First up: Sarah and I argued about everything on the Secret pod today. The show is here.
1. Dear DemocratsDon’t ever do this again:
Chuck Schumer should not be the face of your party. Leading chants is imbecilic. Showing up outside a building is nonsensical. People don’t care about buildings. They care about stories. Further: You are not winning and have no chance to win anything for 21 months. Your message is absurd on its face. Your job as Democrats is to lead the opposition to Trump, which means making Trump unpopular. Right now there are only two engine governors on Trumpism: The courts and his popularity. You can’t influence the courts, but you do have input on public opinion. Stop wasting it. First rule of fight club: Pick your opponent. Ultimately you need to drag Trump’s numbers down, but right now he’s riding high. Elon Musk is a softer target. Musk is a deeply unappealing human. He is inextricably linked to Trump. And his popularity is already moving downhill. Best of all, Musk doesn’t have Trump’s intuitive grasp of demagoguery. Trump knows how to bob and weave. When Musk gets punched in the mouth, all he does is bleed. Second rule of fight club: Find good ground. USAID does not look like good ground. It’s a massive program. It’s mostly about foreign aid. It’s a process story. Musk thinks it’s a great place to make a stand. But you can turn it into a trap for Musk if you’re smart. Ignore the process aspects. Don’t talk about moral obligations. Arguments about creating strategic advantages for China aren’t going to get you anywhere. What you can do is personalize it. Third rule of fight club: Personalize everything.¹ Are you a Democratic officeholder? Great. Buy a plane ticket to Nairobi. When you get there, go to the Mathare settlement and talk to people who are going to die because Musk shut off their HIV medication when he closed down USAID. Get out your phone and take video of these conversations. Post them on YouTube, TikTok, Insta—everywhere. Tell the real stories of actual people who are going to die because of Elon Musk. It won’t be hard to find them. This isn’t an actuarial game where programmatic cuts will, at some future date, result in an increased death rate for nameless, faceless people. You can find the actual human beings who are going to die. You can talk to them. You can share their stories and ask your fellow Americans, “Is this what you voted for?” When you’re done in Nairobi, hop a flight to South Africa and go to Vulindlela—east of Lesotho. Go find Asanda Zondi and interview her. The New York Times was able to do it; surely you can too?
There are many other people—real people—you can interview. The Times has helpfully given you a starting point:
Go find these people. Especially the children. Interview them, on camera. Share their stories with America. Donald Trump and JD Vance aren’t going to respond by saying, “These Untermenschen deserve to die.” But you know who just might say that out loud? The ketamine-addled billionaire and his menagerie of 20-year-old incels. If you’re a Democrat, that’s a contrast you embrace. Keep telling these stories and connecting them to Musk until he defends himself by saying something absolutely ghoulish. Make him radioactive, and let him dangle around Trump’s neck. Because at some point, Musk’s negatives will start to contaminate Trump’s public standing. And then Trump will either have to live with it or cut Musk loose. Which would create a new set of problems for the president. There are other fissures to exploit. Franklin Graham runs a charity called Samaritan’s Purse, which gets $90 million from USAID. Graham says that he has gotten an exemption from the Trump administration for his ministry to keep getting its USAID money. But Catholic Relief Services was not so lucky. They’ve already started laying off employees and shutting down relief programs. Go interview current and former Catholic Relief Services employees and ask them to describe the programs they’ve had to shut down and share the stories of the desperate people the are now leaving behind. Present this side by side with Samaritan’s Purse and ask why Musk spared Trump’s Protestant minister buddy, but not the Papists? Go on offense. Start telling stories. Stop holding press conferences in Washington. And for the love of all that’s holy, put Chuck Schumer in a closet. But wait—there’s actually one more opportunity for Democrats. And it’s scheduled to arrive in a couple of weeks . . . 2. Power NexusThis week Josh Marshall pointed out that House Democrats will have one (1) moment of real leverage over Trump: the budget / debt ceiling vote. Trump cannot pass either without Democratic help. So Democrats have this one chance to extract something meaningful from him.² And Marshall knows exactly what it should be:
This. 👆 How do you operationalize such a deal? That’s where Dems would need to be creative. You can’t just . . . take Trump’s word for it, can you? But that’s how elected Democrats earn their pay: Figuring out binding legislative solutions to situations where two parties have divergent interests. However they do it, ending lawless government should be the Democrats’ only acceptable compromise. Tuesday night, Sarah and I have a live to chat with our founding members about what’s next for The Bulwark and we’ll answer questions too. Leave us your thoughts and questions here.
If you want to attend this first Founders Town Hall of 2025, upgrade your membership today. We’ll send out location link on Tuesday. 3. Da BearsVirginia McCaskey died yesterday:
What a life. Read the whole thing.  1 By now you’ve probably guessed that I’m just restating Saul Alinsky: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” 2 Unless Democrats are willing to refuse to give any help and let Trump and Republicans own the chaos. I’m not advocating that, but I’m not not advocating it, either. I’m open to all ideas here. You’re a free subscriber to Bulwark+. For unfettered access to all our newsletters and ad-free and member-only podcasts, become a paying subscriber. Did you know? You can update your newsletter preferences as often as you like. To update the list of newsletter or alerts you received from The Bulwark, click here.
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