Orlando Sentinel: ‘Wake up Democrats!’: Frustration boils over with party’s response to Trump
Alex Jimenez of Winter Park, a 65-year-old corporate vice president, might look the part of a moderate suburban Democrat open to a bipartisan message in the Trump era.
But Jimenez is in no such mood.
“WAKE UP DEMOCRATS!” he wrote in a recent letter to the Orlando Sentinel. “The clock is ticking. … Get to work!!”
Jimenez, who considers himself center-left, is “extremely disappointed with Democrats at the moment,” he said. “‘Rudderless’ is the word I think of in describing the party, while Republicans run roughshod over the Constitution and social norms.”
Much of the Democratic base seems increasingly frustrated with what members call a weak response to the Trump administration’s tornado of controversial and potentially unconstitutional actions. Those include mass firings of federal employees, halting federal grants, annexation threats against Canada and Greenland, and on-and-off tariffs.
The next major showdown could come next week in the House of Representatives, where Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has a narrow margin to approve a budget with controversial cuts to Medicaid and other programs.
Democratic leaders want concessions in return for any help passing a budget, including guarantees that President Donald Trump will not continue to freeze funding. But that could also risk a government shutdown.
“There really has to be more boxing gloves on right now,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, who has launched a bid for Orlando mayor in 2027.
“Democrats have good ideas, but they’re seen as ‘weak’,” Eskamani said. “They’re not fighting. So this is the time to give yourself permission to fight. It’s really important that we lead and not be afraid of our own shadow.”
Eskamani helped organize a protest against Trump in Orlando on Tuesday, part of a statewide “March for Democracy” event that also included rallies in Miami, Tallahassee, and Seminole County.
The Orlando rally included members of the Ukrainian community, just days after Trump berated Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office and paused all military aid to the embattled country.
“If we ground ourselves in the personal stories of our own neighbors who are impacted by these policies, then maybe, just maybe, it’ll help Democrats have a spine in this moment of constitutional crisis,” Eskamani said.
Michael D. Wadley, 76, a retired urban planner and former NASA employee who served in the Army Security Agency, was very blunt in a letter to the Sentinel on Tuesday.
“The Democratic Party seems to have folded up their tents and gone home,” wrote Wadley, a lifelong Democrat, also of Winter Park. “My advice to my adult children is sell your houses and move, maybe even to Canada. I can’t believe what’s happening to this country.”
But Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst in Florida, said the discontent among the party base was off-target for a party that controlled neither the White House, the House nor the Senate.
“I think that a lot of the criticism of Democrats in D.C. is just people wanting to be angry at something,” Isbell said. “There’s nothing the Democrats in Congress right now can really do about what’s happening. They can’t control what they can’t control.”
Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has defended his leadership amid criticism. “We’re going to continue to keep the focus on the American people,” he told The Hill.
The grassroots frustration reached a fevered pitch during President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress on Tuesday, when some Democrats dressed in hot pink as a protest and others held paddle-shaped signs with slogans such as “False” and “Save Medicaid.” Both were slammed as ineffective on social media.
Texas congressman Al Green’s shouted at Trump during his speech and was ejected, and Orlando-area congressman Maxwell Frost and several others walked out before Trump finished. Both actions seemed to have been undercut, however, when 10 Democrats voted to censure Green, including U.S. Rep. Jared Moskiwitz, R-Parkland.
A “very unhappy” party leadership also gave Frost and the others a “talking to about their tactics,” Axios reported.
Despite leadership’s disapproval, Frost’s protest has started to resonate. Replicas of the t-shirt he wore during his walkout, which read “No Kings Live Here,” are already being sold online.
Frost has been among the most visible Democrats in protests against Trump and Musk, including those held outside the Treasury and Education departments.
Jayden D’Onofrio, the chair of the Future Leaders Florida political committee, a progressive Gen-Z group, said Democrats are still recovering from “a butt-kicking” in the 2024 election.
“It’s going to take time to perfect what needs to happen as a party, whether it’s messaging, whether it’s organizing, and just gearing up for 2026,” D’Onofrio said. “It’s not every day you come off a massive election loss like that and then get right back up and get ready to keep moving.”
Ultimately it’s the economy that will determine each party’s political future, he said.
“Every single voter across this country is going to feel it in their pocketbooks, wallets and their families at home,” D’Onofrio said of the effects of the president’s tariffs and economic threats.
Isbell said Americans should prepare.
“The cold reality is that the time to stop all of this was the election, and that did not happen,” Isbell said. “So now we are going to have to suffer for it. That pains me. But I’m hunkering down for a bunch of pain.”
By: Steven Lemongello
Source: Orlando Sentinel