The question every Democrat must answer: 'What are you doing to fight Trump?'

By Paul Waldman January 30 at 1:09 PM

It’s sometimes said that Republican politicians fear their base while Democratic politicians hate their base. One week into Donald Trump’s presidency, we’re seeing an explosion of grassroots energy on the left. Democratic politicians are rushing to become part of this nascent resistance movement, and at the back of their minds may be an uncomfortable question: Should I be afraid of this? Could all of these energized liberals turn on me if I’m not careful?

We should acknowledge that there’s no way to know where this Resistance, as it’s now being called (for better or worse) is going to go. It might quiet down over time as people get used to Trump being president and each new horror emerging from the White House seems less urgent, or it might build and grow into an organized and effective movement, winning substantive victories and sustaining its energy all the way through 2018 and even 2020.

But so far, it’s been pretty extraordinary. After the rapid organization of what may have been the single largest protest in American history (the women’s marches the day after Trump’s inauguration that drew millions in cities large and small all over the country), this weekend a spontaneous uprising against Trump’s executive order on refugees led people to flock to their local airports and city centers to express their outrage and solidarity with those the administration has targeted. According to one tally, there were 83 separate protests in 45 states over the weekend, and rather than taking weeks or months to organize, it all happened in a matter of hours. If there’s ever been a mass liberal mobilization as large and fast as this one, I can’t recall it.

So Democratic politicians rushed to run to the front of the parade, which is a clear sign that something significant and powerful is happening. Elizabeth Warren spoke to protesters in Boston, first at Logan Airport on Saturday night and then in Copley Square on Sunday. Cory Booker went to Dulles Airport outside Washington to address protesters there, where he might have run into Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, or Tom Perriello, the former congressman who’s running for governor, or a few congressmen from the region, because they were all there too. John Lewis was at the Atlanta airport.

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