In a speech on Sunday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker denounced fellow Democrats who have suggested that their party ought to abandon its support for marginalized groups for political gain.
Pritzker’s comments, which came at a fundraising dinner in New Hampshire, speak to the divide between Democrats who want to wage an aggressive fight against Trumpism and other Democrats who think the president and his movement may be on to something in pursuing a revanchist agenda.
In excerpts reported by The New York Times, Pritzker railed against his party for “listening to a bunch of do-nothing political types who would tell us that America’s house is not on fire, even as the flames are licking their faces.” He added: “Today, as the blaze reaches the rafters, the pundits and politicians — whose simpering timidity served as kindle for the arsonists — urge us now not to reach for a hose.”
The governor reportedly also denounced Democrats for “flocking to podcasts and cable news shows to admonish fellow Democrats for not caring enough about the struggles of working families” while “those same do-nothing Democrats want to blame our losses on our defense of Black people and trans kids and immigrants, instead of their own lack of guts and gumption.”
Pritzker’s comments might be read as a thinly veiled reference to Democrats such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who recently garnered backlash for launching a podcast that he has used to criticize transgender girls’ participation in sports and praise MAGA influencers like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. California’s governor also received pushback from Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., after Newsom called the Trump administration’s mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador “the distraction of the day.”
“I think Americans are tired of elected officials or politicians who are all finger to the wind — what’s blowing this way, what’s blowing that way. And anybody who can’t stand up for the Constitution and the right of due process doesn’t deserve to lead,” Van Hollen said recently on “Meet the Press.”
There’s an ongoing feud among Democrats whether targeting Trump over immigration enforcement is prudent, considering it’s an issue that has polled well for him in the past, but a recent dip in his approval ratings on immigration — and the chorus of right-wing criticism he has received over his immigration policies should be a lesson to Democrats that targeting Trump on issues that seem like political winners for him can be fruitful.
Nonetheless, we’re still seeing division among liberals over tactics — for example, in the war of words between Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Last week, Politico obtained a recording of a dry run of a speech in which Slotkin bizarrely called on Democrats to shake a perception of being “weak and woke” and to embrace “the goddamn alpha energy” of the Detroit Lions’ head coach, Dan Campbell. Slotkin also criticized Democrats for using the term “oligarchy” to target Trump, arguing that most Americans don’t understand the term.
Sanders, who along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has garnered tens of thousands of attendees on their “Fighting Oligarchy” nationwide tour, downplayed Slotkin’s remarks as being out of touch. “I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are,” Sanders said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Watch his interview here:
