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WASHINGTON On April 15, 2009, a wave of populist protests swept across the country, pegged to tax day. John Boehner, who was then-House minority leader, was curious how theyd play out, and joined one in Bakersfield, California with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

What he saw there stunned him, and he immediately knew that if Republicans could harness that energy, hed become speaker of the House. As he told his staff in his typically salty manner, They are fucking furious and were going to win.

Boehner was right on both points, and he vowed that day to make sure he channeled the rage he was witnessing into campaigns against Democrats the next fall. To ally with his base, he and then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) resolved to engage in all-out obstruction. It worked, until it worked too well, and consumed Boehner himself, as well as his deputy, former Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

Elected Democrats are now facing the same challenge, as a fired-up progressive base is marching far ahead of the party leadership. Democrats are scrambling to keep up.

This week, when progressive champions Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) voted in a Senate committee to approve the thoroughly unqualified Ben Carson to head the Housing and Urban Development Department, there was little criticism from established liberal organizations in Washington. But the grassroots lit up blasting them on Twitter, Facebook, in calls to their offices, and in countless emails to Huffington Post reporters, asking us what on earth their one-time heroes were doing.

Warren clearly felt the backlash. OK, lets talk about Dr. Ben Carson, she began a lengthy Facebook post on Wednesday.

That the votes came just days after millions poured into the streets in more than 650 womens marches on Saturday made it that much more jarring. Those marches, after all, had not been sparked by Planned Parenthood, or the Democratic Party, or unions, or MoveOn.org, even if they did pitch in to help once it got going. Instead, they came from regular, angry people people who may try to replace the ones in power.

Its going to motivate a lot of people to activism and to run for office, said Fran DeBenedictis, a 63-year-old retired New York City cop, as she scanned the crowds at Saturdays march in D.C. She was one of hundreds of thousands who marched in the city that day, armed with a homemade sign denouncing sexism and homophobia amazingly, it had a photo of her on it from a womens march decades earlier and joined by two friends who rode in on a bus from Long Island, New York. This, she said, motioning to the scene, is what brings change.

Ive been doing this for 40 years, she said. It works.

For DeBenedictis and others, the march was the most cathartic and inspiring experience theyd had since the despair of President Donald Trumps win in November. More than 3 million people flooded the streets in cities and towns across the country, donning pink cat-eared pussy hats and vowing resistance to Trumps anti-woman, anti-environment, anti-immigrant agenda. It was such a high that many went back home fired up and ready to fight, but realized, wait, now what?

Jen Bendery

The organizers of the march provided the platform that an angry electorate demanded, but they didnt dictate what comes next. Yes, they co-hosted the march with well-established, progressive groups in Washington D.C., like Planned Parenthood and the Natural Resources Defense Council. But they didnt coordinate with those groups to collect attendees names and email addresses to keep them engaged in those groups fights around reproductive rights or climate change. Instead, the organizers collected contact information for the local organizers themselves, which may wind up being far more powerful than another giant list of progressives.

Ive already gotten a follow-up email from the Womens March in D.C. I think organizers are doing a much better job of absorption post-march than anything Ive ever seen prior to this, said Micah Sifry, who studies technology and political activism. He recently advised the new grassroots group SwingLeft.org, which connects volunteers with progressive House candidates running in nearby swing districts.

Organizers also didnt try to whittle down, say, the movements top three progressive priorities and try to keep attendees focused on those issues in Congress. In spite of this lack of a centralized plan, or perhaps because of it, something remarkable has happened: Democrats desperate for change are going around the establishment and taking action themselves.

In the five days since the marches, theres been a surge of grassroots mobilization online and tens of thousands of people have signed up to get involved. Hundreds of people have signed up to run for local and state offices. Some have volunteered to help Democratic candidates in swing districts. Others, frustrated by the lack of change that theyd like to see, are starting their own campaigns that make fighting Trump as simple as sending a text or downloading an online postcard to send to your member of Congress on a given issue.

