Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, express their alarm to reporters about actions by President Donald Trump. (Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Democrats have spent nearly a decade in fight mode against President Trump.
And some in the party worry that they may remain trapped there.
An autopsy released by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Thursday underscored the point, saying that Democrats relied too heavily on negative partisanship and became too dependent on attacks on Trump in their messaging to voters.
The report also stated that “anti-Trump sentiment” has its limitations in terms of achieving electoral success.
As they were hammering Trump in their anger, Democrats did not provide a vision to lure voters to their side or an argument for what they would do with power.
This week at the 2026 IDEAS Conference hosted by the Center for American Progress, anger was also displayed by a series of Democratic speakers, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is a front-runner in the 2028 presidential race.
He and others spoke mostly about fighting the president and his party, a message that Democrats caution will fire up the base but may not be enough to win over independents, and thus, elections.
“Trump is the best base mobilizer for Democrats right now. But I think there is a broad understanding that the clock is ticking on how much longer Democrats can rely on polarization because of Trump to galvanize our voters,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne, highlighting the problem.
In a Substack post this week titled “Can D’s control their fury,” Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine also wondered whether those in his party could move past the anger in the past few election cycles.
After attending the IDEAS Conference this week, Turrentine said he was “stunned by how consumed speakers and moderators were by raw fury against Donald Trump’s administration.”
“Time and again, they looked and sounded angry, no matter the topic, talked incessantly about losing our democracy and the country being genuinely destroyed,” Turrentine wrote in the post.
“The danger I worry about for my party leadership is that post-Virginia Supreme Court, and post-Voting Rights Act, inside the Beltway and on BlueSky, we are becoming blinded again by our fury,” he added. (Read more: The Hill, 5/23/2026) (Archive)