It is safe to say that the zone has indeed been flooded. Every day, we are bombarded with a barrage of headlines, whether that be a judge getting arrested or a 2-year-old child getting deported. It is exhausting, and it works. It is impossible to keep up, and as a result, some things manage to get swept under the rug. 

One of these issues that is somewhat evading the eyes and ears of onlookers is how pathetic the Democrat party has been in response. From doing performative stunts to maintain a veneer of competence to ignoring human rights abuses, the only form of opposition in the legislative branch is failing miserably.

This does not mean there haven’t been individual acts of brilliance. For example, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen recently flew to El Salvador to demand a meeting with his abducted and wrongfully imprisoned constituent, Abrego García. But, individual acts never amount to change. 

What we need is a collective resistance on behalf of Democrats that is as cohesive and organized as it is original and distinct. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. Democratic leadership is out of touch and believes that focusing too heavily on human rights, whether that be trans rights or the indiscriminate killing of women and children in Gaza, will result in a loss of support. 

What we are seeing instead of Democrats embracing the left is a Democratic party that is gradually leaning into culturally conservative notions of what society should look like. 

Take Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, for example. A couple of months ago, he decided to invite Charlie Kirk, a far-right political commentator, on his podcast, where they discussed the non-issue of trans women competing in sports. Governor Newsom, feeling the need to capitulate to the right, thinking this would garner support, caved and began agreeing with Kirk that trans women competing against fellow athletes is “deeply unfair.” 

To make things worse, Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House, was asked shortly after the podcast incident what his response was to Gov. Newsom saying, “Democrats were in the wrong for allowing transgender athletes to compete in female and girls’ sports.” 

“I haven’t seen his comments, but Democrats oppose what’s unleashing sexual predators on girls throughout the United States of America,” Rep. Jeffries responded.

It is hard to follow up on this comment without resorting to expletives. Jefferies is supposed to represent the left in this country. Instead, he somehow feels obligated to resort to the same conspiracies that Trump and his allies use to delegitimize and spit on the humanity of one of the most vulnerable populations in this country. Furthermore, a light dive into women’s sports scandals should reveal to him that cisgender male coaches are vastly over-represented when it comes to perpetuating sexual abuse, not trans athletes. 

The Palestine issue has been another area of disregard for Democrats. Leadership wants nothing to do with ending support for an Israeli government that is committing war crime after war crime as Gaza is ethnically cleansed. Instead of collectively advocating and fighting for the students who have been abducted for standing up to genocide, they would rather focus on the economy.

The silence on the Palestine issue is part of what lost Kamala Harris the 2024 election. A poll in January found that 29% of voters who cast their ballot for Biden in 2020 and withheld their vote for Kamala in 2024 did so because of Democrats’ refusal to “end Israel’s violence in Gaza.” Despite this, Democrats continue to avoid this in order to focus on a failing stock market and tariffs. 

By doing so, they are failing to capitalize on a perspective that embodies both an appreciation for human rights and economic justice.

Israelis have the privilege of experiencing what it’s like to have universal healthcare. Medical debt is not a defining experience in Israel because the government pays for hospital bills using a national income tax. Meanwhile, in the United States, medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy, and almost 45,000 Americans die every year due to a lack of health insurance. 

Why are we sending billions of taxpayer dollars to a government that’s supposedly in need of funding for a genocide, while Israel simultaneously spends billions of dollars to maintain the overall health of their population? Why can’t we use the money being spent on Israeli missiles to increase Medicaid expenditures?

This is how you do politics. You don’t alienate your activist base by inviting Benjamin Netanyahu — the Prime Minister of Israel who has been charged with crimes against humanity — to speak to Congress. You incorporate your activist base into a larger vision that advocates for economic reform. And, you do so by connecting seemingly distant issues to the immediate realities of your constituents. 

This is what a unified and collective vision should look like. Equality for all by reforming the economy and decreasing inequities both domestically and abroad by redistributing wealth using tax policy. 

Becoming more xenophobic and transphobic while advocating for a lethal military will not help Democrats capture conservative voters. It will only make people like me stay home when the next election comes around. 

Unfortunately, this is the history of the Democratic Party. When it is time to abandon old ideologies and status quos and advocate for a new replacement, they always attempt to co-opt what conservatives have created instead of inventing and embracing a new and unique vision. 

Nobody embodies this more than Bill Clinton. He was first elected as President in 1992, marking the end of an 11-year blue drought in the White House. Instead of authentically representing the left, however, he followed the footsteps of conservatives like Ronald Reagan and initiated one of the most extensive attacks on social welfare programs by embracing austerity. He also capitulated to the right by ramping up our racist mass incarceration system by instituting a “three-strike” law — a law he admitted overpopulated our prisons. 

This is how democrats ended an electoral drought in the 90s — by co-opting conservative policies and putting a unique rhetorical spin on them. This is a well-understood success story among leadership, and I fear they believe resorting to this strategy again will win them elections in the future. 

It is important to point this out because we all need to have elections in the back of our minds. While negative partisanship will undoubtedly be a driving force for Democrats in the midterms, we need to still be hyper-aware of what we are voting for in order to prevent Democratic leadership from falsely believing that embracing conservative politics is how you win elections.