Democrats Should’ve Caused a Scene at Trump’s Congressional Circle Jerk

If they really felt they had to attend, they could have at least tried something more impactful than wearing pink or holding up little signs.

By Kylie Cheung | March 5, 2025 | 12:09pm

Photo: Getty Images Politics

Democrats Should’ve Caused a Scene at Trump’s Congressional Circle Jerk

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that most meetings could be an email. But in the case of Donald Trump’s first joint Congressional address Tuesday night, it was a meeting that felt more like the sort of junk mail your email filter sends straight to spam—like the early 2000s, racist, conspiracy theory-laden chain emails old people forwarded each other before Facebook existed.

During his nearly 100-minute-long speech, Trump rambled about everything that struck his fancy, including a head-scratching claim that DOGE caught the Biden administration spending $8 million on “transgender mice.” As the cost of quite literally everything surges, he dedicated a large portion of his speech to what his base regards as the most pressing national concern: division III high school volleyball—and further demonizing trans kids who just want to play sports. He joked about defunding African nations that he couldn’t name, some of which will see HIV/AIDS and consequent deaths soar—to enthusiastic laughter from JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson, behind him. He railed against immigrants for supposedly endangering American women, even as Trump himself has been accused of sexual misconduct by over two dozen women. He thanked Elon Musk for destroying the federal government. He doubled down on his fantasy of annexing Greenland, “one way or another.” And he pledged to build the “most dominant civilization” the world has ever seen. “Our country will be woke no longer,” the 78-year-old declared. But then later declared that wokeness is already “gone.” “And we feel so much better for it, don’t we?” he added. “Don’t we feel better?” Not really!

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All of it was vile, but none of it was surprising. What I did find surprising was how many Democrats filled the chamber. At the very least, everyone in attendance should have followed the example of Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who was physically removed within minutes of the speech for protesting Trump over his administration’s threats to cut hundreds of millions from Medicaid and Social Security. “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!” he yelled as he was removed. (Shortly after that kerfuffle, Trump boasted about restoring free speech to the nation.) It was quite the sight to watch Green exit alone, when every Democrat should have walked out in solidarity with him.

At different points, a handful of other Democratic members led by Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Maxwell Frost of Florida did end up walking out together. Some removed jackets to reveal shirts that said “RESIST” as they did. A handful of other Democratic members sat in the audience wearing some shade of pink—ostensibly in protest of Trump’s regime of toxic and violent masculinity. And they held up small signs, all with different phrases, like “MUSK STEALS,” “SAVE MEDICAID,” or “SAVE OUR VETERANS,” in a display that only underscored their disjointedness and lack of unity.

What Al Green said to Trump before being removed:

“You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!”

He’s right. The overwhelming majority of the country including 70% of Trump’s own voters don’t support cutting Medicaid. pic.twitter.com/enL4F3OXm4

— Power to the People ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) March 5, 2025

Most of these displays—apart from one Democrat getting physically removed—fell completely flat. As writer Krang T. Nelson put it, pointing to the members who protested by wearing pink, “If you think Trump is a fascist, like Hitler was, then you have to accept that this is a ridiculous thing to do. ‘In response to Hitler’s policies, some members of the German left party wore purple hats’—do you see how stupid that sounds?” Participating in the theater of the Trump administration on any level serves to normalize him.

There are so many ways this could have gone differently. If Democrats united in protest and refused to attend, perhaps that would have been the main headline rather than any of Trump’s lies. They certainly could have taken a page from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and skipped the address, all while engaging with her followers on an Instagram Live stream afterward. That being said, since so many of them wanted to attend, presumably to disapprovingly frown and “boo” and counteract the cheers of the GOP side of the chamber, they should have spent every minute disrupting Trump until they, like Green, were physically removed. This would have stolen key airtime and attention from Trump’s speech.

Decorum and old notions of bipartisanship and “civility” are dead; the world is on fire. Almost anything would have been better than sitting in pink blazers or “RESIST” t-shirts as if fascism can be defeated via adherence to norms and politeness with a pinch of spice. Might I instead suggest Democrats take a page from South Korean or Serbian lawmakers, vis-a-vis resistance???

And, I can’t stress this enough: There was nothing important from Trump’s speech. Nothing. At one point, he wielded a child cancer survivor as an inspirational prop—all while his administration is currently defunding vital cancer research. He bragged about “defending women” and “protecting children”—all while abortion bans threaten women’s lives, and his threats to health care for trans youth similarly threaten children’s lives. Where are Democrats on any of this, you ask? Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries instructed his caucus to be kind and polite no matter what Trump says. A disinterested Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) scrolled on her phone. And, look, I’d probably do that too—but at home, not in the audience of the fascist circle jerk!

Between Trump’s absurd remarks and Democrats’ feckless response-slash-non-response, it was all incredibly disheartening. One Democratic member held up a small sign that read “THIS IS NOT NORMAL” behind Trump until a different member, presumably a Republican, tore it out of her hands. Ironically, that—the act of getting scrappy and aggressive, actually doing something to the tune of ripping a sign out of someone’s hands—would go infinitely further toward communicating that “THIS IS NOT NORMAL” than a politely worded sign.