Nancy Kaffer

Detroit Free Press Columnist

Maybe it's time to go low.

That's what I've heard again and again from a vocal and growing contingent of Democratic and progressive voters who are tired of compromise, and tired of losing.

These are the folks who are turning up in record-breaking numbers to protest President Donald Trump's agenda, connecting on and offline in groups built around grassroots activism. Ask those folks what they want, and they'll tell you no. Lots of no. A wall of no, thrown up in the path of Trump's agenda. A good place to start? Trump's cabinet nominations, which progressives and activists are starting to view as an ideological purity test -- one that Senate Democrats are failing.

Folks devastated by Trump's win -- on the back of white nationalism, followed by a rise in hate crimes, an executive order imposing a travel ban on some majority Muslim countries and ceasing U.S. acceptance of refugees, and a slew of cabinet nominees with gleeful plans to dismantle the departments they've been appointed to lead -- are ready to push back, and they expect their senators to lead the charge.

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It's a clash between good politics and good governance, and resolving it should be the principal challenge for Democratic officeholders and party leaders who don't want their clocks cleaned in the 2018 midterm elections.

With just 48 Senate seats, Democratic opposition votes, in essence, are protest votes, and Michigan's pair of Democratic senators are closely calculating when and how to spend that limited capital -- which is exactly what a vocal contingent of voters don't want them to do.

"I approach this like I approach everything," U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow said. "It may sound simplistic, but it’s what’s best for Michigan and Michigan families, what’s best for our business and economy. It's important for me to get things done for Michigan and Michigan families."

Stabenow voted to confirm retired Gen. James Mattis as U.S. Secretary of Defense, and Gen. John Kelly as director of the Department of Homeland Security. "As it relates to the Secretary of Defense, I felt strongly that the day this president was inaugurated that we had to have some competent, knowledgeable grown-ups in the room."

U.S. Senator Gary Peters echoed those sentiments: Mattis will "hopefully be a stabilizing force against President Trump -- I have serious concerns about his ability to lead this country in foreign affairs. I believe he will make significantly rash decisions that have impact on foreign affairs, and I hope Gen. Mattis will be a stabilizing force."

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But both have opposed, or will when the vote is called, an even longer list of Trump's picks: Betsy DeVos, the pro-charter, anti-traditional public school billionaire activist who Trump has tapped to run the U.S. Department of Education; Scott Pruitt, the nominee for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator who spent years challenging the EPA's authority to regulate stuff like clean water as Oklahoma's attorney general; Tom Price, Trump's pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has announced his intention to gut Medicare and Medicaid; Rex Tillerson, the newly appointed Secretary of State whose ties to Russia are worrisome; and more.

"I think your no votes mean more, too, if you’re willing to support some people," Peters says.

For Stabenow, the benefits of working with her Republican counterparts are clear: In 2014, with an unusual level of bipartisan support, Stabenow led the reauthorization of the farm bill, a massive incentive package that also includes funding for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program -- what we used to call "food stamps." About 47 million Americans get food assistance benefits, about 1.7 million in Michigan alone. Because Stabenow spent years building bipartisan connections, she was able to shepherd the bill through the U.S. Senate, and stave off cuts by the U.S. House of Representatives that would have gutted the food assistance program. The bill is up for reauthorization this year.

That's the kind of tangible result senators like Stabenow balance against the value of a protest vote.

The legislative obstinance of Congressional Republicans during President Barack Obama's tenure, those Democrats and progressives were told again and again, would find a reckoning at the ballot box -- voters would punish Republicans who put party before country. That didn't happen; instead Republican intransigence was rewarded with the presidency and majorities in the U.S. Congress. Not disaster, but unparalleled success.

Stabenow says she understands the appeal of obstructionism, of dishing back what's been handed out, "Certainly on an emotional level. My job in governing is to not only stand up for the principles and values that we all share, but to try, in this chaotic situation, to find a way to get things done, and make people’s lives better. That’s the bottom line. If we say no to them on everything like they did to us, nothing ever gets done, no problems get solved."

It's not obstructionism Democrats and progressive are calling for, said Lonnie Scott of Progress Michigan, it's resolve.

"When Trump won, it was because people wanted a change. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' support was because people wanted to believe there could be change, that someone would fight for them. The Democrats' challenge is not only to stand up to bad things and fight for good things, but to articulate what they would do differently instead of standing up and saying no," Scott said. "Elected officials are going to have to make their decisions, but either way, they've got to articulate why they did it and why they believe it was the right decision. This is not politics as usual, and anyone who treats it that way, Republican or Democrat, runs the risk of losing their seat."