Trump's Honeymoon Is Over— So Wretched Blue Dogs, Supported By The DCCC, Move To Prop Up The GOP

With more than a few right-wing Democrats— Blue Dogs and New Dems— it’s sometimes hard to tell which members agree with the Republican proposals they vote for and which ones are just cowards unable or unwilling to defend the Democratic brand and agenda in tough districts. Yesterday Andrew Solendar reported that some of them have asked Hakeem Jeffries “to give them room to vote for GOP messaging bills… Democrats see an opportunity to win back the House majority in 2026, but the swing-district lawmakers who are key to that effort feel they need to be able to break away from their party at times to secure reelection.” Blue Dogs have been whining about this— with no proof at all— since the right-of-center caucus was founded in 1994. Most of the original founders betrayed the Democrats eventually switching parties and becoming Republicans. The current members all stink:

• Jared Gottheimer, co chair (ME)

• Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, co-chair (WA)

  [the third co-chair, Mary Peltola (AK), who voted consistently with the Republicans lost her seat in November]

• Adam Gray (CA)

• Josh Gottheimer (NJ)

• Henry Cuellar (TX), looking for a pardon from Trump for taking bribes

• Vicente Gonzalez (TX)

• Lou Correa (CA)

• Sanford Bishop (GA)

• Mike Thompson (CA)

• Jim Costa (CA)

Adam Gray’s district has a PVI of D+4 and, openly running as a right-wing Blue Dog, he won it by just 187 votes out of 210,921 cast, 50.04% to 49.96%. Biden, running as an actual Democrat, had won the district by 11 points. Gray and the 9 other Blue Dogs made their case to Jeffries yesterday. Yesterday, almost all of the Blue Dogs plus a bunch of New Dems voted for a Republican fracking bill that will make global warming worse— and muddy up a core Democratic message about saving the planet. These are the same careerist scumbags who are voting for genocide, against transgender equality and against immigrants.

Chuck Schumer is from my neighborhood in Brooklyn and he actually started off identifying as a progressive when he was elected to the state legislature. Right off the bat he took the first and only anti-Wall Street bill of his career. He was clearly told to never do it again if he expected to have a career in electoral politics. Andeventually he earned the nickname “the senator from Wall Street.” In a letter to Democrats yesterday, Jonathan Last came to grips with what a turd Schumer is. “Chuck Schumer,” he wrote, “should not be the face of your party. Leading chants is imbecilic. Showing up outside a building is nonsensical. People don’t care about buildings. They care about stories. Further: You are not winning and have no chance to win anything for 21 months. Your message is absurd on its face. Your job as Democrats is to lead the opposition to Trump, which means making Trump unpopular. Right now there are only two engine governors on Trumpism: The courts and his popularity. You can’t influence the courts, but you do have input on public opinion. Stop wasting it.”

First rule of fight club: Pick your opponent. Ultimately you need to drag Trump’s numbers down, but right now he’s riding high. Elon Musk is a softer target.

Musk is a deeply unappealing human. He is inextricably linked to Trump. And his popularity is already moving downhill. Best of all, Musk doesn’t have Trump’s intuitive grasp of demagoguery. Trump knows how to bob and weave. When Musk gets punched in the mouth, all he does is bleed.

Second rule of fight club: Find good ground. USAID does not look like good ground. It’s a massive program. It’s mostly about foreign aid. It’s a process story. Musk thinks it’s a great place to make a stand.

But you can turn it into a trap for Musk if you’re smart. Ignore the process aspects. Don’t talk about moral obligations. Arguments about creating strategic advantages for China aren’t going to get you anywhere.

What you can do is personalize it.

Third rule of fight club: Personalize everything. Are you a Democratic officeholder? Great. Buy a plane ticket to Nairobi.

When you get there go to the Mathare settlement, and talk to people who are going to die because Musk shut off their HIV medication when he closed down USAID. Get out your phone and take video of these conversations. Post them on YouTube, TikTok, Insta…everywhere.

Tell the real stories of actual people who are going to die because of Elon Musk. It won’t be hard to find them. This isn’t an actuarial game where programmatic cuts will, at some future date, result in an increased death rate for nameless, faceless people. You can find the actual human beings who are going to die. You can talk to them. You can share their stories and ask your fellow Americans, “Is this what you voted for?”

When you’re done in Nairobi, hop a flight to South Africa… The Times identified more than 30 frozen studies that had volunteers already in the care of researchers, including trials of:

• malaria treatment in children under age 5 in Mozambique

• treatment for cholera in Bangladesh

• a screen-and-treat method for cervical cancer in Malawi

• tuberculosis treatment for children and teenagers in Peru and South Africa

• nutritional support for children in Ethiopia

• early-childhood-development interventions in Cambodia

• ways to support pregnant and breastfeeding women to reduce malnutrition in Jordan

• an mRNA vaccine technology for HIV in South Africa…

Go find these people. Especially the children. Interview them, on camera. Share their stories with America.

Donald Trump and JD Vance aren’t going to respond by saying, “These Untermenschen deserve to die.”

But you know who just might say that out loud? The ketamine-addled billionaire and his menagerie of 20-year-old incels.

If you’re a Democrat, that’s a contrast you embrace. Keep telling these stories and connecting them to Musk until he defends himself by saying something absolutely ghoulish. Make him radioactive, and let him dangle around Trump’s neck.

Because at some point, Musk’s negatives will start to contaminate Trump’s public standing. And then Trump will either have to live with it or cut Musk loose. Which would create a new set of problems for the president.

And… closer to home, the mood of the American consumer is already souring. Rachel Wolfe and Joe Pinsker reported that “The Trump bump in consumer confidence is already over. Tariff threats, stock market swings and rapidly reversing executive orders are causing Americans across the political spectrum to feel considerably more pessimistic about the economy than they did before Trump took office.  Consumer sentiment fell about 5% in the University of Michigan’s preliminary February survey of consumers to its lowest reading since July 2024. Expectations of inflation in the year ahead jumped from 3.3% in January to 4.3%, the second month in a row of large increases and highest reading since November 2023.”

Wolfe and Pinsker reminded their readers that “Trump won the election largely by campaigning on a pledge to improve the economy and bring down inflation. Economists warned that his tariff plans could have the opposite effect. The president himself has cautioned that tariffs could cause some pain but would ultimately lead to more jobs and a stronger economy. Trump has paused his plans to impose tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico. But consumers are clearly worried about their potential effects. Fears over inflation surged after Trump’s Dec. 16 press conference in which he threatened 10% tariffs on China and 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, according to the University of Michigan. And they rose again on Jan. 21, when the president said he would follow through on his promises by the first of the month.” 

American consumers believe that they would have to cover almost half the cost of a hypothetical 20% tariff, on average, according to a survey commissioned by academic economists  from mid-December to early January.

“This idea that ‘Foreigners pay for our tariffs’ is not really supported by this survey,” said Michael Weber, an economist at the University of Chicago and one of the survey’s organizers.

Republicans surveyed estimated consumers would be on the hook for 41% of such a tariff’s costs. They viewed the policy significantly more favorably than Democrats, who expected consumers would eat 68% of the costs.