Senate And House Democrats Can’t Get On The Same Page

While the Democratic civil war has metastasized to states across the country, the epicenter is still in Washington, D.C. This morning, Politico documents how House and Senate Democrats are greatly divided over how to move forward in the post-Obama world.

According to the report, while more than 50 House Democrats are boycotting the inauguration, Senate Democrats have ignored the House effort:

“A growing effort by House Democrats to snub Donald Trump’s inauguration has been all but dismissed by their colleagues in the Senate, the latest sign of sharp divisions among Capitol Hill Democrats as they weigh resistance tactics in the Trump era. Though more than 50 House members — over a quarter of the entire Democratic caucus — plan on skipping Trump’s swearing in ceremony Friday, not one senator would take up their call. In fact, the tactic was largely met with a shrug by Senate Democrats, who nearly all said they’d be going out of respect for the peaceful transfer of power.”

As Politico highlights, this is not the first time Senate Democrats have snuffed a House effort to protest the new president:

“It’s the second time this month that House Democrats seized on an opportunity to embarrass Trump only to be shunned by their Senate colleagues. On Jan. 6, about half a dozen members mounted a fruitless bid to delay Trump’s Electoral College victory only to fall short when no senators would join them.”

While Congressional Democrats grapple with tactical disagreements, they must also confront the larger problem that the supposed Obama coalition failed in 2016:

“Simply put, Democrats’ once vaunted coalition of the ascendant — younger, multiethnic, educated, and urban — failed them in 2016, and in 2014 and 2010 before that. That coalition proved to have major handicaps, part demographic and part geographic, that have been hollowing out the party for years.”

Democrats are out of power to a degree not seen for many decades. The squabbles currently plaguing House and Senate relations will only set them back further.