A Washington Post column trashed the Democratic Party’s method of protesting President Trump’s address to Congress, asking if it proves the party has “nothing left to try.”
A Washington Post columnist sneered at Democratic lawmakers’ protests during President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.
In the piece, opinion columnist Monica Hesse trashed the Democratic Party’s chosen methods of protesting Trump’s speech. Hesse argued that the displays were ultimately ineffective in doing anything to derail the president’s agenda or make him look bad, and just revealed how incompetent the party is right now.
She wrote that the “Democratic message” on display at the speech was, “We do not know what to do.”
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During Trump’s nearly two-hour-long speech, dozens of Democratic lawmakers wore matching pink outfits and carried signs to protest the Trump agenda. The signs had different messages on them, with some reading, “MUSK STEALS,” “SAVE MEDICAID,” and others stating, “FALSE,” which were meant to be held up when lawmakers heard a point from the president that they alleged was wrong.
They also jeered and yelled at Trump while he was speaking. The most extreme example of this was when Rep. Al Green, D-Texas began yelling at Trump mid-speech. The congressman continued despite warnings from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and was removed from the chamber.
Hesse was not impressed with the party’s efforts. She wrote, “It might have been when several dozen Democrats walked into Donald Trump’s Tuesday congressional address wearing coordinated shades of bubblegum, but it was definitely by the time that several dozen Democrats started waving ping-pong-sized paddles in the House chamber that I started to really worry about the resistance.”
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After mentioning that anti-Trump lawmakers had weeks to prepare a meaningful opposition plan for the speech, she wrote sarcastically, “That opposition plan was: wear pink.”
Hesse quoted Democratic Women’s Caucus chair Leger Fernandez’s defense of the outfits. “The color signaled ‘our protest of Trump’s policies which are negatively impacting women and families.’” The columnist then skewered the method, writing, “Great idea. I, too, would like to protest those policies. But if this is the revved-up version of the opposition, was the previous version just … the hooptie sitting on blocks on your neighbor’s front lawn? A Schwinn?”
The biting analogies kept coming, with Hesse focusing her fire on the signs next. The columnist wrote, “One presumes that the paddles, which members held up discreetly at sporadic intervals through the address, were intended to be pointed but also somber. But the overall effect of the whole scene was, ‘On our way to Barbenheimer, we were kidnapped by Sotheby’s and forced to bid on our dignity.’”
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“These props — along with the shirts reading ‘RESIST’ worn by some members — were simultaneously too perfunctory and too earnest. Earnest doesn’t register with this White House, where Elon Musk showed up to a Cabinet meeting in a ‘Tech Support’ T-shirt and Dark Maga ball cap, as if he’d pwned USAID for the lulz,” she added.
Hesse described how the party is once again at a loss for effective protest, as everything they’ve done has not stopped the MAGA agenda.
“In recent years, liberals have tried Minnesota nice, coconut trees, going high, going low, going ‘weird,’ being heartfelt, being snarky, marching, pleading, mocking, understanding, using facts, using pathos, and here we are again, like it’s 2016 and some hardworking activists are wondering if we can turn this thing around via pussyhats,” she stated.
“These are extraordinary times, and we need an extraordinary, lawful resistance,” Hesse added, though she was left wondering if Democratic leaders were “trying the wrong things, or, scarier, that there was actually nothing left to try.”
