Democrats Are Bad Actors

By Jack Butler

Sunday, March 09, 2025

 

Preparing for a role in the 1976 thriller Marathon Man in which his character hadn’t slept for three days, method actor Dustin Hoffman . . . didn’t sleep for three days. Laurence Olivier, Hoffman’s co-star in the film and a classically trained actor, had a different approach. “My dear boy,” the legendary performer Olivier said, “why don’t you try acting?”

 

It’s a good story — too good, according to Hoffman. The performative excesses of elected Democrats have nonetheless reminded me of it. Uncertain and divided after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election and Republicans’ gaining the Senate and (narrowly) holding the House, the party is casting about for a workable political strategy. But these wannabe Hoffmans won’t find it in scenery-chewing, for one simple reason: They’re bad actors.

 

Democrats’ recent display at Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress gave plenty of examples. Representative Al Green (Texas) was so hammy that he had to be escorted out. Representative Maxwell Frost (Fla.) was one of several Democrats who skipped straight from show to tell by wearing a shirt whose back text was revealed when he left the chamber: “No Kings Live Here.” Representative Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) abandoned all subtlety by writing her thoughts on a whiteboard: “NO KING,” “THAT’S A LIE,” and “You’re cutting Medicaid.” As did other Democrats, who held up paddles reading such messages as “Save Medicaid,” “Lies,” and “Musk Steals.”

 

Focusing on their own cues, these weak performers missed obvious ones. You don’t need to have had a high school improv class or a stint in community theater to figure out that it’s unwise not to give appropriate approbation to the child cancer survivor who was given a Secret Service badge, or the parents of children killed by illegal immigrants. These Democrats were outmatched by Trump, whose acting experience is extensive, and who rightly predicted, “There’s nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud, nothing I can do.”

 

These are not the only failed auditions for political relevance Democrats have attempted lately. One of their main responses to government cuts has been to rally pathetically in front of the building containing the latest targeted agency. Some of the party’s most eminent grays, such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (74), Representative Maxine Waters (86), and Senator Elizabeth Warren (75), have led these embarrassing spectacles.

 

They seem, charitably, like mediocre reenactments of the obligatory “’60s protest scene” from any movie that takes place during the Vietnam War era. It is a time some of the participants remember well — or not, in the case of Senator Richard Blumenthal. They fail another performer’s test by focusing on abstractions and processes, not on stories, generating less viewer sympathy. Democrats would be better off hiring actual actors for such stunts — which, in fact, they have.

 

Some Democrats appear to have realized something has gone awry. Unfortunately for the party, they are no longer on stage. Tim Ryan, who, after ten terms in the House, narrowly lost the 2022 Ohio Senate race to now–Vice President JD Vance, lambasted elected Democrats for their behavior earlier this week. “The minority party should not have negative stories coming out at the State of the Union,” Ryan told National Review’s Audrey Fahlberg, adding that Democrats’ stubborn defenses of the foreign aid status quo come off poorly. And Sherrod Brown, who narrowly lost the 2024 Ohio Senate race to Bernie Moreno, recently admitted in the New Republic that “in large swaths of Ohio, and the country, the Democratic Party’s reputation has become toxic.”

 

But there are limits to these Ohioans’ wisdom. Ryan believes that displaying some nebulous combination of “acknowledgment and empathy” can get Democrats out of their current funk. And Brown makes noises against coastal elites and for economic populism, but remains clueless about how his party’s leftward lurch culturally doomed his effort to retain the seat he had held since 2006.

 

You’d have to look to neighboring Pennsylvania for a Democrat who has a sincere and accurate sense of what is amiss. “A sad cavalcade of self owns and unhinged petulance,” Senator John Fetterman said of his party’s recent behavior. “It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained.” For an insincere sense, you can look to also-neighboring Indiana (and Michigan . . .), where still-ambitious Pete Buttigieg is throwing diversity training under the bus. Or across the country to California, where Governor Gavin Newsom has conveniently dissented from his party’s support of men competing in women’s sports.

 

Dustin Hoffman almost failed to get the role that launched his career. Benjamin Braddock, the anxious underdog in The Graduate, was almost portrayed by the suave Robert Reford, who wanted the part. But director Mike Nichols didn’t think he’d be credible. “I said, ‘O.K., have you ever struck out with a girl?’ and he said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he wasn’t joking.” Democrats can try overacting all they want. But right now, Americans don’t think they’re right for the part. They might want to try a different role.