To hear Democratic political operatives tell it, being “anti-Trump” just isn’t enough. Democrats need a “positive agenda,” a set of policy preferences, and an alternative vision for government. This is a conceit that surely appeals to partisan Democrats who share the party’s instincts. But let’s say you don’t. In that case, you’re in ample company.

The reality—one with which Democrats seem reluctant to contend—is that the Democratic Party is not popular. It hasn’t been for years.

Gallup’s measure of party favorability has seen the Democrats’ image among voters take a noticeable slide since the 2012 elections. The Democratic Party continues to languish in the low-to-mid-40s even after it lost control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. By contrast, the GOP—a party with a perennial image problem even among its own voters—saw its favorability jump in Gallup’s September survey to the highest point in seven years.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll confirms that the Democratic Party’s image hit a low point in October of 2013 following the shambolic launch of the Affordable Care Act’s online health insurance exchange platform. With some fluctuations, it has remained stable in unimpressive territory ever since. In a cruel twist, this poll’s October survey found the GOP enjoying an overall better favorability rating than Democrats.

The Democratic Party has not approached the electorate with the humility appropriate to being mistrusted and disliked. Quite the opposite, in fact. The party appears encouraged by the enthusiasm generated by voters’ distaste for Donald Trump. In the near-term, that enthusiasm appears likely (though by no means assuredly) to vault Democrats into office in numbers substantial enough to retake control of at least one chamber of Congress. But that victory could be as much a product of anti-Trump sentiment as a verdict on the Democratic Party’s governing agenda.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer released his party’s governing agenda in the summer of 2017. It was, to put it mildly, ambitious. Schumer promised to “increase people’s pay” and “reduce their everyday expenses.” He backed federal job-training programs, a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, a national paid family- and sick-leave program, a $15 federal minimum wage, and a promise to break up large employers with an eye toward reducing consumer costs. As for healthcare, Schumer insisted that “all options” are on the table. “Medicare for people above 55 is on the table,” he said. “A buy-in to Medicare is on the table. Buy-in to Medicaid is on the table.” And, of course, a “single-payer” system, which would effectively nationalize the health insurance marketplace.

A year later, an updated version of the party’s platform began to include specifics, some of which were so laudably commonsensical that they were included in the GOP’s tax-code-reform bill—legislation that failed to attract even one Democratic vote. But most of the Democratic plan consisted of throwing taxpayer dollars at problems: Doubling pre-k through grade 12 education spending, doubling investments in scientific achievement, doubling work-based learning programs, building high-speed rail lines, expanding broadband access, preparing the American landscape to phase the combustion engine entirely out of daily life.

This is, of course, an entirely aspirational agenda without the power of the presidency. What Democrats can do with control over one or more chambers in Congress is block, obstruct, investigate, and generally put the president and his party in check. On Monday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi previewed what could be a uniquely effective strategy for Democrats when she telegraphed her intention to use House committees’ subpoena power to force Trump to come to the table. Pelosi could be onto something. Trump, after all, is a president with few ideological convictions and a willingness to work with “Chuck and Nancy.” But Democrats would have to concede that this strategy may also have the unintended effect of transforming Trump into a successful president who would be favored for reelection. And Democratic pride cannot suffer such an indignity.

Even if Democrats were prepared to run on the simple message of their serving as a bulwark to keep Trump’s family and personal ambitions in check, they’ve squandered that chance. When, during the hearings to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats were given the opportunity to show how the party would wield its new authority, they exhibited a level of frivolity utterly unequal to their stature.

Democrats coordinated their efforts to interrupt the Judiciary Committee chairman and organized fundraising drives around the campaign. They sought to violate Senate confidentiality rules and appeared disappointed to learn that they hadn’t. They tried to tar the nominee as corrupt and even potentially racist through smear and inference alone. And, of course, they mobilized unsubstantiated allegations of sexual violence as a minor to destroy the nominee’s credibility—allegations that could not withstand scrutiny even under the most relaxed evidentiary standards and which should have remained (per the accuser’s expressed wishes) confidential.

At the end of all this, Democratic partisans have the gall to insist that the party’s greatest failing is that it is too deferential to those who sympathize with the other side. According to Hillary Clinton, “civility can start again” when the GOP loses control of the government. “When they go low, we kick them,” Eric Holder agreed. “That’s what this new Democratic Party is about.” “[I]f you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out, and you create a crowd,” Rep. Maxine Waters recommended. “And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” None of this is hypothetical. GOP lawmakers and Trump administration officials find themselves being hounded from restaurants and locked in their own homes out of fear.

Democrats expect the first midterm election under an unpopular Republican president who enjoys unified control of Washington to fare well for them. By rights, it should. But the party is not behaving like a political institution that needs to examine how it got to a place in which it held fewer state and federal offices than at any point in nearly a century. For almost two years and with every indication to the contrary notwithstanding, Democrats have been acting like they are popular. They aren’t.