacare subsidies and reverse the tariffs and do a few other things that can, over time, bring prices down or wages up (whether those things can get through the Senate, even one in which Democrats hold 55 or 56 seats, is another question entirely, and that, too, is a topic I’ll address soon).
But anyone who thinks they didn’t win partly because of Trump’s corruption is smoking something or in deep denial. Americans see how Trump has enriched himself. They see what he did to the White House and the Reflecting Pool. They see what ICE is doing to people. They see how other Cabinet officials have shown shocking contempt for the law and democracy. They know the full Epstein files haven’t been released. And in the campaign I watched, nearly every Democratic candidate for Senate or House spoke of these matters and the need to hold Trump and his people accountable. If the Democrats don’t follow through on that, they’ll look weak and dishonest.
As with anything, there are smart ways to go about it and dumb ways. Basically: It can’t look like revenge. It needs to look like accountability. What’s the difference? Simple: In each case, Democrats need to make a case for why this or that investigation serves the public interest and will halt future such abuses. They should refrain from taunting—it probably wasn’t smart for Representative Robert Garcia, who’ll be chairing the crucial House Oversight Committee—to issue that statement saying “lawyer up.” But they should be aggressive to the hilt in defending democracy and transparency and attacking the abuses of power that have been so rife these last two years.
And here is an inescapable truth: Affordability and accountability are in some cases the same thing. They can be linked. Take the Iran war. Yes, Democrats should vote to defund it. But they should also hold hearings into how the decision to start this war was made. The war has led directly to higher prices. So, in holding such hearings, they’d be probing not only possible abuses of executive power, but whether anyone in the administration warned about the consequences of an invasion for gasoline and fertilizer prices. In that case and others, affordability and accountability are joined at the hip. They’re not two different things.
Why and how and when did the Democrats fall into this habit of thinking they have to settle on one thing and one thing only? It’s mostly an ideological fight that dates to the late 1980s and early ’90s. Centrists constantly fear that Democrats are going to do something that will offend swing voters. Progressives fear Democrats looking too timid and alienating the base.
But there’s a psychological element to it as well. In the same way that Democrats have been afraid to use the word “liberal” for about a half a century now, they also fret that on some very basic level, middle America doesn’t trust them. This is the result of many years of very successful right-wing propaganda about liberals, and Democrats, being a bunch of arugula-munching, Volvo-driving coastal elitists.
Sure, there are ways in which that’s true. But for God’s sakes: Voters in this election emphatically rejected that cliché. Democrats won exurban and rural districts they haven’t won in 50 years. They won strongly Republican seats in Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and many other places. They elected union members and farmers. They’re going to have a massive and truly national majority.
And it wasn’t all about affordability. Remember that Fox News poll that hit in late October showing that corruption, not gas prices, was the top issue on voters’ minds. A Harris poll found that “nearly nine out of 10 Americans said that government corruption, as defined as elected officials putting their own or their donors’ financial interests ahead of the public’s, is a problem.” A New York Times analysis found that voters, who typically believe that corruption is a problem endemic to both political parties, have come to associate it with Trump and the GOP.
So, voters are expecting action on both fronts. If there is one lesson of this election for Democrats, it’s that they have to stop hewing to this asinine view that they can only do one thing. Enough with the caution. Follow your convictions. Do two, three, four, five things at once. Follow the lead of Senator Rafael Warnock, who told CNN’s Erin Burnett this week, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time… this is the most corrupt administration in American history, and it is literally costing the American people.” We know that some Democrats—Garcia, Jamie Raskin, Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse—are up to the task. But as a group?
We’ll have to see. People often speak of the risk of overreach after such an overwhelming election result. Point taken. But with Democrats, I fear the risks of underreach far more.
