As president-elect, Donald Trump has quickly proven to be every bit the nightmare his opponents feared. He’s continuing to tweet absurd lies (such as his claim that he won the popular vote), and now he’s tapping extremists for high positions, like white nationalist Stephen Bannon, conspiracy-minded General Michael Flynn, and civil-rights antagonist Senator Jeff Sessions. What makes the lurch to the hard right all the more galling for Democrats is the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2.5 million votes (roughly 2 percent). That means Trump—with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress—will be able to inflict a radical agenda on the country with minority support. (Just how little support is reflected in Trump’s favorability rating of 42 percent, a whopping 16 points lower than the norm for president-elects at this point.)



The time is ripe for a concerted, coherent opposition to Trump even before he’s inaugurated. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is facing this national crisis leaderless. The hunger among liberals for an oppositional stance is strong—you can see it, among other things, in the grassroots protest of Trump’s elevation of Bannon to the position of chief counsel (which has resulted in a flood of phone calls and letters to members of Congress), as well as the success of Green Party Leader Jill Stein in raising money for her efforts to recount the vote in three key states.

Significantly, both of those efforts are taking place outside the Democratic Party (although 169 congressional Democrats have signed a letter denouncing the Bannon appointment). They are flourishing in part because of the leadership gap on the Democratic side: President Obama is constrained by norms governing how a president treats his successor; Hillary Clinton by norms that dictate a defeated candidate keep a low profile; and the next head of the Democratic National Committee won’t be picked till the end of February.

Democrats should take a cue from parliamentary democracies. In those systems, the party that comes in second still has an official leader. That party head becomes the recognized leader of the opposition, and as such has the job of holding the government accountable.

In the American system, there is no official position as leader of the opposition. There’s a legislative role for the minority leaders in the House of Representatives (Nancy Pelosi) and the Senate (Chuck Schumer), of course. And Schumer, in particular, will have some real leverage—thanks to the Democrats’ ability to filibuster some nominees and legislation in the Senate, the narrowness of the Republican majority in that chamber, and the pronounced willingness of Republican senators like Lindsay Graham and Rand Paul to buck Trump. He’ll play a big role in winning a few battles against Trump’s nominations and policies, and so will Pelosi, to a lesser extent.