January 23, 2025 - 6:30pm

Sometimes, friends deliver the cruellest cuts. Donald Trump’s victory in November was a brutal defeat for the “Resistance”, and now even many Democrats are — for the moment, at least — putting down the anti-MAGA hymnal.

This week, many House Democrats and a dozen Democrats in the Senate gave their support to the Laken Riley Act, which requires that illegal immigrants charged with burglary or theft be detained. This was a modified version of a bill that Senate Democrats rejected last year, proving that the party now senses, albeit belatedly, which way the wind is blowing: towards Trump.

As CNN analyst Harry Enten recently observed, polling on immigration has shown a “massive shift to the Right over the past decade”. Fuelled by the border crisis of the Biden years, Democrats understand they have a massive image problem on immigration, and some in the party see a window of collaborating with Trump on this and potentially other issues in order to take some of their major political vulnerabilities off the table.

That is why 13 Senate Democrats wrote to Majority Leader John Thune this week to call for a bipartisan deal to secure “immigration enforcement” and a “firm but fair immigration system that streamlines processes and better addresses our workforce needs”. This is a far cry from the “decriminalise illegal immigration” progressive litmus test of 2020, and most of the signatories of the letter come from swing states or are up for re-election in 2026. That could augur an opening for immigration legislation which delivers on populist priorities.

In terms of Trump’s Cabinet appointments, they have mostly avoided the fervid denunciations of eight years ago. Marco Rubio was unanimously confirmed as Secretary of State. While Treasury nominee Scott Bessent has not yet been voted on by the full Senate, Democrats Mark Warner and Maggie Hassan voted in favour of him in the Finance Committee. By way of comparison, only a single Democrat — West Virginia’s Joe Manchin — voted for Trump’s first Treasury head, Steve Mnuchin, in the full-Senate vote in 2017.

Aside from the fireworks at the hearing for Defence pick Pete Hegseth this month, Democrats have so far avoided the histrionics that characterised their past treatment of Trump nominees. The party might be keeping its powder dry for future high-profile clashes, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s nomination for Health and Human Services or Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as intelligence chief.

More broadly, working with Trump to pass legislation on the border, industrial policy, trade and other issues could be a way for the Democratic Party to rebrand itself. As well as the signatories to the letter to Thune, Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman has in the past made overtures about working with Republicans on border security. Maine Democrat Jared Golden, who represents a congressional district won by Trump, has rolled out a proposal for a universal 10% tariff — something the new President has suggested in the past.

As Democrats have become increasingly identified with the culture wars of well-heeled progressives, they have lost ground with the blue-collar voters who used to be an electoral bulwark. Fashioning the party around the “resistance” to Donald Trump was at once the apotheosis of that culture war and a demonstration of the dangers Democrats face by fixating on the concerns of elite cultural progressives.

If Democrats are able to pivot in that more populist direction, it could provide a policy opportunity for Republicans while also raising political pressures on the GOP. The realities of American politics often demand bipartisan coalitions to enact major legislation, so Democratic support could help Trump and his fellow Republicans introduce a bigger policy agenda. However, that reformed Democratic Party would also be poised to challenge Republicans from the populist Left. Shedding their culture-war baggage could give Democrats an opening to pummel Republicans if the GOP becomes too identified with tech elites, or if the economy hits a rough patch.


Fred Bauer is a writer from New England.

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