Donald Trump's theory of politics can be boiled down to capturing and controlling media attention. Chris Hayes wrote a book, The Sirens Call, entirely on the political value of attention in a fractured and fragmented media environment. Ezra Klein has also opined on the value of political attention and how Democrats are failing to meet the moment. Early ally and political advisor to Trump, Steve Bannon, erected strategic scaffolding around Trump's pre-existing tendencies in an interview with PBS Frontline when he described using "muzzle velocity" to "flood the zone with shit".
More than a decade into Trumpian politics the media and Democrats are still struggling to identify an effective response to Trump's domination of attention. It is very difficult to fact-check statements from Trump when each statement is preceded by a lie, contains a lie, is followed by a lie, and presupposes a lie. It is just as difficult to focus on any one controversy or scandal when some other controversy arises halfway through the news cycle of the first.
One response may be to tie each of Trump's actions together with a common theme, say power and corruption. Keeping this simple framing Democrats would not have to explain a new theory of the case for why any one action taken by the Trump administration is immoral, illegal, or unconstitutional. Simply fold it into the pre-existing theory. Trump hosts a private dinner at his Virginia golf course for the largest investors of his Trump Coin crypto currency? That's corruption!
Instead what you will hear is, "could you imagine if a Democrat did X, Republicans would lose their minds" or "I'm old enough to remember when Republicans were opposed to Y". This is not effective messaging. What these kind of arguments sound like is an airing of grievance about how unfairly one side has been treated compared to another rather than engaging on the actual merits of an action or policy. In a highly polarized environment, particularly one that is negatively polarized, no one cares about hypocrisy or flip-flopping on issues. These arguments also take time away from propagating a narrative of a corrupt and power-seeking President to explain a hypothetical reaction to a hypothetical policy or what the other side's position used to be. Reagan said, "if you're explaining you're losing". This is not literally true; politicians need to explain why they are running for office, what they hope to accomplish, what their values are, and so on; there is a lot of explaining going on in politics. The sentiment behind Regan's quip is true though, maybe even more so now. I think Reagan is repacking a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet for a modern, political context, "brevity is the soul of wit". Voters have busy lives and do not have the time or interest in hearing a 20 minute answer on the value of American soft power in the form of food relief through USAID, they want to hear how America will be respected and loved throughout the world due to our humanitarian programs. In a media environment where more people see the clipped segments shared on TikTok, Instagram, and Bluesky than the originally aired interview or podcast, Democrats cannot be wasting time on "If Obama had" or "Republicans used to" talking points.
No, instead of trying to draw attention to each instance of corruption and executive overreach to create an overarching sense that Donald Trump and the Republican party are corrupt and only interested in power, Democrats have instead resorted to focusing narrowly on issues that are the strength of the party.
Trump floating purchasing Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, and reclaiming the Panama Canal? That's a distraction. A distraction from what exactly is unclear; high grocery prices, other national security concerns, or perhaps an earlier government funding debate.
Masked ICE agents deporting individuals in America to a Salvadoran concentration camp? Also a distraction, kind of. More that immigration is a policy Democrats are weak on so they should refocus on issues that they have firmer footing on; like health care or...
Even the Epstein files were a distraction from the Trump administrations budget bill... until it wasn't the distraction but what Trump was trying to distract from.
There are more than a few issues that Democrats have responded to with an almost reflexive "that's a distraction!" and this too is not effective messaging. First, if the "distraction" is an issue that voters actually do care about Democrats are signaling to those voters that the things that are important to them are silly and trivial. Even if the issue is truly unimportant, this tells voters that Democrats do not care about the issues that matter to them. Good luck getting those folks to listen to Democrats when it comes time to talk about issues not deemed a distraction.
Second, about the only thing Democrats can seem to agree on is that Trump is trying to distract voters. Democrats cannot agree what he is trying to distract from, necessarily, only that he is being distracting (which, fair). This reveals a party without an identity. Democrats are unsure of what issues they should talk about, but they know if Trump wants to talk about an issue then it is a strong issue for him and a weak issue for Democrats so they should avoid talking about it.
Third, the Democratic party is a weak party. It is a weak party because it's leaders cannot determine issue priorities for the party and it is a weak party because it's members cannot effectively communicate to the public. By using the label of distraction as an eject button to get out of any conversation on issues they do not want to talk about Democrats are short-circuiting normal political discourse, and not in a good way. Normally when asked about a difficult issue a politician will either reframe the issue for a more positive perspective or pivot to another issue that is more favorable for them, continuing the dialogue. When politicians say an issue is a distraction it shuts down the conversation entirely.
Democrats are either unable or unwilling to speak clearly, honestly, and with passion about the issues that they care about. Issues have to be polled and message tested before Democrats feel comfortable taking a position on anything. This leaves voters wondering what the Democratic party's position actually is, what individual Democratic politicians actually care about, and whether any of it is genuine.
We are less than a year into Trump's second term and there are more controversies, scandals, and corruption to add to what was listed above. Trump proposed the US take control of Gaza, forcibly relocating Palestinians; Trump joined Israel in bombing Iran; Trump is bombing alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean without Congressional approval; Trump deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Memphis; Trump clawed back Congressionally approved funds; Trump accepted a Boeing 747-8 luxury jetliner from the Qatari government; and Trump launches World Liberty Financial, a crypto coin allowing for direct and anonymous payments to a sitting US President. Even still this is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the illegal, immoral, corrupt, and unconstitutional actions taken by this President, and still Democrats are unable to to identify one single issue to speak authentically on.
An illustration of just how deeply pathological this issue is for Democrats is the government shutdown. Credit should be given to Congressional Democrats for holding the line to shut a lawless government down. However, Democrats refused to support a funding bill over the narrowest of policy positions, making the Affordable Care Act subsidies permanent. By Democrats own reasoning, had Republicans agreed to extend ACA subsidies Democrats would have ostensibly voted to fund a government that just a few months before passed a budget bill that increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding to a levels above that of most other countries military budget when those very same agents are masked on American streets lawlessly disappearing individuals. Further, Democrats would have agreed to funding ACA extensions without any guarantees that Trump and Congressional Republicans would not use the recission process to claw back the funds for those subsidies like they did with foreign aid and Public Broadcasting over the summer.
The reason Democrats picked health policy instead of picking a fight over the conduct of ICE officials or recission? Republicans are more trusted on immigration (R+9) and crime (R+17), budget policies (R+4) and economic (R+3), while Democrats are more trusted on health care policies (D+13).
The posture taken by Democrats on immigration, crime, the economy, and budget policies makes Republican dominance of these issues a self-fulfilling prophecy. Republicans, left to their own devices, are able to create and control the narratives around these issues. By not engaging, Democrats are not forcing Republicans to defend some truly unpopular positions taken by the Trump administration.
It is true that the Biden administration's immigration and border polices were unpopular with Americans who believed that too many immigrants were coming into the country illegally and the conditions on the boarder were chaotic. At the same time American's do not support masked authorities disappearing individuals off American streets without due process. There is a wide policy gulf between these two policy approaches which Democrats could easily position themselves. In fact, this is what Democrats tried to do at the end of Biden's Presidency, but because Democrats rarely talked about boarder security it was seen by voters as a cynical political maneuver.
It was also the case that though the macro-economic indicators at the end of Biden's term looked positive, inflation had hurt personal finances for a lot of people. Further many voters blamed the large spending bills passed by the Biden administration for fueling inflation and driving up federal deficits. The only significant piece of legislation passed so far by the Trump administration has been a budget and tax act which greatly increased spending while cutting taxes for the wealthy which will result in a significant increase in the federal deficit. On top of that, Trump has unilaterally, capriciously, and arbitrarily imposed wide ranging tariffs that have further exacerbated inflation and strained the economy leaving an opening for Democrats to attack Republicans on their management of the federal deficit and the economy.
We can see the unpopularity of Trump's policies in the data. Nate Silver has tracked Trump's net issue approval rating and without strong counter messaging from the Democratic party Trump's policies have increasingly, and universally, become unpopular.
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