Brian Beutler: Democrats Approach Their Enabling Moment

[Dennis Donovan]

Brian Beutler - Democrats Approach Their Enabling Moment

If Democrats provide the decisive votes to fund this government, it will reverberate through history for all time.

Brian Beutler
Feb 10, 2025



The shortest summary of the now-unfolding plot against America is that the right lost decades-long ideological battles over the proper size of government, and who gets to wield power in the United States—then, instead of moving on to other areas of political disagreement, decided to impose its will criminally, and in exceptionally corrupt fashion.

With Donald Trump’s blessing, or perhaps through his neglect, Elon Musk has dragged the country into its worst legitimation crisis in decades—maybe ever—and impels Democrats to shift into a different gear of opposition.

That starts at the top. At a recent, private meeting, Hakeem Jeffries reportedly told Silicon Valley donors that Democrats plan “to retake the House in 2026 [by] reaching toward the center, while Trump will swing harder right.”

I take essentially no position on what policies Democrats should run on at this moment. My point isn’t to discourage Democrats from seizing the center, to whatever extent they can, or to encourage Jeffries to pull the party in a particular ideological direction. It is only to say that this is not a plan that matches the circumstances. It can be an addendum to such a plan. But if Democrats respond to the subversion of the Constitution with normal “median voter theory”-style politics they may well wake up in the autumn of 2026 to find that the federal government no longer tolerates fair elections.

Whatever policy gestures they make, Jeffries and his Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer need—as a top priority—to be procedurally aggressive. Not even that aggressive! But enough to insist that their role in the constitutional system be upheld.

/snip