Stephen A. Smith’s latest hot take is that the Democratic Party is a hot mess.
The sharp-tongued sports commentator insists there is no other way to explain why he is considered a possible 2028 contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I think it is an indictment against the Democratic Party,” Mr. Smith said during a recent appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Four months after the November election, Democrats are in disarray about the best way forward against President Trump’s hard-charging agenda — though there are a slew of opinions about the party’s best path forward.
Some want more pushback. Others less. Some want the party to champion liberal ideas. Still others advocate a more moderate tone.
Democratic leaders in Congress haven’t found the right buttons to push since voters relegated them to the minority in the House and Senate, though the new economic uncertainty has given them something to wield.
The list of likely 2028 presidential contenders is taking a wait-and-see approach to the party’s direction, balancing their interest in seeking higher office while not alienating voters that handed Republicans the keys to Washington.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that Democrats have been on their heels since Trump won the election,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Michigan Democrat, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, have faced intense pressure from the party base to mount more of an aggressive resistance against Mr. Trump, who they say is destroying American democracy, and who have organized protests at GOP town halls across the country.
They are sick of business as usual. They want party leaders to make life as difficult as possible for the Trump administration.
Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, which promotes liberal candidates, has warned that party leaders need to show they are leading the way or they could find themselves on the political chopping block.
“Are we in a constitutional crisis or not?” Mr. Levin said. “There’s zero tactical or innovative leadership.”
Sen. Bernard Sanders, the 83-year-old avowed Democratic socialist, has tried to step into the void and recently launched the Stop Oligarchy Tour to energize liberal voters in House swing districts.
James Carville, a veteran Democratic strategist, has a far different idea.
“With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead,” Mr. Carville said in a recent New York Times op-ed. “Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us.”
Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who lost his reelection race in the fall, wants Democrats to fix the party’s “toxic” brand by returning to their working-class roots and taking on corporate interests.
“But instead, the message they’ve heard from party elites, over and over, has been: We know better than you do. Voters sense it. They hate it. And until we fix it, working-class voters will continue to abandon us,” the Ohio Democrat said in a National Review op-ed.
Mr. Brown said the party must listen to workers, who “are going to tell us things that make us uncomfortable or that we may not want to hear.”
“But if we are going to be the workers’ party, that can’t apply only when the opinions of working-class voters happen to match up with those of current party leaders and elite donors,” he said.
The harsh reality facing Democrats is that there are limited pickup opportunities in the 2026 Senate races and the 2028 presidential race likely will turn into an interparty brawl that will expose fissures in the party over how far left to go on issues such as transgenderism and immigration.
For now, Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries are struggling to keep their troops on the same page.
Calls for restraint at Mr. Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress fell on deaf ears.
Rep. Al Greene, Texas Democrat, was ushered out of the chamber after standing, shouting and shaking his walking cane in protest at Mr. Trump. Most Democrats refused to stand for a 13-year-old brain cancer survivor because he was Mr. Trump’s guest.
Sen. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania Democrat, chided his party for a “sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance.”
“It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained,” Mr. Fetterman said. “We’re becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to — and it may not be the winning message.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat, agreed.
“The story should have been on President Trump” and how the GOP’s spending plan would increase the national deficit and usher in Medicaid cuts.
“Instead, we are talking about our own behavior, and that’s a distraction from us getting out our economic message,” he said.
