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Adam Johnson is co-host of the Citations Needed podcast and author of “How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza,” out April 21 and available for preorder now.
Key Democrats in Congress are, once again, vaguely opposing a war instead of forcefully opposing it on moral or ideological grounds. Just as Democratic leadership slow-rolled a war powers vote for two weeks after President Donald Trump began amassing his armada to attack Iran, and four days after the bombing was underway, Democrats are refusing to speak out clearly against the war, instead resigning themselves to process-based criticism and demands for “more information” and “plans.”
With strong indications that Trump may soon send ground troops, we are long past the time for begging to see the “plans.” Democrats need to forcefully call for an end to this war now.
Still, this “We need to see Trump’s plans for Iran” talking point has taken hold, either through top-down messaging discipline or a very unfortunate series of coincidences. Democrats in the House and Senate have been echoing some version of this line for the past week:
This messaging often comes after closed-door briefings with Congress, followed by a consternating Democrat in front of a camera lamenting a lack of a “plan” or “exit strategy.” Let us examine this clip, for example, of Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., as he “demands answers” and does a lot of posturing and Plan-Mongering but, strangely, never actually says the war is wrong and should end immediately.
On Thursday, Democratic Reps. Yassamin Ansari, Sara Jacobs, and Jason Crow released a 1,100-word letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding accountability for war crimes committed in Iran that makes no demand to end the war causing the war crimes.
Similar to the Biden White House’s strategy of demanding Israel “allow in more aid” in Gaza while continuing to arm and fund the destruction of Gaza, there’s a surplus of performative outrage and handwringing over the logical outcome of the war without opposing the war causing the war crimes in question. Countless other Democrats are repeating this script with varying degrees of normative content, but typically without much at all, instead keeping the conversation purely in the realm of process and strategy.
“[President Trump has] not shown us any plans for what he wants to do for the day after,” Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-N.V., told reporters earlier in the week. “We have to have a plan,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said to NOTUS on Tuesday. “I’m still not convinced that the administration has a plan to execute the rest of the war and have an exit strategy.”
Some of those pushing this line may argue that we can make process criticisms and demand an end to the war. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach –– and some have done it –– for the vast majority, this is simply not the case. The only message that’s pushed out to the public is the how and when of the war, not the fact of it.
An extension of this messaging is a call for “hearings” or “investigations” on the war. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is aggressively pushing this line, telling reporters earlier this week that “the story from the administration changes by the hour.”
“When it comes to sending our service members into harm’s way, the American people need to understand why,” he said. “But right now, they don’t even have a ‘why.’ … That needs to change. We need testimony. We need accountability.”
This war is not an abstract policy proposal up for debate at the Oxford Union Society that requires further deliberation.
It’s unclear why anyone needs “testimony.” The war is illegal, immoral, killing countless Iranians, and needs to end immediately. The implication in this constant Plan-Mongering is that some brilliant Aaron Sorkin speech from Hegseth or Marco Rubio in front of Congress would somehow change these underlying basic facts. This is a criminal war being carried about by openly violent racists and needs to stop at once. It is not an abstract policy proposal up for debate at the Oxford Union Society that requires further deliberation.
“Senate Democrats vow to force Iran war votes if Republicans don’t hold hearings,” an exclusive from Semafor informed us on Tuesday. “Senate Democrats are threatening to force repeated votes on President Donald Trump’s war with Iran unless Republicans agree to hold committee hearings about the ongoing war,” the report continued.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., did make a clear statement in the Semafor article against the war, saying, “Now is the time for Democrats to use all the leverage we have to try to stop this unnecessary war.” But this is an outlier in these Plan-Mongering PR roll outs. Indeed, the entire premise that Democrats would force more war powers votes unless “Republicans hold hearings” is nonsensical. If the war powers votes are meaningful leverage, why not use them to make a clear, consistent moral case to the public, rather than indulge the idea this is an unsettled debate to be hashed out in drawn-out hearings? What more is there to learn? The war is illegal, unjust, and immoral. What functional purpose would hearings serve, other than to mine for viral content of Dems Owning Trump Administration Officials?
It’s true that every Democrat in the Senate — save for Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman — supported a war powers resolution on March 4. And while this would have triggered congressional authority to vote for or against war with Iran, it is not, itself, a vote against war — it is an assertion of Congress’s authority to decide the matter. This conditional element, combined with the fact that its failure in both the Senate and House was likely a fait accompli, permitted Democrats to be on the record as appearing to oppose the war without running afoul of the pro-war, pro-Israel lobby.
The Plan-Mongering strategy is being promoted by centrist, corporate, and billionaire-funded groups like Third Way.
