Activist base alters Democrats' agenda

Party leaders hope to harness protests for political support, new candidates

Three weeks into President Donald Trump's term, the Democratic Party and progressive establishment have adopted the demands of a restive, active and aggressive base.

Party officials have expressed hope that the new activism more closely resembles the tea party movement, which embraced electoral politics, than the Occupy Wall Street movement, which did not.

Among the actions being taken: Super PAC Priorities USA, a political action committee formed to re-elect Barack Obama in 2012, is driving activists to congressional town hall-style meetings; veterans of Bill Clinton's administration are joining marches and plotting bigger ones for the spring; and Democratic senators who had befriended Jeff Sessions in the Senate voted -- 47 to 1 -- against his nomination for attorney general.

The pace of the activists, and the Trump administration's rapid-fire policy approach, have given them little time to puzzle it out.

"He has a strategy to do so many things that he overwhelms the opposition," Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said of Trump, "[but] he's creating the largest opposition movement I've seen in my lifetime in the United States."

After previous defeats, the modern Democratic Party typically plunged into discussions between a moderate wing and a liberal wing. George McGovern's 1972 loss led to an internal party battle against the New Left. After Walter Mondale's 1984 defeat, a group of moderate strategists formed the Democratic Leadership Council. After the 2004 defeat of John Kerry, a new generation of like-minded strategists launched Third Way, with a focus on lost moderate voters.

But 2017 hasn't seen that type of reorganization. Democrats, taking cues from their base, have given Trump's key Cabinet nominees the smallest level of support from an opposition party in history. They have joined and sometimes led protests, organizing more than 70 rallies against the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and joining activists at airports to help travelers affected by Trump's executive orders on immigration and refugees. The scale has even impressed some Republicans.

"The march the day after the inauguration probably exceeded any of the tea party marches," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told The Washington Post in an interview for C-SPAN's Newsmakers series. "But like Occupy Wall Street, it's not real focused, as far as what exactly they want."

Moderating forces, increasingly, are being held at arm's length. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has been derided on social media for meeting with Trump. Manchin was the sole Democratic senator who voted to confirm Sessions for attorney general.

Progressive groups protested the very presence of Third Way at the House Democratic retreat in Baltimore. At a briefing with reporters, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., insisted that Third Way was only attending to give a "data analysis" presentation and denied a rumor that progressives had walked out.

"People are definitely seeing the purpose of working through the political process to oppose him ... ," said Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, which was founded by Clinton administration exiles. "It's a primal scream, but the truth is, since Election Day, it has been growing."

Center for American Progress Action, the political arm of Tanden's think tank, is one of several progressive and center-left groups urging activists to attend congressional town hall-style meetings. Elected Democrats, while stopping short of that, have egged on activists in person and on social media.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the youngest member of the party in the Senate, has also led a change of tone in messaging, from defending his colleague Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., from Trump attacks -- "As a prosecutor, Dick used to put guys like u in jail" -- to mocking the president's Cabinet picks.

"We lost. Now we fight," Murphy tweeted after Sessions was confirmed. "Nothing is inevitable. Any anxiety or fear you feel can be cured by political action."

In the race for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, even Thomas Perez, the former secretary of labor viewed skeptically by some supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has said Democrats should hit Trump "between the eyes with a 2-by-4 and treat him like Mitch McConnell treated Barack Obama."

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who is term-limited out of office this year, said the new energy was manifesting in the recruitment of candidates.

"The activism is already being translated into people stepping up to put their name on a ballot," McAuliffe said. "There's a lot of energy. We can't let it dissipate."

A Section on 02/12/2017

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