{"id":4698,"date":"2025-01-09T21:35:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T21:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-new-years-resolution-reclaim-upper-hand-on-the-economy-and-trash-the-billionaire-boys-club\/"},"modified":"2025-01-09T21:35:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T21:35:20","slug":"democrats-new-years-resolution-reclaim-upper-hand-on-the-economy-and-trash-the-billionaire-boys-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-new-years-resolution-reclaim-upper-hand-on-the-economy-and-trash-the-billionaire-boys-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats\u2019 new year’s resolution: Reclaim upper hand on the economy and trash the \u2018billionaire boys club\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

NEW YORK \u2014 The Democratic Party\u2019s top two congressional leaders \u2014 both New Yorkers \u2014 agree: The party lost big in the election over voters\u2019 economic fears and must now overhaul its pocketbook messaging to win again.<\/p>\n

\u201cPromises to help working people sound nice, but they mean nothing without real results,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> said in kicking off the new Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cHouse Democrats will fight hard to protect working-class Americans and the things that matter to them, not the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected,\u201d House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> vowed in his own floor speech.<\/p>\n

But other New York Democrats in Congress aren\u2019t as sure.<\/p>\n

Interviews with nearly every New York House Democrat reveal variations on where they believe their party\u2019s push against incoming President Donald Trump should start, underscoring Jeffries\u2019 challenge in leading a big-tent caucus that ranges from socialists to Blue Dogs. Some House members are less humbled by their party\u2019s election drubbing than others, some blame messaging and others blame culture wars \u2014 even if the most consistent theme emerging is the urgent need to wrestle back the economic narrative from the Republicans.<\/p>\n

The Empire State will have an outsized role in that mission with Schumer and Jeffries as the highest-ranking Democrats in Washington, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand<\/a> leading the Senate Dems\u2019 campaign arm<\/a>, several House New Yorkers as ranking members and caucus chairs and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a> as a national progressive standard-bearer. New York was one of the few bright spots in last year\u2019s election for Democrats, too \u2014 with the party picking up three House seats there.<\/p>\n

Some of those Democrats are now beginning to build out the case on cost of living. In the two months since Republicans won the White House, Senate and House, Trump has stacked his administration picks<\/a> with at least 13 billionaires<\/a> and enabled Musk to meddle with a government shutdown deal with misinformation<\/a> that dismissed the tangible implications of such an action.<\/p>\n

As the House session ended last month, Jeffries flicked at this as his Republican counterparts struggled from self-inflicted wounds, namely Trump and Musk\u2019s 11th-hour torpedoing<\/a> of a bipartisanship shutdown package and last-minute hedging<\/a> from House conservatives on supporting Mike Johnson<\/a> (R-La.) for speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cHouse Democrats have successfully stopped the billionaire boys club,\u201d the minority leader told reporters.<\/p>\n

And while kitchen-table economics will drive the narrative for Democrats, the messaging won\u2019t be a one-size-fits-all approach.<\/p>\n

Several of Jeffries\u2019 fellow members from New York say he\u2019s granted them the latitude to approach Trump 2.0 in a way that\u2019s best for them and their districts.<\/p>\n

Rep. Tom Suozzi<\/a>, one of 48 House Democrats who recently voted for the Laken Riley Act<\/a> cracking down on illegal immigration, commended the leader as \u201cnot very heavy handed\u201d and said he believes the border is a key starting point for his party as it prepares for Trump 2.0.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to actually do something effectively, and not just do it for political purposes \u2026 which is to secure the border, which is to fix the broken asylum system, which is to modernize the legal immigration system, you should really be doing it on a bipartisan basis,\u201d Suozzi said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Rep. Yvette Clarke<\/a>, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, said more broadly it\u2019s about combating misinformation: \u201cThe bottom line to it is that we have to create an ecosystem of truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, others, including Reps. Greg Meeks<\/a>, Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez<\/a> and Pat Ryan<\/a>, said in interviews that Democrats should begin with the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s one takeaway, in my view, of this last set of elections, it\u2019s us clearly reasserting we are for middle class and working-class people and against big corporations and billionaires,\u201d Ryan, a frontline Democrat in the Hudson Valley, told Blue Light News.<\/p>\n