Laura Moser, a 39-year-old writer and mom of two young kids, had never led any kind of political mobilization effort before December, when she launched Daily Action. Its perhaps the easiest and most targeted progressive campaign out there: You just text the word DAILY to the number 228466 (or ACTION), and youll get a text message about an urgent progressive issue in your area, based on your zip code. If you want to act, you listen to a short recorded explanation on it and from there, youre routed directly to your member of Congress or senator to weigh in.

In 90 seconds, you can conscientiously object and be done with it, reads the Daily Action website. You can make the phone calls when youre walking to the bus stop, or waiting in line for your morning latte. One touch of the phone and youre done.

Moser, who leaned on her husbands tech experience to set up the mechanics of the operation, has tapped into an eager audience. Daily Action already sends 75,000 texts per day as many as 20,000 of those came from people who signed up after the march and has 30,000 subscribers on Facebook. Moser said she was motivated to create the campaign after seeing so many progressives outraged and depressed about Trump and ready to fight for their ideals, but, per usual, not having any organization around it.

I kept getting all these messages from people like, What are we going to do? Were going to die, Moser said. This is my solution to the despair. I cant stop all the horrible things that are happening, but I can react to them.

Cynthia Ross

This newfound energy is driving throngs of people into the political process and its quickly being turned against Democratic politicians for being soft on Trump, whether its by approving his cabinet nominees or signaling a willingness to work with him.

Senate Dems response to millions taking to the streets is beyond disappointing, said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of the womens online advocacy group Ultra Violet. It is outright shameful.

Resistance means resisting, Markos Moulitsas wrote Thursday on the progressive site Daily Kos.All those people in the streets last Saturday didnt march for Democrats to make nice with the GOP. They marched to resistwhether its Trump, or his acolytes like Carson. And if even progressive champions like Warren cant figure that out, we really are in trouble.

In the meantime, new grassroots groups are cropping up by the day. Theres the aforementioned Swing Left, which launched the day before Trumps inauguration and has more than 220,000 signed up to participate. Theres Justice Democrats, which is raising money to fund challenges to so-called corporate Democrats. Theres Run for Something, a group of Hillary for America and Obama for America, which is recruiting young Democrats to run for local and state office. They launched Friday and are seeing an average of 100 people sign up every day. The organizers of the Womens March just started their own effort: 10 actions for the first 100 days, which calls on its broad base of supporters to take action on a specific issue every 10 days.

Brad Bauman, a Democratic consultant and former executive director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the progressive base doesnt think its leaders are up to challenging Trump.

What were seeing here is a tacit understanding by progressives that establishment Democratic leaders are not equipped to fight Donald Trump the way that Donald Trump needs to be fought, said Bauman, who works with labor and environmental groups. Progressives frankly would have been much happier had [Senate Democrats] said to him, We will not confirm a single one of your picks unless you immediately and publicly renounce breaking up families, the wall, restricting Muslim entry into the country, torture and the rest of the alt-right agenda.

Some traditional groups are paying attention and following the lead of the masses. MoveOn sponsored the march and kicked in $100,000 to support it. The group held a phone call the day after and 60,000 people joined; another 15,000 turned out for small rallies at Senate and House offices on Tuesday, calling for opposition to Trumps #SwampCabinet, as its been dubbed.

The grassroots progressive base and more broadly, the public, which voted decisively against Trump is demanding clear, principled, and total opposition to the Trump Administrations extreme and unprecedented agenda. Mayors, Attorneys General and Governors are showing what real leadership looks like right now said Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action.

Senate Democrats should pay attention, he added. Doing business as usual or treating Trump as your run-of-the-mill threat will not do.

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The Democratic Base Is Marching Right Past Its Leaders - Huffington Post

What began as a high-minded discussion about how to position the Democratic Party against President Donald Trump appears to be nearing its conclusion. The bulk of the party has settled on a scorched-earth, not-now-not-ever model of opposition.

