While US President Donald Trump has predictably been hoovering up the political bandwidth with his volatile policies, Democrats – entirely frozen out of power since the November election – are quietly engaged in a historic internal power struggle.
US parties that lose the White House are typically left without a national leader. And when, like Democrats, they emerge without control of any aspect of government, factions jostle mightily for position. Political power is so concentrated in the White House that there will be no national leader until the presidential nomination, and that person will have to win the election to retain authority. Until then, opposition parties remain effectively leaderless (with rare exceptions, like Mr Trump’s continued control of the Republican Party despite his 2020 defeat).
Given Mr Trump’s assault on many state institutions and the rule of law, how Democrats position themselves in opposition takes on an unusual degree of significance. It involves a project to salvage the constitutional system from a co-ordinated assault. Beyond partisan positioning, it may shape the future of the Republic.
While united in opposition to Mr Trump, Democrats are quietly playing the blame game, with still-dominant centrists facing a potent attack from progressives. The left, led by Senator Bernie Sanders and representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, critique former president Joe Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris – both centrist Democrats – for being insufficiently attentive to class concerns during their time in office. They blame them for being too cautious in attacking an existing system they characterise as an oligarchical kleptocracy dominated by the wealthy and corporations.
These progressive leaders – an elderly white male senator and a young Latina female representative – have organised numerous rallies denouncing Mr Trump. It’s arguably the most sustained pushback he has faced so far. They are thereby advancing their social democratic faction.
Centrists still dominate Democratic leadership in Congress through Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House of Representatives. Along with influential centre-left commentators and politicians such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, they have been effectively trying to warn Democrats not to overplay their hand.
The party’s centre advocates allowing Mr Trump to self-destruct – and point to his controversial policy initiatives such as a tariff-driven trade war and the chaotic state of much of his cabinet, especially at the Pentagon, as evidence. They hope the administration’s ineptitude in a number of crucial areas will dovetail with the pattern of midterm elections favouring the opposition party to return control of the House, and possibly the Senate, to Democrats next year.
Moreover, they warn that one of the reasons for Ms Harris’s defeat to Mr Trump in the November presidential election was a widespread impression that Democrats are more left-wing and “woke” than they are. Centrists typically agree that Democrats need a stronger message on economic issues, but they warn against the alleged unpopularity of progressive social policies that supposedly work against Democrats with many mainstream Americans.
The left scoffs at this. They note that Ms Harris went to tremendous lengths to reassure middle America that Democrats are strong on national defence and immigration, and that the party is cautious about social restructuring through universal health care or national educational equality. It is precisely an aggressive left-wing agenda on quality-of-life issues that, they argue, is key to defeating Mr Trump and Republicans in the midterms and beyond.
The left is furious with Mr Schumer for having compromised with Senate Republicans to avoid a government shutdown in March. Mr Schumer obviously calculated that it was too early to gamble on a shutdown blame game, even though historically presidents are generally held responsible for these periodic crises. But when the issue comes up again next year, he and Mr Jeffries are going to have to wage a much tougher fight with far stronger conditions or face a powerful backlash from many Democratic voters.
It was virtually inevitable that momentum would shift towards the progressive left given the failure of the Biden-Harris centrist policy agenda to fend off Mr Trump and his Republicans last November. The across-the-board defeat suffered by Democrats makes it hard for centrists to defend their more conciliatory and cautious approach, and Mr Trump’s highly aggressive and radical policies further strengthen the left as Americans increasingly welcome an organised pushback. This isn't the only vector of internal democratic struggle, but it's the deepest and most consequential one.
The biggest battle will be over the presidential nomination following the midterm elections. Already a number of governors – particularly Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a billionaire who is an outspoken critic of Mr Trump, Michigan Governor Gretchen Witmer, who faced a plot to kidnap and kill her by right-wing militia groups, and Mr Newsom, a centrist leader harshly critical of the progressive left – have emerged as probable candidates.
The progressive left has no obvious leading candidate, especially since it appears Mr Sanders is too old and politically passe while Ms Ocasio-Cortez is too young and politically junior to be plausible effective presidential nominees. But if the momentum continues to shift towards the left and the centre cannot win the ideological battle that will be defined by the midterms, some leading candidates may be drawn into a more potent progressive gravitational pull.
Democrats are keenly aware that while they lost power across the board last November, and Mr Trump claims a landslide win and a strong mandate, in fact the presidential election proved to be much closer than it first appeared. Mr Trump, in fact, scored one of the narrowest victories in modern US electoral history, and while he did win most of the popular vote – unusual even for victorious Republican presidential candidates in recent election cycles – his winning margin was only 1.5 per cent and just over a million votes more than Ms Harris. In other words, the election was extremely close.
Democrats, therefore, conclude that a very small shift in a few places would have delivered a different outcome last November, and not just concerning the White House. Control of the Senate is the most challenging goal for Democrats in the coming years, although they may console themselves that Mr Trump is working hard to make their case for them.
Democrats agree they need a more appealing platform than they had in 2024, and that they cannot run simply as “not-Republicans”. The battle is over what kind of better future they offer Americans.
So, while Mr Trump dominates headlines in coming months and even years, it’s worth paying attention to what’s happening among Democrats. They are likely to return to a share, and even dominance, of American power sooner rather than later.