It’s telling that the Plan-Mongering strategy is being promoted by centrist, corporate, and billionaire-funded groups like Third Way, who released talking points detailing how Democrats should talk about the war on the first day of the bombing, the substance of which is an almost carbon copy of how top Democrats have subsequently spoken about it.
What’s missing is a clearly articulated message against the war, or any demand to end it now. Instead, a “hope the mission succeeds,” and a lot of hand-wringing, deflections, and concerns that Congress is being left out of the war. The influential liberal group National Security Action released similar, if marginally better, process-focused talking points last week in their “messaging guide.” While the guide conditionally opposes new funding, it still makes no demand to end the war immediately, instead suggesting Democrats should refuse to fund it until “Donald Trump makes clear how and when we are getting out of this reckless war.”
What’s missing is a clearly articulated message against the war, or any demand to end it now.
Rather than a clear objection to funding this illegal and immoral war in any form, these talking points continue to leave open the possibility Democrats could support it, if only there was an acceptable “plan.” Central to this incoherent messaging is the implication that there exists a “plan” Trump could proffer that would satisfy Democrats. And if that’s the case, after the 900th demand by Democrats that he produce one, one is left wondering: Why don’t the Democrats provide one, or at least a rough outline? What would a good “plan” for a surprise and unprovoked attack on Iran look like, exactly? What’s to stop Schumer’s office from offering one? What’s left unsaid is that there’s no plan in the universe that would justify this war of aggression that’s already killed over 1,300 civilians, including 200 children.
Those pushing this argument would likely make a pragmatism defense: These types of process critiques play better with the public, they might insist. But it’s unclear on what basis this could be said, as the war is already historically unpopular. Polls show the public overwhelmingly wants the war to end; they are not asking for more refined “plans” or “explanations” or “hearings.”
The real reason why this line is popular is almost certainly because it creates the appearance of unified party opposition while permitting those who soft-support the war to find something to criticize, namely the lack of a sufficiently good “plan.”
This focus on process criticism — which defined Democratic leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries’s superficial response to the war in the immediate lead-up and first days of the war — does not build any moral narratives, or undermine the logic of regime change, which remains the bipartisan consensus, or run afoul of AIPAC and other major pro-Israel Democratic donors. But it may help placate Democratic voters who are overwhelmingly opposed to the war to the tune of 89 percent. When Democratic message-shapers are tasked with opposing a war without opposing the moral logic of the war, confusing and often contradictory process criticism is all they have left.
Democrats, as a minority party, could not unilaterally end the war if they wanted to, but this appeal to their powerlessness doesn’t tell the whole story. When the House voted on a separate war powers resolution the day after the Senate’s failed, four Democrats — Reps. Henry Cuellar, Jared Golden, Greg Landsman, and Juan Vargas — broke ranks and opposed it. Had they voted the party line, it would have passed due to two Republicans joining the effort, and the war would have likely ended — at least until a subsequent authorization vote took place.
When is Jeffries, the supposedly anti-war House minority leader, going to discipline these four pro-war Democrats who ruined the party’s nominal opposition to this war? So far, there have been no reports of any such measures, so we’re left to understand that opposing the war is important, but it’s not important-important. A potential upcoming vote on supplemental war funding should be more clarifying, with the potential to differentiate between real opposition and senators Who Just Want to Look Outraged. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., indicated he will oppose any more funding, while others, such as Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., have not ruled out more funding, ostensibly to “support the troops.” Jeffries, true to form as a party leader, refuses to say what he’ll support.
What generic Plan-Monger language does is permit seemingly genuine antiwar voices like Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., to run the same basic script of AIPAC stalwarts like Booker and Schumer. The “No Plan” sandbox provides cover for Democrats with a record of supporting Israel and being “tough on Iran” to appear anti-war without all the mess of saying anything substantive against the war.
A party that built its message around a strong, firm, and unequivocal case to end this war now would very suddenly draw attention to the undoubtedly dozens of congressional Democrats who would not echo this line. So what we get instead is limp process critiques, demanding pointless hearings, and bizarre attacks that Trump is not doing regime change fast enough. Polls repeatedly show the most common criticism of Democrats is not that they are too far left or too anti-war, but that they are too weak, that they don’t stand for anything.
Centering criticism of a deeply unpopular war on those carrying it out for not filling out the right paperwork or producing a satisfactory slideshow — rather than making clear, normative objections to a war of aggression — feeds directly into this perception. But perhaps it’s a perception Democratic leaders, and the pro-war, pro-Israel donors who fund their political careers, would prefer over the alternative.
