Anti-Trump Burnout: The Resistance Says It's Exhausted

In 2017, they wore pink hats to march on Washington, expressing to hundreds of thousands their anger toward Donald J. Trump.

They then wrested the House from Republican control, won the presidency and posted a surprisingly strong showing in the 2022 midterm elections, fueled by their belief that Trump and his allies posed a national emergency.

This year, anti-Trump voters are grappling with another powerful sentiment: exhaustion.

“Some people are burned out on outrage,” said Rebecca Lee Funk, the Washington-based founder of the Outrage, a progressive activism group and purveyor of resistance-era clothing. “People are tired. I think this past election we were desperate to get Trump out of office, and people were willing to get behind that singular call to action. And this election feels different.”

But for Democrats, the mission is similar: As he defends the White House, President Biden is seeking to reassemble that vast anti-Trump coalition, framing the 2024 battle as another fight to save American democracy while Trump is on his way to the Republican nomination.

However, Mr. Biden still has a lot of work to do. Interviews with nearly two dozen Democratic voters, activists and officials make clear his challenge in energizing Americans who are unenthusiastic about a likely rematch in 2020 Worried about his age, and in some cases they are struggling to sustain the searing anger toward Mr. Trump that Democrats have relied on for nearly a decade.

“We're kind of in a crisis situation,” said Shannon Caseber, 36, a security guard in Pittsburgh, who called the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch a “dumpster fire.” She added: “It's certainly crisis fatigue.”

Ms. Caseber, a Democrat who would support Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump, added: “Any sense of urgency that we had in the 2020 election — I think it's still there in the sense that no one wants Trump becomes president, at least for the Democrats, but it is tiring.”

Democrats are hardly alone in their political fatigue: A Pew Research Center Survey Last year, 65 percent of Americans said they always or often felt exhausted when thinking about politics.

“Exhaustion underlies the entire attitude toward our presidential election,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. 'If you have two people who are against it 70 percent of Americans who want a different choice, it creates frustration, fear and discouragement.”

But there are also pronounced warning signs on the left.

a CNN A poll recently asked how motivated Americans were to vote in the election. Republicans, out of power and eager to regain it, were more likely to say “extremely motivated.” a Yahoo News/YouGov survey asked voters last fall about their attitudes toward the 2024 election. Thirty-nine percent of Democrats chose “exhaustion” from the list of feelings offered (a close second to “fear”). Only 26 percent of Republicans chose “exhaustion.”

By and large, surveys have done just that showed erosion in the party stands behind traditional Democratic constituencies. On the left, some groups have warned financing problems and voter apathy, and the most visible source of energy on the streets is progressive frustration with Mr. Biden over his support for Israel.

Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Mr Biden, said there had been tangible evidence of enthusiasm in recent weeks, including on the fundraising front.

She also signaled that the campaign's message would go beyond simply opposing Mr. Trump, drawing contrasts with Republicans on abortion rights and gun safety as she described the stakes of the election, and nodding to Mr. Biden's policy achievements on issues such as combating climate change and child poverty.

“This election will determine whether we build on that progress, or we will lose so many of our fundamental freedoms,” she said in a statement.

Many Democrats have argued that the party must do more to make a positive case for Biden's reelection, beyond just stopping Trump again. They also worry that some voters could vote for a third party this year or stay out altogether.

“They hear it every cycle: This is the most important election ever,” said Leah D. Daughtry, a Democratic strategist.

Although she views Mr. Trump as an “existential threat,” she said, “people want to vote for something and not necessarily against something.”

Max Dower, the founder of the clothing line Unfortunate Portrait, recently designed a $78 shirt that reflected his feeling of feeling “uninspired” about the election. It featured an image of Mr Biden, 81, using a walker to fend off the stick-wielding Mr Trump, 77, with the message: “Vote 2024.” He said it had attracted more engagement on social media than any design he had posted in about eight years (it also inevitably sparked political strife in his Instagram comments).

After years of feeling like the country was moving from one crisis to another, Mr. Dower, who said he voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, suggested he was burned out.

“We've had so many emergencies over the last few years: national emergencies, perceived emergencies, real emergencies – it's just kind of, that's not really a strong motivator for me anymore,” said Mr. Dower, based in Los Angeles. He declined to say how he would vote this year, but said he is unlikely to vote for Trump.

“Many of us would like something positive to motivate us,” he said. “Not just pure: do this, otherwise this bad thing will happen.”

To be sure, Mr. Trump is hardly a morning-in-America candidate. And while some have rejected him since he left office, he will be inevitable in an election year — which will remind voters, Democrats hope, of everything they've long disliked about him.

The former president, whose supporters attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, has encouraged political violence, spread conspiracy theories and preached a dark nativist vision. He has sought to undermine US institutions and threatened to upend the international order, recently suggesting he would encourage Russian aggression against US allies.

“People will be more alert because Trump has become even more outrageous in his post-presidency,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said in an interview last month. “It will be a challenge to make sure people are aware of what he does because I think sometimes he is so outrageous, so consistent, that there is a danger that it could become normalized. But I do believe that the stakes in this election will be so high that people will ultimately understand that our democracy is truly at stake.”

Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the Indivisible Project, a progressive grassroots group, said her organization supported efforts for ballot measures that would protect abortion rights in key states. She also argued that full Democratic control of Washington could lead to meaningful abortion protections nationally.

“Burnout is usually a result of a feeling of powerlessness,” she says. “People are being activated to get our rights back.”

That kind of message resonated with Dorothy Stevenson, 64, of Milwaukee. She did not vote for president in 2020, she said, citing Mr. Biden's tough record on crime as a senator and worrying that he was not “really for black people.” Now, she said, she is not enthusiastic about her choices but plans to support Mr. Biden because she believes the stakes of the election are higher.

“It's really, really, really, really because of the abortion issue. I think they should stay away from women's bodies,” she said. Trump's potential return is, she says, “a crisis.”

Many Americans deny the prospect of a rematch between Trump and Biden. But as Trump moves closer to his renomination, some Democrats say their voters are beginning to understand the significance of his return.

Representative Veronica Escobar, Democrat of Texas and co-chair of the Biden campaign, said she had heard “some fatigue and some concern” in the recent past.

But after Trump won the New Hampshire primary, she said, “there's been a palpable shift. And it's what I hoped for. I hope we can keep it and grow it.”

In Washington, Ms. Funk of the Outrage suggested that some voters now “want to be reminded of what is good about this country.”

“It's been a long struggle,” she added, “for those of us who are in the movement.”

Ruth Igielnik reporting contributed.