Josh Marshall - Democrats are Surrounded by Low Hanging Fruit: Get To It

January 22, 2025 3:13 p.m.

Yesterday my colleague Kate Riga noted a trap Senate Democrats keep falling into: in an effort to court Republican defectors they temper their criticism of the various Trump nominees. But since there are and will be no defectors they lose on both sides of the equation, gaining no defectors and making their critiques tepid and forgettable. This is unquestionably true. But we can go a step further still. Far from courting potential defectors, they should be attacking them.

Potential defectors are almost always those from marginal states, and some are senators from marginal states who face voters at the next election. 2026 doesn’t have a lot of great prospects. But there are some. So Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, possibly Joni Ernst and new Florida senator Ashley Moody. The criticisms of the bad nominees should be as intense as possible and all focused on the support of these senators. No one does you a favor in these settings for being nice: senators defect when they think they may pay a price at the ballot box. That is the only way to have messaging that takes the initiative and stays on the attack. If things get too hot and the senator pulls their support, great. If not, that just lays the groundwork for beating that senator in the next election. Those two possibilities are the only outcomes of any consequence and the same game plan advances both goals. It’s simple. When they’re upset or hiding you’ll know you’re doing it right. One more point: no one cares about press releases. Getting on camera or activity on social media matter.

Next up, which Democrat is going to go the well of the House and start telling the stories of the various Capitol Police officers who were hit over the head with flag poles, tasered, crushed in door jams and more, and then list the name of their assailants who Trump has now pardoned? Go to the floor, list off the tales of gore and blood and broken lives and then challenge House Republicans to defend themselves and then listen to the silence. It’s just sitting right there. The most obvious thing in the world. It will get pick up. It will get clipped on social media. Most importantly it will expand the number of days Republicans get asked to defend Trump’s releasing violent extremists and hardened domestic terrorists from prison. And don’t forget the numerous suicides of those who were haunted by the trauma of what Republicans supported. And don’t forget the healthy 42 year old who dropped dead of a brain aneurysm hours after his pitched battles with pro-Trump extremists. Everyone responsible has now been pardoned.

You can see the reps and senators struggling now. They’re running to a meeting. They haven’t had a chance to look up who got pardoned. They heard that Joe Biden pardoned someone too. They have no answer because it’s terribly unpopular. They’re muscling through waiting for the questions to stop. Any member of the House has it totally in their power to write up some remarks, go to the well of the House and extend the number of days those questions keep getting asked. It’s just sitting right there.

/snip