Forget #Resistance. How Democrats Gave Trump Victory After Victory
Is Trump’s return to the Oval Office simply Democrats’ chickens coming home to roost?
Donald Trump – a twice-impeached president who incited a deadly insurrection, was found liable for sexual abuse, and was later convicted of fraud – returned to the Oval Office. And everything swirling around his return underscores exactly why he is back: Democrats’ political ineptitude and lack of principle or discernible beliefs.
You only have to look to the first 24 hours of his second term to see reminders of every single rake Democrats have stepped on during their bumbling walk helping Trump return.
TikTok
First, TikTok. Democrats were caught on their back foot with the TikTok ban. Let's not forget that Trump first got the ball rolling on the effort to ban TikTok with an executive order during his first term. That order was blocked, but the effort was later picked up in Congress.
Instead of heeding the warnings of progressives and young people, who said banning TikTok – an app used by some 170 million in the US – would have grave consequences for the party, Democrats joined Republicans in passing the measure, sending it to Biden, who signed it.
By this time, with the 2024 campaign well underway, Trump began to flip his position.
All of this culminated on Sunday, when the ban took effect. Millions opened the app to find this message:
Less than 12 hours later, after Trump said he would sign an order delaying the ban, TikTok was back online.
“Thanks for your patience and support,” TikTok told its users. “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”
Then on Monday, Trump signed an executive order to suspend the ban for 75 days to have more time to figure out a solution – including a possible 50-50 partnership between the US and TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance.
Yes, there was slightly more support from Republicans than Democrats to ban TikTok. Yes, Republicans, especially Trump, who were apparently so against the “influence” of the “Chinese Communist Party,” flip-flop seamlessly. But who was caught holding the bag? Democrats. And who looked like the hero? Trump.
And it didn’t have to happen. Democrats didn’t have to haphazardly support going after one social media giant (particularly one so widely used, and one enabling the world to see the war crimes they were funding). They could’ve consolidated their concerns about Big Tech into a larger, more universal message – about privacy, corporate influence, and a broader dialogue of how these applications are taking over our lives.
After all, without any organized opposition, big tech companies have become power hubs that spread the lies that have boosted extremism, and even Trump’s electoral bid (the fruits of which were on full display as tech execs enjoyed the inauguration stage).
Instead, Democrats helped lead a doomed-from-the-start campaign against one app with an unfocused effort railed against by the masses. Democrats can bemoan the hypocrisy of Republicans. They can complain about how unfair it is that Trump flip-flopped. Or they could just play a better game.
Israel and Palestine
What about Israel’s genocide in Gaza – the issue that has perhaps most defined Biden’s legacy? Well, in his final days as president, Biden got what he supposedly worked on “tirelessly” for 15 months: a ceasefire.
But, again, who’s getting the credit, at least publicly? Trump – who reportedly was an X-factor that pushed the deal forward.
Sure, the stability of the deal is uncertain, especially as Israeli forces now escalate their attacks in the occupied West Bank. And yes, it’s unclear if or what Trump, who is certainly not pro-Palestinian, promised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in return – he’s already lifted Biden-era sanctions on extremist settlers in the West Bank. But the optics remain: a ceasefire deal falling into place only after Trump put “real pressure on the Israeli side” for the “first time,” as one diplomat put it.
Momentary optics aside, the timing highlights another front where Democrats abandoned their purported principles – like respect for international law or human rights – and instead reinforced another far-right premise: that Israel deserved unconditional US aid, no matter how many people it killed. And, just as with immigration, even if the stakes were only cynical, the approach offered no electoral reward.
Jan. 6 Pardons
Now let’s turn to Trump’s Day 1 pardons of roughly 1,500 convicted January 6 rioters.