Where is the opposition party?

Trump is a trip too far for neocon author of PNAC, Bill Kristol.

Democrats in Washington are, as a matter of governing, irrelevant for the next year.

They cannot pass or propose legislation. They cannot hold hearings. They are in no position to stop the Trump administration from doing whatever it wants.

The job of the Democratic party, then is to get into position to get into position. That job comes in two parts.

First: Do not help Republicans. Not in any way. On any issue. Republicans can’t pass a budget, or raise the debt ceiling? Tough luck. Do not provide them any bailout votes on any issue. Period, the end.

  The Bulwark

They'll never go for that. What else?

Second: Make Donald Trump own every bad outcome that happens, anywhere in the world while paying special attention to areas where Republicans are particularly vulnerable. Like housing and Ukraine.

[...]

To start with, housing was the one valid economic complaint people had during the Biden years.

Biden didn’t start the housing affordability crisis—that train left the station in the late ’90s. It got worse under Trump. And then it got even worse under Biden.

[...]

Something like a quarter of the construction workers in America are here illegally. That’s just the national average. In Texas the number is estimated to be 60 percent.

You can’t address housing affordability without substantially increasing the housing supply. But if Trump is serious about mass deportations, then housing starts will be under downward pressure.

[...]

Democrats ought to talk about housing all day, every day. Make it the new price of eggs.

[...]

Trump has set up impossible expectations: He promised to end the war in 24 hours. Starting on January 22, Democrats should ask, every day, why the war is still ongoing.

[...]

It is not inconceivable that Ukrainian defenses could collapse and Russia could start advancing with alacrity.

Presidents own the wars they inherit. Always. Nixon didn’t send troops to Vietnam, but he owned the conflict anyway. Biden didn’t sign the surrender with the Taliban, but he owned the withdrawal and everything bad that came with it.

If things go south in Ukraine, Democrats should make sure that Trump owns every death, every horrible picture, every atrocity.

Yeah, they're not good at that sort of thing, either.

The job of an opposition party is to impose political pain. The point of political pain is to make the president unpopular.

[...]

I feel silly even saying this because it’s Politics 101. It’s like explaining to a fish that water is supposed to be wet.

But Democrats aren’t acting anything like an opposition party. Joe Biden is bragging to USA Today about how Trump said something nice about him. Merrick Garland is deferring to Aileen Cannon. John Fetterman is vouching for Kash Patel’s sacred honor. Chuck Schumer is playing footsie with Trump’s Gulf of America nonsense.

What is wrong with these people?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.