On the evening Donald Trump announced his supreme court nominee, thousands of protesters gathered outside of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn apartment. They chanted “Just vote no” and “Obstruct” while carrying signs – “Get a spine, Chuck” – and a prop skeleton to illustrate their point.
The protesters are part of a sudden swell of liberal activism that has drawn millions to city streets and airport concourses across the US, in a startling show of resistance to Trump’s presidency. Emboldened by this groundswell, some progressives have started using the word “primary” as a verb – and as a threat.
For Democrats in Washington, many of whom are still surprised by the scale and furiousness of backlash, the challenge is how to convert this energy into electoral success.
Schumer has significantly slowed the pace of Trump’s cabinet confirmations and excoriated many of the president’s nominees. But the activists outside Schumer’s home on that January night were unimpressed by his votes in favor of Trump’s nominees to represent the US in the UN and to lead the Pentagon, CIA and Department of Homeland Security.
“Our message to Democrats is simple: fight Trump or we’ll find someone who will,” said Waleed Shahid, a co-founder of the progressive group All of Us and a former organizer with the Bernie Sanders campaign. This week, the group launched the political action committee We Will Replace You, the latest in a series of projects to warn Democrats that failures to oppose Trump’s agenda will have consequences.
The group argues that Democrats need to exercise the little political power they still have. The activists have a long list of demands: votes against “all Trump appointees”, opposing his supreme court nominee, using congressional procedures to “bring all business to a crawl to block Trump’s agenda and demand Steve Bannon be fired”. Elected officials, they say, should “publicly support impeachment if Trump is found to have broken the law or violated the constitution”.
The activists have already circled a number of Senate Democrats who have failed to meet their standards, including vulnerable and increasingly rare red-state Democrats, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Both Democrats are up for re-election in 2018.
“The Democratic party establishment wants the support of the Tea Party of the left but they don’t want to earn it,” Shahid said, alluding to the 2010 movement that mobilized rightwing activists, confronted moderate Republicans and helped the party take control of the House in a wave.
“They say they love the grassroots activism, but they don’t want to take the next step and challenge the Democratic leadership.”
Their demands put leaders such as Schumer in a bind. With his party shut out of power in Washington, public shows of support are arguablyits most powerful weapon, but he must also worry about the lawmakers in his caucus facing elections in states where Trump won.
Democrats must defend 23 Senate seats in the 2018 election cycle, 10 from states that Trump won in November. Already, outside groups have targeted these vulnerable red-state Democrats to try to soften their opposition to Trump’s nominees for the cabinet and supreme court.
“The activists threatening to primary [support a primary challenge to] Democratic candidates live in a bubble,” said Jim Kessler, a former Schumer aide and co-founder of a centrist thinktank, Third Way. “They have no idea how to win in places that aren’t sky blue already.”
Kessler believes the path back to power will require the Big Tent party to grow geographically, and not just move sharply to the left with its demands. In his view, red-state Democrats are an endangered species worth protecting – not threatening.
The activists’ campaign says its goal is not necessarily to primary the candidates and that the threat “becomes a tool that successfully pushes Democrats to fight Trump harder”.
Blanket obstructionism has proven to be a tall order – even for progressive politicians from safely Democratic states. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a progressive favorite from Massachusetts, has already been forced to defend her vote for Ben Carson for secretary of housing and urban development.
A number of activists who support using this tactic agreed that the real test will be the supreme court battle. Senate Democrats have the ability to filibuster Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch, meaning that Republicans need to earn support from at least eight Democrats to confirm Gorsuch – unless the controlling party changes the rules.
“This nominee cannot be allowed to ever take the oath of office. It just cannot be allowed to happen,” said Anthony Rogers-Wright, a Seattle-based climate and environmental activist who was a surrogate for the Sanders campaign.
“If any Democrat does not take part in a mass filibuster – they’re disqualified.”
Already, a handful of senators have flatly refused to support Gorsuch, arguing that Republicans “stole” the seat from Barack Obama when they refused, for a record 293 days, to hold a hearing for his nominee, Merrick Garland. But more have said Gorsuch deserves a fair hearing, and that they will wait to hear more about his views and background before making a decision.