Over the course of the last two weeks I’ve tried to drive home the point that the Democrats in Congress mostly can’t do anything to stop what the Trump administration is doing. That’s not a matter of weakness or bad strategy. Voters decided in November to put all federal power in the hands of Republicans. That’s done. It already happened. Many of the cries for Democrats to “do something” amount to thinking that if Democrats get energized and forceful enough they can undo the consequences of that election, as though there’s some off lever that if you reach really high you can make all of this stop. You might as well demand Kamala Harris show some gumption and start issuing her own executive orders.
This emphatically does not mean Democrats are doing all they can or that there’s nothing they can do. But it is critical at every level to understand what the menu of actions includes. As much as this might seem pedantic it’s critical to think very clearly about what an opposition does and what its tools are. Otherwise you’re just getting riled up demanding your fighters run at full speed head first into the castle wall.
Fundamentally this is a battle over public opinion. And there are three areas of action to engage that battle.
