'Tell me if I'm wrong': Analyst urges Dems to correct him as he launches unfiltered attack
Congressional Democrats have hit an all-time low in approval at the start of Donald Trump's second presidency, and an analyst argued why voters are so dissatisfied with their resistance to the president's "psychological abuse."
The president and his billionaire benefactor Elon Musk are taking a metaphorical chainsaw to the federal budget, casting thousands of government workers out of their jobs and making the rest fear they could be next. Political pundit Anand Giridharadas told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" how Democratic leadership has failed to meet the moment.
"America right now is living through a hostile takeover by billionaires and bullies, and we don't have an opposition that is able to say that simply, clearly and starkly," Giridharadas said.
Trump's budget director Russell Vought, one of the architects of the right-wing Project 2025 blueprint, was shown on video making a private speech where he expressed a desire to inflict "trauma" on bureaucrats and turn them into "villains" so they would no longer want to work. Giridharadas said that attitude was shared throughout the administration.
"People like Russell Vought and certainly Donald Trump and Elon Musk understand that they are playing on a level of human psychology, right?" Giridharadas said. "They're doing politics, but the primary level, I would argue, on which they are operating is a level of psychology, mental health, traumatizing people, gaslighting people, being kind of psychologically abusive to the nation, striking fear into every employee who doesn't know if they're next, doesn't know what to do, can't focus on their kids when they're sitting with them at night trying to read a book to them, because in the back of their mind is this email that they're maybe supposed to respond to justify their existence to someone who is not even technically a federal employee and this hostile takeover on this level of psychology, playing with people's nerves is still not being opposed by Democrats."
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Giridharadas pointed to an appearance by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Rachel Maddow's program, where he pledged that Democrats would continue doing what they have been doing to oppose Trump and Musk. The political commentator said that's woefully inadequate to defend Americans from the abuse he said was being inflicted.
"We need a strategy up and down, right, so running for office is a longer-term thing," Giridharadas said. "We've got thousands of people looking into that, but right now the top leaders of the Democratic Party, I don't expect the revolution to come from them, but the top leaders of the Democratic Party need to stop being milquetoast.
"I'll be very specific. Last night Rachel Maddow Show, leader Jeffries is on the show. Tell me if I'm wrong, you can 'at' me on any social media platform if I'm wrong. I don't think any American watching that interview with leader Jeffries would have come away feeling defended, deep in their heart, in the middle of an autocratic takeover by that high-ranking Democrat. It was full of legal terms – 'as it relates to,' 'in terms of' – and it was full of, every time she gave him a chance to empathize with people who say he's not doing enough, they're not doing enough. Every time she gave him that opportunity as the gifted interviewer that she is, instead of saying, 'Yeah, I can get why people feel that way about what we're doing, no, we're doing this – nope, nope we don't need any more steel in our spine.'"
"Defensiveness and self-protection do not make an opposition," Giridharadas added. "It is going to take a true, fiery opposition that understands how deeply undefended Americans feel right now by this psychological onslaught, by the abuser in chief and by his shadow president."
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