The Democrats’ response to Trump is splintered — but getting better

After failing to consolidate around a single message of resistance to President Donald Trump over the past six weeks, it seems like the Democratic Party finally has an idea of what to say — but they’re still struggling to figure out how to communicate that message to the American people.

The argument Democrats made in response to Trump’s first joint address to Congress is still slightly cloudy. But one version goes something like this: Trump can’t be trusted with the economy, he’s steering the country into dangerous territory, and he’s not focused on the kitchen-table issues the American people care about.

Even before Trump’s address Tuesday night, congressional Democrats were torn about how to get their message across. Should they even attend the speech? Would their time be better spent talking to constituents and using alternative media to respond? And if they did show up, should they protest, disrupt, or heckle the president, or sit and listen?

An early answer to that last question came within the first five minutes of Trump’s address. Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green stood up and heckled the president, shouting that Trump has “no mandate to cut Medicaid.” He was drowned out by Republicans and eventually expelled from the chamber.

Other House Democrats wielded hand-held signs with phrases like “Save Medicaid,” “Protect veterans,” and “Musk steals.” Yet they were roundly mocked online by both Republicans and liberals wishing for more aggressive resistance to the president.

As the speech continued, Democrats began to walk out. Some wore shirts emblazoned with other protest slogans, like Florida Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost’s, which read “No Kings Live Here.” And no Democrats clapped or stood for Trump during his two-hour speech.

And yet this all seemed to empower Trump, rather than boost the Democrats’ own standing with audiences. One CNN flash poll after the address found a majority of viewers viewed the address as “very” or “somewhat” positive — including 44 percent who had a “very” positive reaction.

Even after the speech, the Democrats’ response was still a bit messy. The official rebuttal was delivered by Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a moderate former intelligence official who outran former Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan and won her Senate seat even as Trump won the state.

“Prices are still too high,” she said, and “Americans want change” but in a “responsible, not reckless” way. She zeroed in on everyday concerns: national security weakened by Trump’s foreign policy, personal data and privacy put at risk by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency purges of the federal government, and the harmful impact of Trump’s economic policy on Americans’ lives.

“Do [Trump’s] plans actually help Americans get ahead? Not even close,” she said. “President Trump is trying to deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends…and to do that, he’s going to make you pay in every part of your life. Grocery and home prices are going up, not down. … His tariffs on allies like Canada will raise prices on energy, lumber, and cars. … Premiums and prescriptions will cost more. … And one more thing: In order to pay for his plan, he could very well come after your retirement.”

Meanwhile, on Instagram Live and BlueSky, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) talked up the threat that Trump’s proposed tax cuts pose to Medicaid and Medicare. The president’s promise to cut taxes while also balancing the federal budget meant that Republicans would “have to gut Medicaid,” she said.

Other House members talked about Trump’s new tariffs against Canada, China, and Mexico, or focused their reactions on his proposed tax cuts as gifts to “his billionaire friends.” Sen. Bernie Sanders laid into Trump’s “parallel reality” of focusing on issues “nowhere near the concerns of the American people.”

From a distance, these all look like versions of the same argument. But they point in different directions.

Slotkin’s conclusion was for Democrats, and disaffected Trump voters, to keep patient and hold their representatives accountable. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez seemed to call for more confrontation — pressuring Republicans, not believing anything they have to say, and saturating media with negative news. And a swath of rank-and-file members just seem to be along for the ride.

With a lack of purpose and unity from messengers, it isn’t clear that their larger point about Trump will break through just yet.

And that’s partially because Democrats are splintered across the media. They didn’t uniformly boycott the address and force attention to another platform, and they’re still relying on conventional modes of communicating with the public.

Big presidential speeches tend to draw the immediate attention of highly engaged Americans who tune in. Everyone else will be exposed to it, and the Democrats’ reactions, in shorter clips online, via commentary on podcasts and livestreams, and through news reports in the aftermath.

On that front, Democrats still have a long way to go to break through and get across a concise and straightforward counter to Trump’s claims.