A Book Club for Bewildered Democrats

One thing is even more demoralizing than President Trump’s apparent lawbreaking and kowtowing to Vladimir Putin. It’s that weeks of outrages have not significantly dented Trump’s popularity.

Trump’s favorability ratings ticked down slightly in recent days but remain higher now than when he was elected in November. So let’s acknowledge a painful truth: Now that American voters have actually seen Trump trample the Constitution, pardon violent insurrectionists and side with the Kremlin against our allies, after all this, if the election were held today, Trump might well win by an even wider margin than he did in November.

Democrats have been ineffective so far at holding Trump accountable, and he will do much more damage in the coming years unless we liberals figure out how to regain the public trust.

Maybe Trump’s overreach will catch up with him. But a Quinnipiac poll last month showed the lowest level of approval for Democrats (31 percent) since Quinnipiac began asking the question in 2008.

Part of the problem, I think, is that many educated Democrats are insulated from the pain and frustration in the working class and too often come across as out of touch. Instead of listening to frustrated workers, elites too often have lectured them, patronized them or dismissed them as bigots.

That sense of our obliviousness is amplified when Trump takes a sledgehammer to the system, and we are perceived as defenders of the status quo. This will be a challenge to navigate, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers.