After being shocked by President Donald Trump’s flurry of activity to slash and burn the federal government, progressive activists have a new strategy for fighting back: protesting congressional Democrats.
And they’re asking Democrats to follow an unlikely role model − longtime Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
While their target might seem misplaced, the logic is straightforward: the party liberals vote for is the one most likely to respond to their pressure. Many on the left are angry. Their elected representatives have not organized an effective resistance to Trump’s mass firings of questionable legality, unilaterally shuttering agencies, and appointing officials with little relevant experience. Democrats, they say, should emulate McConnell and the GOP’s effective obstructionism.
At rallies last month in Brooklyn, New York, grassroots activists focused on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., demanding they do more to slow down or stop Trump‘s decimation of the federal workforce and foreign aid programs.
These protests might be considered a warning to Democrats from their base: fight harder, or risk a primary challenge from the left next year.
“They’re more inclined to listen to their donors or their consultants than their constituent,” said Jodi Jacobson, a reproductive rights activist. She has mobilized her some 64,000 on Bluesky, the social media platform which became a haven for Elon Musk opponents, to send her Democratic primary targets. “I already started a list,” she said of the congressional elections next year.
“I’m extremely frustrated by the Democratic leadership,” said James Bruffee, a public school teacher who attended the rally outside Schumer’s home. “They’re doing almost nothing, saying almost nothing.”
Bruffee is a member of Indivisible BK, the local chapter of a grassroots group formed in 2017 to oppose Trump’s first-term agenda. Indivisible BK co-organized the anti-Schumer rally with the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA. It’s a party that has successfully backed left-wing primary challengers, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’2018 upset defeat of then-House Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley.
Those groups want Democrats to deploy obscure stalling tactics in the Senate, such as taking attendance to force enough a majority of senators to be on the floor and going through slow procedural votes. They also are urging the party to take big swings in Congress, including threatening to shut down the government if Republicans don’t agree to rein in Trump.
“If you’re in the minority, you got to use the tools of the minority,” said Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible.
For inspiration, Levin points to McConnell, who resisted Democratic presidents with unwavering opposition. During former President Barack Obama’s first term, Senate Republicans rarely worked with Democrats and they invoked the filibuster’s super-majority requirement more than had ever been done before, denying him bipartisan achievements and making Democrats look less effective. That approach helped to drive a red wave in the 2010 mid-term elections.
“That guy is a vicious, brilliant tactician, and knew exactly what tools were available to him, even though he was in a much smaller minority than what the Democrats hold today,” Levin, who was a congressional staffer at the time, said. “I would ask Senate Democrats to imagine that they are Mitch McConnell in the minority, and then do what he would do.”
Schumer maintains the key to blocking Trump’s proposals lies in the House of Representatives, with the GOP’s very narrow 217-215 margin. The goal is to convince swing-district Republicans to oppose them. He made that argument on a recent call with thousands of Indivisible members.
“I appreciate the energy that is spreading” across “the country as the true reality of Trump’s awful, radical agenda is felt by average Americans,” the senator said in an emailed statement.
Jeffries’ offices did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
To some, Democrats seem indecisive in how they respond to Trump’s dominance.
“I’m trying to figure out what leverage we actually have,” Jeffries said at a press briefing in February. “Republicans have repeatedly lectured America — they control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s their government.”
At Trump’s joint address to Congress last week, Democrat’s tried to show that it was more than just their – the Republicans’ – government. But the strategy was far from unified Some Democrats skipped the speech, some held signs with messages like “Save Medicaid” or ”This is Not Normal,” some wore pink, and some heckled. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was ejected for standing and shouting that Trump has no mandate, for which 10 Democrats voted with Republicans to censure him.
“They’re flailing right now,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Fox News on Thursday. “So that’s why they resort to these antics…. They want to fight all of us. And so they debase themselves by showing up on the House floor and acting like children. It’s sad.”
The obscure Senate tactics frequently mentioned by activists on the left are steeped in Congressional procedure: denying unanimous consent, and deploying quorum calls.
The Senate officially requires at least 51 of its 100 members − known as a “quorum” − to be present to conduct business, Senate Democrats could constantly call for quorums, and even walk out, to temporarily stop anything from passing.
The routine business of the Senate often involves technically skipping procedural steps. If a Democratic senator objects to this so-called “unanimous consent request,” the Republicans would have to take time-consuming roll-call votes, debates and motions. Activists say Democrats should do this to run out the clock on how much legislation Republicans pass before the midterm election could end their control of Congress.
“There are any number of things senators could use to muck up the process,” Jacobson, the executive director of Healthcare Across Borders, said.
Jacobson thinks all nominees who hold fringe views, lack managerial or subject matter experience or are accused of sexual assault should be subject to a “hold” placed by a Democratic denying unanimous consent and slowing the confirmation process, even if it means working over the weekend.
“Force (Republicans) to go through pain for nominating someone who is not qualified,” Jacobson said.
Some progressives took a break from activism while mourning Trump’s victory. Protests around Trump’s second inauguration were much smaller than those accompanying his first in 2017.
But once Trump took office, he took unprecedented and aggressive steps to remake the federal government, including firing thousands of employees, punishing law enforcement officials for having worked on investigations of his own alleged crimes, and eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development.
And unified Democratic opposition was unable to block confirmation of Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees, such as Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville recently said his party is “overwhelmed” by the flood of Trump’s aggressive actions.
Some in the party’s base think all-out resistance is the right response, and they’re wondering why Democrats in Congress don’t seem to be on the same page.
Columnists for outlets like the Guardian and the Atlantic lament that Democrats are “spineless” or “acting too normal.” In a Feb. 19 Quinnipiac poll, just 21% of voters approved of congressional Democrats’ performance − an all-time low − including only 40% of Democratic voters.
For instance, activists say Democrats didn’t have to allow Cabinet nominees they view as dangerously unprepared a drama-free confirmation vote just because they are in the minority.
“Democrats don’t use the tools they do have to fight against those nominees and make clear they are not qualified,” Jacobson said.
To protest the confirmation of Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, an author of the right-wing Project 2025 policy playbook, Senate Democrats delayed the vote for 30 hours by speaking the entire time about their opposition to Trump and Vought’s plans. A 2013 rule change exempted confirmation votes from the filibuster and its 60-vote threshold, however, so Vought was confirmed on a 53-47, party-line vote.
For other widely opposed Cabinet nominees, Democrats simply cast their losing votes against them. In response to the USAID shutdown, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, placed a blanket hold on State Department nominees, but that will only delay their confirmation.
“The procedures in the Senate depend on the votes that you have,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told the Chicago Tribune. “If you need 60 votes, we’re in (a) pretty strong position. If you need a simple majority, we’ve lost a few of those votes.
Liberals see an opportunity in the continuing resolution that must pass by March 14 to keep the government running. Republicans want to fund the government at current levels until September while they hash out a budget for next year that would dramatically cut taxes and possibly spending. In the House, the risk of right-wing defections from a government-funding bill means Democratic votes might be needed, and in the Senate the filibuster is still an option for legislation.
“I think we have to consider drastic measures, they should consider refusing to pass the budget,” Jean Berman, a retired lawyer who participated in the Feb. 20 rally outside Jeffries’ Brooklyn district office, said.
“Shut the government down,” said Berman, who recently co-founded Grandparents Fight Back, a network of older people who want to combat the Trump administration. “It gives the Democrats some leverage. They should some make demands: restore funding to USAID, remove RFK, Jr. from HHS.”
While no Democrat in Congress has publicly made all those demands, some have said they will only vote to fund the government if the bill includes some provision to make sure Trump actually spends the money required by law − as he is currently refusing to do with foreign aid.
Congressional Republicans say they are not willing to agree to any restrictions on the Trump administration. Instead, they are going in the opposite direction: a measure announced Saturday would give the president more power to direct spending. But Republican leaders have not yet secured enough votes to ensure its passage.
While Democrats contend that Trump is violating the Constitution’s separation of powers by stopping congressionally mandated spending, Johnson said last week that it would violate the same principle to limit the president’s ability to fire staff.
“Democrats are placing completely unreasonable conditions on negotiations,” Johnson told reporters. “They want us to limit the scope of executive authority. They want us to tie the hands of the president. They want to stipulate, for example, how many specific numbers of employees would be required by executive agencies. That’s just totally unprecedented. It’s inappropriate. I think it’s unconstitutional.”
The Trump administration contends that he is just doing what he was elected to do.
“77 million voters elected President Trump to eliminate wasteful spending, make federal agencies more efficient, and appoint outsiders to his Cabinet – and the overwhelming majority of Americans believe he is following through on his promises,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in an emailed statement. “He will continue to act on the American people’s mandate to effectively steward taxpayer dollars and improve the lives of families across the country.”
In a way, Kelly is saying something even Democrats would agree with: elections have consequences.
When asked on Stephen A. Smith’s podcast “what’s the plan” for Democrats, Jeffries said it is to flip control of Congress next year.
“We’re going to win in the midterms, and we have no choice but to be successful in the midterms,” Jeffries said. “But we’ve got to get through the first 100 days, then the first year, and then, of course, get to the midterm elections.”
Contributing: Sarah D. Wire and Riley Beggin
