These six Democrats are showing the party how to resist Trump 2.0 [View all]

[Autumn]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/17/democrats-trump-resist-sanders-aoc-murphy-walz/

As leadership dithers, individual politicians are taking up the fight.

Many on the left, myself included, are furious at Democratic Party officials for not aggressively contesting President Donald Trump. The decision by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (New York) last week to acquiesce to a Trump-backed budget bill was the latest in a series of capitulations by congressional Democrats. Even worse is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has bizarrely decided this is the time for him to start a podcast with softball interviews of pro-Trump conservatives such as Stephen K. Bannon and Charlie Kirk.

But there are some Democratic politicians who are showing real fight and resolve — and have from the start of Trump’s second term. They are not only voting against his initiatives but attacking him in ways intentionally designed to get media attention and galvanize opposition against the new administration.

Here are some of the stars of Resistance 2.0, at least in the first two months of the second Trump administration. It’s not a comprehensive list, nor is it a power ranking (I have ordered them alphabetically), but each of these figures has distinguished themselves in ways that others in the party should emulate.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Texas). Asked what she would tell Elon Musk if she had a chance to speak with him, Crockett had a two-word answer: “F — off.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (Connecticut) Within weeks of Trump’s inauguration, the Connecticut senator, not previously known as a liberal firebrand, was using terms such as “red alert” and “constitutional crisis.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) Other Democrats should emulate how Ocasio-Cortez dealt with Homan. She both belittled him — he can’t even get a MAGA attorney general to take him seriously — and cast him as an authoritarian.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker Jan. 20, only hours after the inauguration, the 60-year-old governor released a statement sharply criticizing the president’s initial executive orders and correctly predicting Trump would ignore the rule of law on a number of issues

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) In many ways, the 83-year-old’s “Fighting Oligarchy” national tour is nothing new. Sanders spent 2016 to 2020 traveling the country and bashing the wealthy in his two presidential campaigns.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz “The road to authoritarianism is littered with people saying, ‘You’re overreacting,’” he told the crowd in Des Moines.


We have warriors like these people . Where is our leadership?