Josh Marshall - A Few Thoughts on Messages and Morale

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A Few Thoughts on Messages and Morale

By Josh Marshall

February 1, 2025 11:18 a.m.

Over the last few days, as I’ve struggled with everyone else to stay on top of all this, I’ve tried to balance two things. One of those is trying to keep people focused on what an opposition can actually do and what it can’t. The other is that you can’t simply be, in effect, yelling at people who are bewildered and scared. I saw a DNC member who was at that cattle call Thursday saying how weird it was hearing elected officials talking like these were normal times when actually the house is burning down around everyone. So how to reconcile primal screams and concrete plans and in the midst of that trying to make some progress on thinking outside the box, how to counteract and defeat performative displays of powerlessness.

The overarching thing that is missing from what Democratic leaders in Washington are saying right now is a clear statement that this is bad, that it’s likely to get worse for a while. But we don’t accept this; we have power too. We’re going to fight this in the courts; we’re going to gum up the works in Congress; and more than anything we’re going to fight this in the court of public opinion. And we’re going to win. And to do that we need all of you to be on our side. And as we claw back power we’re going to repair the damage and hold the people who broke everything accountable and build something better.

I guess what I’m saying here is that people need a road map that is frank about how bad this is and says at least the outline of a plan to battle back. The whole point of this kind of shock and awe, slash and burn is to disorient and demoralize people. And people need a lifeline to get through that.

One of the big things I’ve seen over recent days is people being really upset that this or that Democrat voted for this or that relatively (everything is relative) innocuous nominee. For me I just can’t get that worked up about what amount to purely symbolic yes or no votes for a Sean Duffy or a Kristi Noem. But I also see that to a lot of people those votes send a signal of business as usual. And that’s totally in conflict with any sense of a crisis that you’re focused on battling back against and winning.

Adam Schiff was on Bluesky or Twitter last night announcing the new Saturday Night Massacre of prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on the January 6th cases, denouncing it as illegal. And he was greeted not with a surge of outrage at the Trump administration but outrage against him. ‘And what are you going to do about it? I bet you’re going to fire off a sternly worded press release.’ This is the real the jam in which Democrats find themselves. They can’t talk about what’s happening without their own supporters lashing out at them since lashing out at the Trump administration doesn’t do anything or seems not to.

But you really do need to lay out a blueprint. Not to get all sentimental and mawkish and yes a bit corny but I think back to Winston Churchill taking over the Prime Ministership with the fall of France in June 1940. (I admitted in advance it was corny; but seriously, bear with me.) He really didn’t have anything he could do other than try not to lose. The only plan was to hold on, not lose or to try to lose as little as possible and try to get the Americans into the fight. And in reality, though we can look at it differently in retrospect, there was every reason to think Great Britain would lose, or at least be forced into a humiliating, subservient peace. The US Ambassador (who remember, was John Kennedy’s dad, freakshow RFK Jr’s grandfather) was saying these guys are totally going to lose. And it was hard to argue with that as a matter of probabilities or logical arguments. But Churchill had a clear message: 1) We’re never going to give up. Literally never. 2) We’re going to battle back with these tools. And 3) Finally, we’re going to win.

In other words a path back, even over the obstacles of uncertainty, odds and maybe even logic. We’re going to get from here to there. And we’re really not hearing that yet from Democratic leaders in Washington yet. And the truth is the odds are wildly better for them than they were for the British in the Fall of 1940. And making that case is required above and beyond making whatever the right moves on on the ground. That’s sowing demoralization and sending a lot of people the message that Democratic leadership in Washington doesn’t recognize the gravity of the situation.