It’s Time for Outgoing Democrats to Play Hardball
15th November 2024
The Bulwark, a Voice of the Crust.
IN THIS CRUCIAL PERIOD between the election and the inauguration, opponents of the president-elect need to use every feasible lever of power to defeat Trump’s movement, lest the country fail.
In this, they would be correcting a past mistake. The original response to Donald Trump’s rise was based on a strategic error. His critics and opponents thought he was an aberration, not a phenomenon—a recipe for quietism.
In the context of culture, we had Michelle Obama’s initial response: “When they go low, we go high.” The comforting conceit was that if Trump’s opponents continued to hold the moral high ground, Americans would eventually tire of the man’s shenanigans and return to their better natures. If you get down in the mud with a pig, the saying goes, you only get dirty.