As President Donald Trump drives the stock market down, and his approval rating along with it, by implementing massive tariffs on China and potentially the rest of the world, Democrats across the ideological spectrum have largely stuck to the same script: The tariffs are chaotic, damaging, unnecessary and ill-advised.
But small deviations have revealed the latest phase over the party’s seemingly never-ending ideological clash, as moderates have complained about Democratic politicians’ use of qualifiers when condemning tariffs, arguing it gives unnecessary credence to one of the Republican president’s most unpopular ideas.
Those politicians have often, but not always, come for the party’s progressive wing.
“Trump made a world historic, substantive and political mistake, and caveating your attack on him for this catastrophic error, it makes no sense, either substantively or politically,” said Matt Bennett, the co-founder of the center-left Democratic group Third Way.
Progressives, however, see a bigger issue at play, suspecting moderates are trying to enforce ideological purity and reverse influence the left gained over the party’s economic agenda under former President Joe Biden.
Biden’s administration used tariffs more aggressively than his Democratic predecessors — though at nothing close to the levels Trump is deploying them at.
Progressives and unions have argued smartly-targeted tariffs can help protect critical industries like clean energy and prevent outsourcing.
“The intra factional debates are all about who gets to be the ideas person for next time around,” said a progressive strategist who requested anonymity to speak frankly about intra-party splits. “And what wing of the party gets to beat up on the other wing. And I think that’s what you’re seeing from a resurgent middle.”
Bennet insists that’s not his goal, saying the intra-party debate can wait.
“We’ve got to focus on the ways that Donald Trump is intentionally taking steps that will hurt people,” Bennet told HuffPost. “We don’t need to be having academic conversations about the pareto-optimized merits of various trade schemes.”
It’s not clear all his fellow moderates agree. Progressives and unions remain fearful the party’s centrists will take advantage of a moment where tariffs are as unpopular as they’ve ever been to shift the party back towards a free trade regime they argue is unfair and helped create the party’s trust deficit with working-class voters.
The party’s elected officials, for the most part, seem far less interested in the internal debate than its wonks, with most agreeing there was some place for tariffs even as they not-so-gleefully trashed Trump’s proposals.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who challenges the idea that tariffs are a tool in the tool kit,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a moderate who delivered the party’s response to Trump’s address to Congress earlier this year, told HuffPost. “It’s the absolute chaotic, on again, off again approach that is sloppy and is going to cost Michiganders money.”
The much more progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sounded a similar note in a floor speech where she introduced a resolution to overturn Trump’s tariffs: “We owe it to these communities to integrate tariffs with other economic tools to encourage domestic production and good jobs. But everyone knows that Trump’s tariffs will not do that. They aren’t strategic—they are just plain dumb.”
But cracks in the coalition are still just below the surface. The clearest example of the fight came on Wednesday, the same day Trump announced a 90-day pause on most of his previously announced tariffs but instituted a sky-high 145% tariff on imports from China and kept a 10% global tariff in place.
Win McNamee via Getty Images
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.) delivered a speech Wednesday morning where she laid out her vision of an industrial policy to boost America’s shipbuilding and aviation industries in a way she thought would create both good manufacturing jobs and shore up the country’s defense-industrial base. Part of her plan involved tariffs.
“I’m not against tariffs outright, but it is a blunt tool,” said Whitmer, who is seen as a contender for the presidency in 2028. “You can’t just pull out the tariff hammer to swing at every problem without a clearly defined end goal.”
She also repeatedly criticized Trump’s tariffs in her speech and in an interview after, saying they would “breed destruction,” saying the big losers would be “American manufacturing” and the “American consumer” and predicting the tariffs would lead to “job losses” and “higher costs.”
Gov. Jared Polis (D-Col.), another potential 2028 nominee and a long-time supporter of free trade, shot back at Whitmer on social media: “The ‘tariff hammer’ winds up hitting your own hand rather than the nail. Tariffs are bad outright because they lead to higher prices and destroy American manufacturing.”
Polis was part of an internet pile-on targeting Whitmer, with liberal and center-left pundits questioning her political wisdom. Whitmer allies, however, argued many of them were missing the point of Whitmer’s speech — and later, a meeting she had with Trump.
“Governor Whitmer represents the people of Michigan, not liberals online,” said a Democratic strategist close to Whitmer who requested anonymity because he wasn’t speaking directly for the governor. “There’s this expectation a lot of people seem to have that everybody in the Democratic Party needs to become a resistance hero. We need to make sure there’s space for people to do the jobs they were elected to do.”
Polis, for his part, did not seem interested in starting a feud.
“Differences between Democratic governors on this issue are overblown, and one thing is definitely true: we all agree the actions of the president are reckless and, if unchecked by Republicans in Congress, is leading to a global and disastrous recession,” Polis spokeswoman Ally Sullivan wrote in an email to HuffPost.
For what’s it worth, noting some tariffs can be useful is far from the worst message Democrats could be deploying, even if it’s not the ideal argument. A memo prepared by the Democratic pollster Blue Rose Research and obtained by HuffPost found arguments emphasizing “responsible” tariffs were in the middle of the pack in terms of messaging effectiveness.
The most effective arguments pointed out tariffs were a tax hike on the middle class, and tied them to broader trends in Trump’s administration, including his threats to Social Security and Medicaid and proposed tax cuts for wealthier Americans. Less effective arguments focused too much on the stock market or on personally insulting Trump. (The two worst-testing arguments were comments put forward by two centrist figures: Never-Trump Republican David Frum and billionaire Democratic surrogate Mark Cuban.)
Regardless of what Democrats are saying, the tariffs — and the resulting increased risk of a recession and chaos in financial markets — are taking a clear toll on Trump’s approval rating, which has hit new lows this week, driven in particular by new lows in his handling of the economy. Clear majorities of the public oppose the tariffs in public surveys, and consumer confidence is dropping precipitously.
“[Trump] is underwater on the economy, he is underwater on trade,” the progressive strategist said. “It’s not like a couple of Democrats going out and saying that they think tariffs are a good tool but Trump is not using them well is having much impact on that.”
There are also a handful of Democrats and aligned groups who are absent from the conversation entirely, or are even directly praising Trump. And those voices come from both of the party’s ideological wings. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has been relatively subdued on the issue, as has moderate favorite Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, whose district could benefit from Trump’s tariffs on Canadian lumber.
And both Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), another moderate, and the United Auto Workers, led by the progressive Shawn Fain, have outright praised the tariffs, though Fain backed off some of his prior praise in a livestream on Thursday night.
“We support the use of some tariffs on automotive manufacturing and similar industries,” Fain said. “We do not support reckless tariffs on all countries at crazy rates.”
Progressive and moderate operatives alike viewed both men’s support as both sincere and as a clear effort to appeal to Trump-supporting constituencies: Golden’s district voted for Trump by a 7-point margin in 2024, and Fain’s union has a significant number of Trump supporters in its ranks.
Democratic leadership, for their part, does seem to want the party to focus on the problem in front of them. In an interview with The New Republic earlier this week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries acknowledged the intra-party debate but said the discussion should wait until the country is “able to debate policy in an enlightened way.”
“That’s not this moment. What we have is a president taking a wrecking ball, a sledgehammer, and a chainsaw to the economy and everything that matters,” Jeffries told the magazine. “And that, of course, is going to continue to require strong and principled opposition and righteous indignation.”
That’s advice Bennet is happy with.
“A campfire is good. A forest fire is bad,” he said. “We’re not debating the merit of fire.”