In legislative proposals, campaign promises, donor pitches and even in some Senate hearings, Democrats have opted for a hard-line, give-no-quarter posture, a reflection of a seething party base that will have it no other way.

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According to interviews with roughly two dozen party leaders and elected officeholders, the internal debate over whether to take the conciliatory path to pursue a high-road approach as a contrast to Trumps deeply polarizing and norm-violating style is largely settled, cemented in place by a transition and first week in office that has confirmed the lefts worst fears about Trumps temperament.

They were entitled to a grace period, but it was midnight the night of the inauguration to 8 o'clock the next morning, when the administration sent out people to lie about numerous significant things. And the damage to the credibility of the presidency has already been profound, said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. They were entitled to a grace period and they blew it. Its been worse than I could have imagined, the first few days."

That conclusion comes after two months of intraparty debates about how to outwardly treat the Trump White House, a process which played out not only in public but also in private meetings and conference calls between leading party operatives, elected officials and message crafters.

I predict the coming divide in the Democratic Party wont be ideological so much as it will be between those who resist and oppose and those who accommodate and appease, strategist David Brock told roughly 120 donors gathered in Florida over the weekend to plot a path forward.

That mind-set has permeated every outpost of the party from governors' mansions to Congress. Whether its in statehouses or the offices of state attorneys general, the Democratic National Committee or the constellation of outside left-leaning political groups, Trumps benefit of the doubt is gone.

At a forum this week for candidates running to be the next DNC chair, the very idea that the party should try to work with the new president was dismissed as absurd.

Thats a question thats absolutely ridiculous, said New Hampshire party Chairman Raymond Buckley, when asked whether the Democratic Party should try to work with Trump where it can find opportunities.

Television commentator Jehmu Greene offered: If you saw the millions of people who marched in the streets this weekend and participated in it, they are looking to the Democratic Party. We have an opportunity as a party to be that place of resistance. So we have to form a solid resistance as a party. And no, it is not about working with Donald Trump. .

Some party leaders are wary of the implications of teeth-baring, no-holds-barred opposition. They worry about the difficult position in which it puts vulnerable Democratic senators 10 of them will be up for reelection in 2018 in states that Trump carried.

There are also concerns about the dangers of appearing overly obstructionist, and the possible blowback it could create for party officeholders up and down the ballot in 2018. An explicitly aggressive approach also stands to shape the 2020 presidential field, incentivizing potential candidates to compete in expressing their level of anti-Trump vitriol.

We need to remember that one of the reasons young voters, especially, were uninspired is you cant have a message of, Im not him, cautioned DNC vice chairman R.T. Rybak, the former Minneapolis mayor.

Focusing too much on what he says every absurdity, every misrepresentation of fact, every lie that comes out of his mouth or his tweets makes no sense to me, said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a candidate for California governor. "The best way to fight Trump is to chart what represents the values, the priorities that were for. I dont think it makes sense to spend all of our time responding to every tweet, I think that will just reinforce a notion that many people have in our country that we put party before country."

Brocks Florida conference outlined some of the philosophical fault lines. In one closed-door session, Chicago mayor and former Barack Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel advocated a measured approach to Trump opposition, one in which Democrats choose only specific fights with a tight game plan. Sitting opposite Emanuel, former Joe Biden chief of staff Ron Klain shared his rules for a 100 Day Fight Club a battle royal he advocated to mark Trumps opening stretch, according to people in the room.

Other sessions detailed a massive pushback operation that featured expansive litigation plans and opposition research efforts.

Three days ago, Donald Trump went from being a private citizen who tweets and criticizes to the establishment, said Ted Lieu, a Los Angeles-area congressman who has been vocally anti-Trump, to the point of introducing legislation to stop the new president from launching a nuclear first strike without passing it by Congress. He and the Republicans have unified control, and they own it. It is Trumps foreign policy, Trumps economy, Trumps health care plan. So he has to govern, and in less than two years voters will go to the polls, and he has to own it.