In the Senate, Schumer has argued it\u2019s Republicans \u2014 not Democrats \u2014 who are the party of the privileged as he used the waning weeks of 2024 to speedily confirm Biden-appointed judges. He led the outgoing majority in confirming 235<\/a> of them \u2014 more than any administration this century.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a very long time, the norm was to prioritize judicial nominees who came from a privileged pool. Most of them were prosecutors or from large, corporate law firms. Most were male, most were white,\u201d the 74-year-old Brooklynite said in a floor speech. \u201cBut when Senate Democrats entered the majority, we cast a wider net.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Schumer, who was also minority leader when Trump first took office in 2017, the next task ahead will involve determining which of Trump\u2019s Cabinet appointees Democrats should reject and confirm. He has yet to offer specifics publicly about the president-elect\u2019s picks, but he told his majority leader replacement<\/a> Sen. John Thune<\/a> (R-S.D.) that Democrats plan to fully vet each nominee and signaled Republicans should do the same.<\/p>\n

The confirmation hearings set to begin this month will present the next big opportunity for Democrats to show where Republicans\u2019 winning approach to the economy could be more perception than reality, especially because Trump has tapped several billionaires with limited qualifications to join his Cabinet.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest chance Democrats will have this year to put the GOP on the defensive about the economy will be the yearlong fight over Trump\u2019s signature tax cuts<\/a>, which expire in December. Rep. Pramila Jayapal<\/a> (D-Wash.), former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, believes the party\u2019s resources should be focused on that legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe starting point is the biggest proposals that Trump is going to push that showcase the difference between them and us,\u201d Jayapal said in an interview. \u201cSo I think of the Trump tax scam as being No. 1, because I think that when you have a Cabinet full of billionaires, this is an opportunity for Democrats to show how we want the economy to work for poor people and working people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newly reelected GOP Rep. Mike Lawler<\/a> of New York has said he would work with Democrats, including on restoring the state and local tax deduction, or SALT, but he cautioned: \u201cI do encourage my Democratic colleagues not to do the Resistance 2.0.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, a full-time resistance is not Democrats\u2019 plan<\/a>. Stressing areas primed for bipartisanship, like immigration, and areas where they will stand their ground, like Medicare, is much closer to how their strategy is shaping up.<\/p>\n

Jeffries and Schumer, who have a solid working relationship<\/a> as fellow Brooklynites, albeit from different generations, were unanimously reelected as conference leaders. Jeffries is the son of a social worker and substance abuse counselor. Schumer is the son of an exterminator and homemaker. Meeks said in an interview that their backgrounds will help convince voters ahead of the midterms that Democrats understand their economic struggles \u201cbecause they have lived it themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the two New Yorkers are also members of the political establishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople understand that the Democratic Party and Republican Party, a lot of them get money from a lot of the same people, and the money in our politics is corrupting,\u201d said New York Working Families Party co-director Jasmine Gripper. \u201cSo it feels like people are fighting for the billionaires, but not fighting for the everyday voter and the everyday American.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite such perceptions, Democratic Party leaders say they\u2019re better positioned to face off against Trump than when he first occupied the White House. Jeffries has sought to underscore that his minority isn\u2019t all that minor<\/a>. The government shutdown chaos of last month proved that Johnson needs some Democrats to bail him out<\/a> on key legislative fights. And Jeffries has repeatedly noted<\/a> that the GOP\u2019s five-seat advantage is far narrower than their margin of 47, when Trump took office in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy prediction is that House Democrats under Leader Jeffries are going to be the most powerful minority that we\u2019ve seen in recent history, because the Republican margin of control is so vanishingly small,\u201d Rep. Ritchie Torres<\/a> (D-N.Y.) said in an interview. \u201cIt is unlikely that the Republicans will be able to get anything major done without the buy-in of Leader Jeffries and House Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 The Democratic Party\u2019s top two congressional leaders \u2014 both New Yorkers \u2014 agree: The party lost big in the election over voters\u2019 economic fears and must now overhaul its pocketbook messaging to win again. \u201cPromises to help working people sound nice, but they mean nothing without real results,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}