Progressive Democrats grappling with how to navigate a second Donald Trump presidency are deciding on a new approach: taking his populist and working-class proposals at face value, or at least pretending to.
If he succeeds, they can take some credit for bringing him to the negotiating table. If you don’t, they may criticize you for it.
It’s a shift in strategy, which emerged in private conversations among some liberal elected officials and operatives, that comes after years of resistance to Trump ended with his return to the White House.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview that she would likely work with Trump if he follows through on antitrust promises he made during the election campaign. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he sees himself partnering with Trump to address “major corporate consolidations,” while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) posted on X that he “looked forward” to Trump “keeping his promise” to cap credit card interest rates.
Even Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the resistance icon who popularized the “yet she persisted” slogan while attacking a Trump Cabinet nominee in 2017, is finding common cause with the president-elect.
“President Trump announced during his campaign that he intended to put a 10 percent interest rate cap on consumer credit,” Warren told POLITICO. “Come on.”
But, he added, “if he refuses to fulfill campaign promises that would help workers, then he should be held accountable.”
An aide to a progressive member of Congress, granted anonymity to discuss domestic strategy, stated the obvious: Liberal Democrats will continue to oppose most of what Trump does “tooth and nail.”
However, the person said: “For the few policy proposals that we think will help the working class, one of them being capping credit card interest rates, we will say, ‘Put up or shut up.’ Because if you do, it will be a huge victory for millions of people across this country. And if you don’t do it, it exposes you as the fraud that you are.”
Progressives aren’t suddenly buying MAGA hats, and since Trump isn’t in office yet, the variety of ways they can engage with him (or oppose him) remains a work in progress. They are still shocked by Trump’s behavior and policies, including his plans to create the largest deportation program in history, cut taxes for the wealthy and roll back transgender rights. And many of them fear that Trump is a would-be dictator who threatens democracy itself (something Trump’s allies have said is unfounded).
But some of Trump’s populist campaign promises coincide with progressives’ own aspirations. These include making in vitro fertilization treatments free, ending tip taxes and capping credit card interest rates. He has also promised for years to protect popular Social Security and Medicare programs. At times, he has advocated for Medicare to be ordered to negotiate drug prices.
Asked for comment, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said: “President Trump’s America First policies will help energize all Americans and Democrats know that voters now strongly support him, unlike their failed and tired policies that have devastated this country for the last four years. .”
And some of Trump’s allies have also backed a handful of other ideas that progressives support, from cutting the Pentagon to strictly enforcing antitrust laws.
Billionaire Elon Musk, accused by Trump of reducing the federal government, seemed to agree with the progressive representative. Ro Khanna in a recent thread on X that the Department of Defense spends too much money on contractors.
Trump’s top ally Matt Gaetz, whom the president-elect tapped for attorney general but has since retired, has praised Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan. Khan is revered on the left for angering Wall Street and aggressively breaking up monopolies. Although Khan is not expected to remain under the Trump administration, and musk said “She would be fired soon,” Vice President-elect JD Vance also spoke positively of her and called for dissolving Big Tech.
Last week, Khan returned the favor at an FTC meetingsaying she is “very grateful and appreciative of the bipartisan support” for her work, “including that of Vice President-elect Vance and former Congressman Gaetz.”
Progressives are clear that with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, many, if not most, of Trump’s populist campaign promises will not be fulfilled — if he ever took them seriously to begin with. But they believe his voters want him to deliver. They also lack power in Congress and are desperate for even an outside opportunity to influence policy.
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Institute, said his group conducted polls in the critical states of Pennsylvania and Michigan during the final week of the election. He said the polls, conducted in conjunction with the liberal firm Data for Progress, found that a majority of Trump voters want him to crack down on price gouging, raise taxes on billionaires and strengthen antitrust laws.
“Trump really made promises to people, like helping Social Security recipients, ending tip taxes and capping credit card interest at 10 percent,” he said. “His own voters believe he has a mandate on this, along with higher taxes on billionaires and large corporations. So let’s hold up a mirror to him and ask him: are you going to be a hypocrite or not?
Not all progressives agree with that strategy. Rep. summer reads (D-Pa.), a member of the so-called Squad, said of Trump: “I have never had the impression that he has been responsible for anything in his life.” But he said, “I don’t blame anyone for trying.”
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said holding Trump to the fire in Congress is “a little unrealistic — we don’t have the votes.” But he said there is room to advocate for liberal policies.
“If there are areas where we agree, let’s work together and resolve them: credit card fees, interest rate caps, prescription drug benchmark prices,” he said. “I’m talking about working on things that will help working-class people.”
Either way, it’s not 2017 anymore. And Resistance 2.0 won’t look exactly the same as its first era.
“There will be places where resistance will be appropriate,” Warren said. “For example, if Trump follows in the footsteps of his vice president JD Vance by attempting to ban abortion access nationwide through the FDA, there will be massive resistance. If Trump delivers on his promises of more tax cuts for billionaires and multibillion-dollar corporations, we will be in that fight until the end.”
At the same time, he said, “if Trump is going to reduce interest rates on all consumer loans to 10 percent, count me in.”