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Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill could be doing more to push back against President Donald Trump, warns a historian who studies the rise of autocracy.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University and author of the book “Strongmen,” warns the United States is in a “democratic emergency” that is “getting worse every day.”
Ben-Ghiat says Trump is applying a version of the authoritarian playbook, purging the civil service and politicizing the military to wield more power.
She says the Democratic Party overall seems to be struggling to muster together a unified response to reflect that level of emergency. However, she notes certain Democrats individually are effectively sounding the alarm, pointing to Bronx Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy as examples.
Asked specifically about New Yorkers Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, the top Democrats in the House and Senate respectively, Ben-Ghiat said, “The leadership of the Democratic Party needs to be much more emphatic in coming to the American people, recognizing there’s a crisis, and telling them that they are on their side and they are going to do their best to defend them, to reassure the American people.”
Schumer and Jeffries have repeatedly touted a multi-pronged strategy to rein in the president: blocking legislation, taking him to court and appealing to public opinion.
When pressed by Spectrum News on whether he is doing enough, Jeffries acknowledged “we are in an emergency,” though noted that the Trump White House is losing more court cases than it is winning and has failed to get major legislation through so far on Capitol Hill.
“We have to push back with righteous indignation. But this whole flood the zone strategy is designed to create the appearance of inevitability, the notion that Donald Trump is unstoppable. He ain’t unstoppable,” Jeffries said. “His public approval ratings aren’t going up, they’re going down.”
“This dude is not winning anywhere,” he added.
Jeffries’ fellow New York Democrat, Rep. Ritchie Torres, downplayed concerns about the Democratic response, invoking next year’s midterm elections.
“In Jan. 2027, Hakeem Jeffries will be the Speaker of the House, and no one will remember … the day-to-day commentary of the peanut gallery,” Torres said.
In a statement responding to Ben-Ghiat’s claims, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said, “President Trump is using his executive power to make lawful, long overdue changes to our federal government. Democrats seem to forget that Americans elected President Trump to make these changes, and he is delivering on their mandate to Make America Great Again.”
Historically, Ben-Ghiat says, broad-based, nonviolent mass protests supported by pillars of society, such as religious leaders and business elites, have been effective in pushing back on authoritarianism.
At the same time, Ben-Ghiat argues the authoritarian playbook Trump is currently deploying has an innovative feature: billionaire advisor Elon Musk.
“We have a second person who many people are calling a co-president, who has been given license and taking license to lock elected representatives out of government offices, having [a] kind of digital shock troops taking all of our private data, attending cabinet meetings,” Ben-Ghiat said.
“This is something new, and that’s very, very alarming, and it seems as though people don’t quite know how to respond,” she said.