Added Zac Petkanas, director of the DNCs anti-Trump war room: We are very wary that this administration is trying to flood the zone with a whole lot of stuff that is very objectionable all at once, and make it very difficult by creating a cacophony of terribleness so that not one thing gets through. Its a tactic that they used on the campaign, and they were fairly successful at doing so, so in a lot of ways we look at our jobs as focusing in on what we think are the most objectionable things." The DNC war room is currently taking on Trump's Cabinet nominees, ties to Russia and potential conflicts of interest.

Even so, strident anti-Trump Democrats worry that deal-makers like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will try to find agreements with the new president concerns that have been heightened by the Cabinet confirmation process, in which Schumer has prioritized eight nominees rather than trying to gum up all the picks at once.

In their view, a true opposition party in the Senate should grind all Republican movement to a halt. But that creates a problem for the senators leading the charge, who insist choosing their battles is the most effective way to kneecap Trumps agenda.

Opposing every nominee was not seriously on the table; it never has been. Thats not a test of whether or not youre resistant," said Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, noting that the party simply doesnt have the votes to stop many of them.

Democratic lawmakers have still found ways to embarrass Trump, by pushing to get Trumps nominees to disagree with the president and introducing legislation aimed at disempowering him or forcing him to disclose personal information like tax returns. And by letting some of Trumps less objectionable picks through without a fight, like Housing and Urban Development Secretary nominee Ben Carson, senators believe they can inoculate themselves from the criticism of obstructionism often leveled at McConnell during Obamas presidency.

Weve spoken from our collective gut, and that has rung true with a lot of our supporters because they see us finding our spine, and likewise we see millions of Americans spontaneously marching and we find courage and strength, said Schatz, speaking of Senate Democrats strategy to consider Trumps nominees. "So what I like about whats happening out there across the country and within the Senate is its not centrally planned, its not run by a communications shop. This is the 48 of us doing our job because we understand that for a lot of people who are terrified by whats happening in the country, for them were the tip of the spear."

While some building unions a small element of the traditional Democratic coalition have shown particular willingness to collaborate with Trump due to his talk about infrastructure investment, for the most part there are few cracks in the Democratic facade.

I havent slept a good night since Nov. 8, but the things that dont keep me up at night are: Will Trump offer up things that Democrats will be tempted to support? said Klain, a top adviser to Hillary Clinton.

Something we see is the question, Is Donald Trump going to propose reasonable policies that people can get behind? That doesnt feel like a problem were going to have, said Jessica Mackler, president of American Bridge, Democrats main opposition research group. So far weve seen no evidence that this is a choice were going to have to make."

Even governors, the realistic executives who understand the challenges of governance and management, are lining up to insist they won't fall for Trump's enticements in the form of infrastructure investments.

Ive never been a proponent of cutting off your nose to spite your face. There are going to be some things we can agree on, said Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy. Im not precluding the possibility, but were not going to agree to discriminate, were not going to agree to make poor people poorer, were not going to agree to turn our back on our international obligations."

Added Inslee: Early in our resistance to his potential damage to our states, were going to be vocal. In the middle, were going to be persistent, and at the end, were going to be resistant. If the federal government wants to send several billion dollars to my office to help infrastructure, you cant say no, added Inslee. But we will say no very loudly, very vocally, very consistently to the idea thats going to be some leverage for not protecting people based on race or ethnicity."

By delivering a massive slight to the president on the first day of the Trump era roughly a third of the House Democratic Caucus refused to attend his inauguration Democrats sent a strong signal about their intentions both to the White House and to the American public.

Although few in the party took issue with the inaugural strategy, leading party strategists and officials caution that an oppose-at-all costs strategy may not leave enough room for the flexibility Democrats may need at some point.

