Democrats are angry that their leadership is failing to show any substantive pushback to President Donald Trump's first two months of devastation, which might be exactly what the party needs to get moving in the right direction, argues a new piece from MSNBC.
The tipping point came when Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) aligned himself with Republicans to vote for the recent funding bill to keep the government open. Backlash has been swift, leading Schumer to cancel his book tour due to security concerns over unruly protesters.
"It’s undoubtedly embarrassing for Democrats that their leader in the Senate is ducking scenes of being called a coward by voters in his own party," wrote author Paul Waldman. "But that the very fact that the party’s base is so livid at its leadership could be good news. Recent history tells us that that anger may be crucial if the Democrats are to back from their current lowly position."
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The piece cited recent polls by NBC News and CNN showing the Democratic Party at its lowest approval rating ever recorded, at just 27 percent.
Waldman wrote, that "voters in the Democratic base are clearly hungry for representatives who will not only find the most pragmatic ways to counter Trump, but who will oppose him loudly and without embarrassment."
He declared, "An angry base is a motivated base, and a base that has decided it can’t rely on leadership will start organizing for itself."
Waldman gave examples of how that's starting to play out.
"Grassroots Democrats are organizing protests. Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds to his 'Stopping Oligarchy' tour. The progressive group Run For Something, which helps liberals run for state and local offices, says it has signed up almost as many prospective candidates just since Trump’s inauguration as it did in all of 2017 and 2018. And activists are advocating primary challenges against Democratic leaders, just as tea partiers did to Republican leaders a decade ago."