Philip Wegmann, the White House reporter for RCP, asked Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes about the future of the Democratic Party on Tuesday’s edition of the RealClearPolitics podcast.
Wegmann asked Himes about a recent tweet, warning that “Trump is at his maximum political power now.”
That is implying that at some point in the coming months or years, that power will wane. So what should the Democratic playbook be for the next four years? Is it enough to rerun the sort of resistance playbook from the first Trump term, or is an update needed?”
“No, it’s not enough to run the same resistance playbook,” Himes said. “And I don’t think that we could if we wanted to.”
“Lots of observers have noted that the opposition to Donald Trump is a lot less energized than it was when Trump won. There’s a lot of reflection going on in my party about the fact that we offered a candidate who was vice president, strong legislative record, civil, etc., and they chose the other guy.
They chose the guy who uses the language Trump does, threatens to destroy things, and prosecute his political enemies. The American people chose that. That means we need to be very thoughtful about sentiment.”
He also said: “Number one, as always—and we forget this—we always forget this: it’s the economy, stupid.” More here