After all, they're dealing with a singularly mercurial president.

Weve never seen anything like him. This isnt ideological. Hes taken this to places weve never been. Hes said things weve never heard from a commander in chief, said Villaraigosa. So all I can tell you is any game plan you have for Donald Trump should have a fair amount of audibles."

Read more:
Democrats launch scorched-earth strategy against Trump - Politico

This week, in a video message to his 800,000-plus Facebook followers, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) promised to keep resisting the Trump administration, in solidarity with the people in the streets.

Dont let this stuff become normal so were just becoming numb to it, Booker said. We have got to stay in the trenches and keep fighting.

Below that video and below an image of Booker testifying against Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) this month the senator was deluged with people asking for more.

You are my senator, said Eileen Mary Kenny. I voted for you enthusiastically. Id like you and the Democrats to be MUCH tougher on this administration. Please block these terrible Cabinet nominees. Obstruct in every way you can.

Im not overwhelmed, I am pissed! said Alice Carney. YOU, Cory, need to obstruct everything they are doing.

Senator you need to truly represent our state, said Brenda Santos. Please do not vote for ANY Cabinet picks.

Nearly every Democrat has been hearing the same this week; the partys embrace of mass protests has happened in tandem with votes to approve the first batch of President Trumps Cabinet picks, from CIA Director Mike Pompeo to all-but-certain HUD Secretary Ben Carson. On Twitter and other social media, Democrats are excoriated for the votes; there are fitful suggestions of primary challenges for senators who go off the reservation. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who, like Booker, is considered a potential presidential candidate, won praise for opposing every nominee; she then voted for Nikki Haley to become ambassador to the United Nations.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the lefts most popular figures, attempted to quell protests about her vote for Carson with a Facebook post. With palpable frustration okay, lets talk about Ben Carson Warren said that she and every Democrat was faced not with choices between opposition and appeasement, but bad and worse.

In his written responses to me, he made good, detailed promises, on everything from protecting anti-homelessness programs to enforcing fair housing laws, Warren wrote. Promises that if theyre honored would help a lot of working families. Can we count on Dr. Carson to keep those promises? I dont know. People are right to be skeptical; I am. But a man who makes written promises gives us a toehold on accountability. If President Trump goes to his second choice, I dont think we will get another HUD nominee who will even make these promises much less follow through on them.

The wild-swinging criticism of Democrats has not focused on a particular way to slow down nominees. The Democrats have fewer tools available to them than any opposition party in history, thanks to their 2013 reform of filibuster rules that allowed blocked nominees like the CFPBs Richard Cordray and former secretary oflabor Tom Perez to be confirmed.

The filibuster does apply to Supreme Court nominees, meaning that, without a change to current rules, Republicans will need eight Democrats to vote for cloture on whomever Trump nominates next week. Several Democratic senators are on record characterizing the open seat as stolen, because Republicans refused to hold hearings on former president Barack Obamas nominee, Merrick Garland.

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Senators Warren and Booker try to answer Democratic anger at votes for Trump nominees - Washington Post

Wall Street Journal

Connecticut Democrats Push for $15 Hourly Minimum Wage Wall Street Journal Democratic lawmakers in Connecticut are pushing to raise the state's hourly minimum wage to $15, but they face a tougher fight to get it through as the state Senate is now evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. The state's minimum wage, ...

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Connecticut Democrats Push for $15 Hourly Minimum Wage - Wall Street Journal

Patch.com

Democrats Face Backlash After Approving Ben Carson For Cabinet Role Patch.com Senate Democrats continue to face a backlash from their base after the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs unanimously approved Ben Carson to serve as secretary of housing and urban development. On Tuesday night, the 11 ... Any Democrat Who Votes for Jeff Sessions Should Be Excommunicated from the PartyEsquire.com all 22 news articles »

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Democrats Face Backlash After Approving Ben Carson For Cabinet Role - Patch.com