In 2016, many political pundits, politicians, professional pollsters, and even everyday Americans predicted that Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump. Trump’s victory shocked the nation, especially the left, but what has been the effect of Trump’s victory and his presidency on the left and the Democratic Party?
Trump’s History with the Democratic Party
As discussed in the chapter “A Divided Republican Party,” since the 1980s Trump has been at times a registered Democrat. In addition to having spent a number of years as a Democrat, Trump has donated a significant amount of money to Democrats.1 When asked about his donations to Democrats, Trump has stated: “So, what am I going to do, contribute to Republicans? . . . I mean, one thing I’m not stupid. Am I going to contribute to a Republican for my whole life when . . . the most they can get is one percent of the vote?” Democrats whose campaigns Trump has donated to include Chuck Schumer up until 2010 and John Kerry. In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Trump stated: “I mean, I’ve contributed to Schumer, I contribute—I’ve known Schumer for many, many years. And I have a good relationship with him. The fact is, that I think it is time maybe that we all do get along.” Trump also defended his donations to New York Democrats, stating that in New York “everyone is Democratic” and for him to have donated his money to Republican candidates would have been a waste of money. Aside from New York Democrats, Trump has donated to other Democratic candidates, including a number who are now 2020 contenders, including Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Joe Biden.2
Trump was also relatively close to the Clintons in the 1990s and early 2000s. In his 1997 book Trump: The Art of the Comeback Trump features a picture of himself, Donald Jr., and Eric Trump with Hillary Clinton, accompanied by the following quote: “Hillary Clinton, Donny Jr., Eric, and me. The First Lady is a wonderful woman who has handled pressure incredibly well.” Both Trump and his son Donald Jr. donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns in 2002, 2005, 2006, and 2007. Trump has also donated at least $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. However, his relationship to the Clintons expanded outside of just political donations. During his 2005 wedding to Melania at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Hillary sat in the front pew, with both her and Bill attending the reception. In 2008, Trump even blogged: “I know Hillary and I think she’d make a great president or vice-president.”3 And following her loss of the Democratic nomination to Obama, Trump stated: “I think she’s going to go down, at a minimum, as a great senator. I think she is a great wife to a president, and I think Bill Clinton was a great president.”4 Trump has later claimed he was only nice to the Clintons because they were “bigwigs” and he was a businessman.
From Defeat in 2016 to the 2018 Midterms
In the days and even months that followed the November 2016 election, headlines about the Democratic Party contained words like disarray; defeated; leaderless; abandoned; lost; finished; division; and collapse. The presidency wasn’t the only loss the Democrats faced after 2016. At the start of Obama’s presidency, the country had twenty-nine Democratic governors and controlled 59% of state legislatures. By 2017, the number of Democratic governors dropped to sixteen, the lowest number since 1920, and controlled only 31% of state legislatures, the lowest since before 2000.
Since then the Democratic Party has undergone a number of changes. One is the structure of the party. As described by Democratic pollster Geoff Garin: “In 2015, the Republicans were not the party of Trump, and now they are wholly that. In 2015, the Democrats were more of a top-down party. The party of 2019–2020 is much more driven at the grass-roots level.”5
A major turning point for the Democratic Party was the 2018 midterm elections. While for his presidency Trump enjoyed a Republican-dominated Congress, following the midterm elections Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives. However, some have argued that the Democratic Party has become defined by their opposition to Donald Trump. In a 2019 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Andrew Malcolm wrote: “What was not expected was how dramatically the leader of the Republican Party would change the Democratic Party. In many ways, it has forsaken traditional liberal tenets to become not so much a party in opposition to the country’s other major party. It is now the party of opposition to one man, Donald Trump . . . Deep party fissures between the . . . establishment and youthful progressives will likely grow more apparent during fractious primaries.”6 And just as we have seen a new Republican Party under Trump, there has also been a change in the Democratic Party between establishment Democrats and some of the new members of Congress who have been deemed progressive Democrats. As described on the FiveThirtyEight website by ABC News, there are now six wings in the Democratic Party: the Super Progressives; the Very Progressives; the Progressive New Guard; the Progressive Old Guard; the Moderates; and the Conservative Democrats.7 Overall the Democratic Party has changed rather dramatically in recent decades. During the Bill Clinton administration of the 1990s, only 25% of Democrats identified themselves as liberal, with 25% identifying as conservative and 48% identifying as moderates. As for the Democratic Party in 2018, 51% now identify as liberal, with 13% identifying as conservative and only 34% identifying as moderates.8
Conflicted Over How to Deal with Trump
While the left and the Democrats are in agreement on wanting to end Trump’s presidency, debate remains on how this should be achieved. As there are those focused on defeating Trump in 2020, there are also calls to have him impeached or indicted. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated that she wants the Democratic Party to focus on the 2020 elections, as opposed to impeaching Trump: “I’m not for impeachment. This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country.”9 Pelosi went on to state that although she doesn’t believe Trump is “fit to be president” she also doesn’t believe he is “worth it” to look into impeachment. This has come in sharp contrast to other Democrats, like Representative Rashida Tlaib, who has promised “we’re going to impeach the motherf*****.” Tlaib, following Pelosi’s remarks, stated: “I’m going to move forward, obviously. It’s important that there is a transparent process. No one, not even the President, should be above the law.”10 Representative Al Green has also stated that he plans to push for another vote on impeachment in the House.
