Asklemmy

Question: why would they want to block trump? For a lot of Democrats the system is working as intended. Heck, 75 dems just voted to congratulate ICE on a job well done: https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-ice-gratitude-resolution-backlash-2084004

I'm of the opinion that they don't want to stop trump at all.

A handful of democrats have been going across the country to explain to younger voters what exactly is going on, what they can do about it, and what they can expect from those campaigning to try and stop this further. The powerful democrats are censoring those democrats. Cause heaven forbid a politician listens to its voter base

Fuck all.

Several democratic governors sued over the tariffs. So far the court has declared the tariffs to be illegal, but is for some reason allowing them to be collected while the case is appealed.

The gov of Maine sued him for withholding federal funds over having trans athletes and won.

The NYTimes has a pretty good article tracking the myriad of suits against him. They mention that 184 of them "have at least temporarily paused the administration's initiatives." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/us/trump-administration-lawsuits.html

A handful of senators and state legislators have attempted to visit some of the prisons/ICE detention facilities, starting with Chris Van Hollen, who flew to El Salvador to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

David Hogg is attempting to primary the old do-nothing dinosaurs in the party.

I think right now we're all looking to California to see what they do in a literal military standoff with Trump. I don't know if it will be enough, but I don't think it will be nothing.

They're saying mean words, thats about it

I would like an answer for this as well. We've seen exactly one filibuster, which wasn't against any particular piece of legislation or appointee.

Democrats oppose progressives, not republicans.

Earnest answer: they have made the argument that they lost the presidency and both houses of Congress, therefore, whatever happens is not on them. They are taking the stance that since they don’t have the legal power, they’re doing their part by raising awareness, going to committee meetings to verbally oppose trump’s regime, and voting against bills when they can. In the Senate, Dems have been almost united in voting against trump’s nominees (looking at you, Fetterman). But they (Dem leadership) have been very straightforward that they don’t have the power. Their strategy is that republicans will fail so hard that the rest of the country will be running back to democrats by the midterms. I’ll let you decide how effective they’ve been.

To their credit, it’s true that they have almost no legal power. The House votes by simple majority, so there’s next to nothing House Dems can do. In the Senate, Dem Senators can filibuster some bills. It’s super important to remember that a lot of bills, like budget bills or judicial nominations, cannot be filibustered. Add on top of that, republicans are disorganized as hell and have barely submitted any legislation for a vote that could be filibustered even if the Dems wanted to. So there’s really very little Dem Senators can do on the Senate floor.

So, the answer is, barely nothing because legally, they truly don’t have the power. That all said, they are basically sitting on their hands. There’s SO MUCH they could be doing. For instance, imagine the POWER and HISTORY that Dems could’ve made had they one-by-one stood up and walked out of trump’s state of the union address. Dems could stand on the Capitol step EVERY DAY to protest, demand media attention, and use their platform. They aren’t. They’re letting us burn because most of them are playing politics.

Good luck to them, you, me, and everybody else…

The answer is nothing. The Democratic Party went into shell shock after the elections repudiated over 30 years of established norms. We clearly need something new and fresh, based around class politics. The real villains are the 1% who sit on boards and play both sides. Until we have a political party that stands up for the other 99%, we are fucked. The entire two-party system is rigged against true representation and is instead controlled by special interests. Trump is no better than the neoliberals who helped create him.

They're complying.

That's what they're doing.

Complaining on social media. (said only partially sarcastically)

Honestly if they aren't jailing republicans at this point it isn't enough. Iirc there is a few lawsuits and strongly worded letters that will of course accomplish nothing meaningful as usual

nothing.

There isn't a lot more they can do that you or I couldn't. Because a majority of voters didn't turn up, or have the moral fabric of pond scum and voted for Republicans for government offices, giving both houses of Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court over to the American Fascist Party. If you have any useful suggestions about what the party now completely out of federal power should be doing, I'm sure about a third of the country would like to know.