During President Donald Trump’s reactionary 100-minute speech to Congress on March 4, one lone Democrat in the chamber loudly protested: Representative Al Green. As the president claimed that his November 5 electoral victory was a mandate from Americans, the Texas representative yelled, “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid,” and was eventually ejected. The rest of the Democrats sat silently for the longest presidential address to Congress in modern history, with some tepidly holding up small paddles reading, “Musk Steals,” “Save Medicaid,” and “False.”

For many Democratic voters and liberal commentators, Green’s outburst was a breath of fresh air. After all, since Trump took office in January, Democratic politicians have been largely passive as the new far-right administration takes a sledgehammer to U.S. institutions, and attacks immigrants and “wokeness.” More perplexing is the reaction from some sectors on the Left who, in their defense of Green, are once again operating under the illusion that the Democrats can fight Trump.

Writing in Jacobin Magazine, Liza Feathersone recently published an article entitled “The Democratic Opposition Should Look More Like Rep. Al Green.” To be sure, she is right to defend Green’s public challenge to Trump and call out the ten Democrats who voted to censure him. However, the call for the constituents of these ten politicians to show them “no peace” is a tired strategy that has been proven to be ineffective time and again. It is a strategy that keeps all the effort and energy of those disgruntled with the Democrats chained to a political party that consistently ignores its base. No amount of phone calls to Democrats will change the fact that it’s a capitalist party, opposed to the interests of workers and the oppressed, that cannot put up a meaningful fight to the Far Right. 

The Democratic Party’s relationship with the Uncommitted Movement is a prime example of the lengths to which the Democrats will go to ignore their base, a dynamic which contributed to Harris’ defeat by Trump. So, too, is its decision to choose Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin to deliver their response to Trump. Her speech was as chauvinist as Trump’s in many ways, and enraged just as many progressives as Trump’s speech did.

If we put one-tenth of all the ink and energy into building a working-class party that we pour into the Democrats, we would be well on our way to building the type of party that could help build the movement we need to confront Trump. Now is not the time to waste our energy on reformist strategies that reduce the collective power we have on a party that continuously fails to fight for us. Now is the time to focus on building independent organizations that fight to unite the working class and oppressed against the xenophobic, protectionist agenda of Trump

Instead of embracing a populist agenda that fights for medicaid but abandons trans rights or the fight against “wokeness,” we need a socialist program that fights for ALL workers AND the oppressed who will suffer from Trump’s protectionist tariffs, his xenophobic anti-immigrant policy, imperialist offensive against Latin America, and threats against Palestine.