And it’s not only Democratic politicians who are conflicted over how to deal with Trump, members of the Democratic Party are divided as well. Those who wish to impeach Trump argue that there is more than enough reason and evidence to have the president impeached. According to the Need to Impeach website, Trump has committed a number of impeachable offenses, including: obstructing justice; violating the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution; conspiring with others to commit crimes against the U.S. and attempting to conceal those violations; advocating violence and undermining equal protection under the law; abusing the pardon power; engaging in conduct that grossly endangers the peace and security of the U.S.; directing law enforcement to investigate political adversaries for improper and unjustifiable purpose; undermining the freedom of the press; and cruelly and unconstitutionally imprisoning children and their families.11 And in fact the 2019 release of the Mueller investigation report has furthered Democratic views on impeachment. According to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, seven out of ten Democrats believe Congress should start impeachment hearings for Donald Trump. However, of the entire U.S. population, including Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, only 39% believe that impeachment is the proper course of action.12
Controversy on the Left
While the Republican Party, and Trump in particular, faces constant controversies and accusations of racism, the Democratic Party has not been free of its own controversies and allegations. This includes a number of Democratic politicians in the state of Virginia, including Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark R. Herring. In 2018, a copy of Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook surfaced, featuring a page with a picture of one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe. Numerous Democrats ended up calling for Northam to resign, including a number of 2020 Democratic presidential nominee contenders. Following the controversy surrounding Northam, Herring, who plans to run for governor in 2021, admitted that he had also worn blackface in college. This was followed by Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax facing allegations of sexual assault.13 Tulsi Gabbard, a representative from Hawaii who is running to be the Democratic Party’s 2020 nominee, has faced criticism for her past support of anti–LGBTQ groups and anti–Muslim Hindu nationalists. Before she was elected in 2012, Gabbard apologized for her past views, but she has come under even more criticism while in Congress. This includes her dubbing herself a “hawk” on terrorism and for meeting with the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard has defended both her position on terrorism, saying we need to respond to the serious threat from jihadism, and for advocating peace with Assad.14 A number of Democrats have also faced accusations of anti–Semitism, including Representative Rashida Tlaib and Representative Ilhan Omar. Tlaib has been criticized for following an anti–Semitic Instagram page that refers to Jews as vermin, claims Israel is responsible for 9/11 and supports the Islamic State.15 Omar has been cited for using anti–Semitic tropes such as accusing Israel of hypnotizing the world and American Jews of having dual loyalty.
2020 Elections
As the Democratic Party is preparing for primary elections ahead of the 2020 elections, Democratic candidates (of which there are twenty-five at the time of writing this) are in a battle not only to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, but they are in a battle against Trump. Trump has begun using his own personalized nicknames for the various Democratic nominees, an obvious attempt to begin undermining and belittling his opponents in the 2020 elections. This includes: “Sleepy Joe Biden” (and “SleepyCreepyJoe”); “Crazy Bernie;” and calling Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas.” It is a similar tactic he deployed against not only Hillary Clinton, whom he still refers to as “Crooked Hillary,” but also against his fellow Republicans in the 2016 nominee race. While Trump has continued to make his attacks against the Democratic nominees a priority, especially in his Twitter storms, many Democratic candidates have had to focus portions of their campaign on opposing Trump. Comments from primary nominees on Trump have included:
Joe Biden: Trump is an “existential threat” to the United States.
Bernie Sanders: “We have a president who is a racist, who is a sexist, who is a homophobe, who is a xenophobe and he is a religious bigot.”
Kamala Harris: “He has engaged in a cover up. He’s obstructed justice. He openly welcomes foreign collusion . . .”
Kirsten Gillibrand: “President Trump is weak. He is a coward.”
With defeating Trump as a focal point for the Democratic Party, the race for a Democratic nominee will focus on not only who is the best candidate for the party, but who is the best candidate to defeat Trump. As for Trump, he continues to mount personal attacks against the various candidates, a tactic that will most likely increase as we get closer to the 2020 elections. Following the second round of Democratic candidate debates, of which he stated he only watched part, Trump tweeted about what he considered to be low ratings for the debate and that he believed it was evident the U.S. public wants to reelect him.