This past weekend, Democratic leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., to elect new leadership for the Democratic National Committee. With the new Trump administration already trampling on the rights of U.S. citizens, purging watchdogs, destroying alliances, rolling back the U.S. government’s commitment to equality and much, much more, the stakes couldn’t be higher. And after the party lost the White House and the Senate and failed to retake the House, surely change was in the air? No. The DNC’s members elevated the committee’s vice chair to chair and kept much of the senior leadership intact.
As Trump is upending every democratic norm in existence, the Democratic Party is doubling down on status quo and seniority — to the detriment of both the party and the country.
The insistence on continuity is baffling given that the party’s reputation is in tatters.
In the Senate, Democratic leadership hasn’t changed in almost a decade. That leadership’s response to the first two weeks of the Trump administration has been sclerotic at best: We had Minority Whip Dick Durbin issue a joint memo with Republican Chuck Grassley that no one will read, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer talking about how people are “aroused” by the administration’s funding freeze (leading to this funny rebuke from Seth Meyers) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the third-ranking Democrat, bragging about her Inauguration Day limo ride with Trump. The New York Times reported that in a phone call last week, Democratic governors ranging from Minnesota’s Tim Walz to Kansas’ Laura Kelly to Kentucky’s Andy Beshear begged Schumer and Senate Democrats to push back more forcefully against the new administration.
In the House, things are slightly better: The top three Democratic leadership positions changed hands at the start of the last Congress (and unlike their Senate counterparts, House Democrats did gain seats this cycle). But in December, House Democrats, partly at the urging of the 84-year-old former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, voted against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s bid to be the top Democrat on the crucial Oversight Committee. The Democratic caucus cast her aside in favor of Rep. Gerry Connolly, a 74-year-old who had just been diagnosed with cancer.
The insistence on continuity is baffling given that the party’s reputation is in tatters. A recent New York Times/Ipsos poll found many see the Democratic Party’s priorities as out of touch with their own. In a Quinnipiac University poll last month, 57% of respondents had unfavorable views of the Democratic Party — the worst since Quinnipiac began asking this question in 2008. In addition, young voters moved sharply right in the last four years. Persisting in gerontocracy won’t win back voters who have almost 50 years before retirement.
This isn’t to say there aren’t some signs of hope amid what has been a generally dismal response to the second Trump presidency. Though new DNC chair Ken Martin has been part of the committee for eight years already, he is considering a return to Howard Dean’s “50 State strategy” from the mid-2000s. That’s not a new approach, but it is a break with the status quo. The committee also did have new talents elected as vice chairs, including Malcolm Kenyatta, Artie Blanco and David Hogg. But the contrast to 2017 couldn’t be starker. Then, we saw thousands march against Trump in Washington. Now we see Sen. John Fetterman march to Mar-a-Lago to express support for Trump’s nominees. Too many Democrats expressed openness to working with Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And even as lawmakers have begun to express more outrage at the administration’s latest moves, they’ve largely avoided stalling his nominees — or announced “emergency” meetings to take place a day later. Critics of Democrats previous approach will claim the Resistance didn’t work. They couldn’t be more wrong: It led to Dems’ winning the House in 2018 and retaking the Senate and the White House the election after that. As for their 2024 struggles, Democrats should learn to elevate new voices who connect to more voters, especially younger Americans plugged into the new media. Instead, they are staying with what they know, while the country as we know it is collapsing around us.
Chai Komanduri
Chai Komanduri is a political strategist who has worked on the presidential campaigns of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, numerous state and local races across the country, and the last four Democratic conventions. He frequently provides political commentary on MSNBC with his regular“Chai Day” segments on “The Beat with Ari Melber.” 
