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Democratic presidential hopefuls might be wise to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Whenever one voices an opinion that aligns with the broad American mainstream, his own base punishes him for it. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump keeps laying political traps to ensure that those intraparty attacks continue.
The latest target is former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. During an episode of “Pod Save America,” co-host Jon Favreau pressed him on a Senate vote to halt weapons shipments to Israel and on how future U.S. administrations should handle relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
On each and every issue, Trump has stood by the water and tried to lead Democrats toward the desert.
Buttigieg, who for some reason is a potential 2028 contender despite his disastrous stint in Washington, answered as carefully and politically as he could, addressing the horrors of war, saying American munitions cannot be used in offenses “that shock the conscience,” adding that we “see images every day” from Israel that hit this mark.
He also said he would be a lot harder on Netanyahu than Trump, but expressed American friendship for Israel and emphasized correction over isolation.
All in all, pretty standard. But in an age when the loudest Democrat activists demand total condemnation and isolation of Israel, it sure didn’t satisfy.
“I respect Pete. But we need moral clarity, not status quo,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), another potential 2028 contender, posted on X, adding that Democrats should have voted in unison to block weapons to Israel and should also join his own letter recognizing a Palestinian state.
“Pete is a smart guy and I admire a lot of what he’s done,” former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes posted, “but I have absolutely no idea what he thinks based on these answers. Just tell us what you believe.”
Barack Obama, for whom Rhodes worked and Favreau wrote, was a master of political pieties that conveyed little substance. But the Democratic Party has shifted dramatically since he left office in 2017.
“For somebody who’s criticizing what was done wrong by Joe Biden and everyone else … it’s interesting that he can’t just answer the question of the most pressing issue,” Lindsey Granger, co-host of The Hill’s “Rising,” said.
“I don’t think we’re in a space where Americans are accepting ambiguity in the way that they might have [before].”
By Wednesday, Buttigieg was backtracking. Speaking to Politico, he offered the cringey explanation: “It’s important to be clear about something this enormous and this painful. It’s just that it’s so enormous and it’s so painful that sometimes words can fail.”
He then proceeded to repent of any trace of nuance, pledging to support a weapons embargo on Israel, saying he’d recognize a Palestinian state, and coming out against another 10-year security agreement with Israel.
But some ambiguity on a complicated question with a traditional ally is pretty standard fare for foreign policy. The reality is that the loudest Democrats in the room simply aren’t accepting support for Israel from their leaders. It’s all reminiscent of their 2020 presidential primaries, when all candidates except then-former Vice President Joe Biden said they would decriminalize illegally entering the country. Peer pressure is a hell of a thing.
And all that flak was just from the blue corner. In the red corner, Trump’s been busily and happily pushing Democratic politicians to take the minority stance on every 7-3 issue he can think of, from illegal immigration and MS-13 to lower taxes and foreign aid, all the way up to men in women’s sports.
On every issue, Trump has stood by the water and tried to lead Democrats toward the desert. When party leaders and consultants were finally able to get their members to stop defending the foreign gangbangers Trump is deporting, he dropped “Alligator Alcatraz” on them, triggering a whole new round of public hyperventilating.
This week’s edition was violent street crime and homeless drug addicts, which any honest D.C. resident will admit are both major problems, particularly over the past six years of hard-left Democrat city council leadership. Trump’s use of federal police and National Guardsmen, as well as his temporary takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department, to clear out tent encampments and arrest gangbangers has incited the heck out of the city’s wealthy white liberal population, but reaction is a lot more mixed among the poor black population that suffers from street crime the most.
The reality is that the American people are a lot more hawkish on crime than the Democrat base. Before the D.C. intervention, polling showed Trump at +1 for how he handles crime. That same polling had President Joe Biden’s crime handling at -26. Yet as I write, two Democrat congressmen are filming themselves in front of Guard vehicles at Union Station. They cannot help themselves. Their base is hungry and must be fed.
It's 2020 all over again, except this time the Democrat machine is far too weak to foist an enfeebled alternative candidate onto the voters. “Biden me once, shame on you; Biden me twice ...”
Democrats can’t find their footing, their base is refusing to let them move to solid ground, and every week or two the president is shaking the ground beneath them.
They should balance very carefully. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) can say “no f**king way” to money to fund crackdowns on illegal gun violence and public drug use all day, but voters aren’t buying it.
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