Democrats are hoping to create some fresh resistance magic to mark President Donald Trump’s 100 days in office.
They recognize they may not have all the answers for how best to do that yet. But they’re leaning into experimentation and a more maximalist approach, with plans to get hours of fresh anti-Trump content pumped out to voters this week.
In both the House and Senate, Democratic lawmakers are marking the day by decrying Trump’s return to office as “100 days of costs, chaos and corruption,” as Sen. Mark Warner put it, or pointing to the president’s tanking poll numbers as a sign of fading confidence. Senate Democrats plan to take hold of the floor Tuesday afternoon and speak late into the night in protest of Trump, a tactic that echoes the viral 24-hour protest speech held by Sen. Cory Booker last month.
“We just want to point out how much of a failure the president has been on every count,” Sen. Brian Schatz told reporters. “A lot of people voted for Donald Trump because they thought he would be a good steward of the economy. And we’ve never seen such a stock market dive that was self inflicted. So our main message is this is already a failure of a presidency.”
It’s a strategy that’s had mixed success so far for Democrats. Outside voices have cast some protest actions by members as lackluster, and even embarrassing. Others, like Booker’s, were hailed by his fellow Democratic lawmakers as the sort of bold and unusual approaches that Democrats believe they need. In the wake of Booker’s speech, a number of Senate Democrats told NOTUS they wanted to see similar actions in the future.
But it’s an open question whether the party’s new steps can actually create buzz — and whether voters will even care.
Some Democratic leaders aren’t even pretending the question is settled.
“I don’t know,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin said when asked whether Senate Democrats’ approach will actually break through to voters. “But something has. Trump’s numbers are not very good. So some part of the message is breaking through.”
Senate Democrats on Tuesday said amplifying their floor speeches in new ways, particularly on social media and via influencers, is essential for action like this to work. It worked for Booker’s speech, which garnered more than 350 million likes on TikTok, according to his website.
Booker told NOTUS he wasn’t involved in Democrats’ planning for Tuesday. But he has been intimately involved with Democrats’ evolving social media strategy as chair of the Democratic Strategic Communications Committee, which has emphasized using new media channels to widen Democrats’ reach. He said that extended online engagement will bring actions like this to more voters.
“The number of engagements on Senate content, and just this Congress alone compared to last Congress, this time has quadrupled,” Booker said. “You’re seeing the platforms of all my colleagues grow and grow and grow. So the voice of senators — especially when we do things like this — the number of people that are seeing it is so much greater.”
Sen. Gary Peters said blasting coverage beyond the usual channels is critical to Democrats’ message breaking through. While the average voter at home may not be watching a feed of the Senate floor late into the night, they are likely to be scrolling their phones. And Democrats are banking on their message on Trump showing up on those screens.
“With all due respect to C-SPAN, their viewership is not that high,” Peters told NOTUS. “So it’s about what you do on the floor, and then you amplify that through social media, and other media channels. You’ve got to get to a large audience, but you have to also show that you’re on the floor, officially, taking a stand.”
Schatz, who is running for Senate Democratic leadership next term, refrained from weighing in on what success would look like in getting Democrats’ resistance message to voters.
“That’s a question for a pundit to analyze,” he said.
Others said Tuesday’s effort is just a matter of not taking their foot off the gas.
“You’re seeing this country turn against Donald Trump,” Sen. Chris Murphy said. “Republicans, Democrats, independents, we’re seeing are passing pretty quick judgment on the first 100 days. So I think we’ll just continue to tell the truth, and more and more people listen, that’s good for the country.”
Across the Capitol, House Democrats held a sit-in on Monday on the Capitol steps to highlight their rebukes of Trump’s policies. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries joined the group, and later called out Trump’s “chaos” at a press conference.
Asked by a reporter how he’d rate Democrats’ Trump response in the first 100 days, Jeffries said that Democrats are operating in “a more is more environment.”
“Rallies, press conferences, demonstrations, sit-ins, town-hall meetings in Democratic districts, town-hall meetings in Republican districts, days of action,” he said. “More will continue to be more.”
Still, others seem to be letting the day go by as usual.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, when asked by NOTUS, said he didn’t know anything about the planned floor action from his colleagues.
“They’re holding the floor tonight?” he asked. “I wasn’t aware of that.”
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Ursula Perano is a reporter at NOTUS. Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Tinashe Chingarande contributed reporting.