What should Democrats do now? Everyone has a different answer

Democrats have struggled to land a unified message in President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, with fractures both in Congress and among ers. What comes next for a party in a difficult spot?

The rural, agricultural town of Bakersfield, California, is an odd stop for a pair of East Coast progressive politicians.

After all, Trump won the surrounding county by 20 points, and the dusty fields and endless orchards feel a world away from the party's power centres in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Yet Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders packed a local auditorium during a recent stop on their Fighting Oligarchy tour. The rally felt like a 1960s-style sit-in with attendees singing along to a gentle rendition of Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land. They launched rowdy boos and jeers every time Sanders inveighed against Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk.

The visit also felt like an answered prayer for local Democrats and left-leaning Independents who oppose Trump and his policies, while directing much of their fury at their own party, which they feel has failed to mount an effective opposition.

The Democratic party "should be doing more to try to protect everybody," said Karla Alcantar, 26, who attended the rally. "I feel like some of them have just folded over completely, and there are some that are trying to do the work of all."

"I definitely feel like they should be doing way more," she said.

It is not a great time to be a Democratic politician in the United States. The party is out of power. Elected officials cannot agree on a course of action to counter Trump's agenda. No clear leader has emerged to unify the unwieldy coalition. Various ideological and generational factions are warring against each other and nobody seems to be winning.

"I understand that they don't have the power to, like, change like things drastically, but they do have the power to slow down like things even a little bit," said rally attendee Juan Dominguez, 26. "It honestly feels like I'm not seeing any of that."

The anger extends beyond the rally-goers.

Fifty-two percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said their party's leadership is moving in the wrong direction, according to a CNN/SSRS poll conducted in mid-March, as opposed to 48% who said it is moving in the right direction.

That same survey suggested a desire for strong opposition: 57% wanted Democrats in Congress to try and stop the Republican party's agenda. It's a complete reversal of a poll in 2017, the year after Trump first won the presidency, that suggested 74% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents wanted leaders to work with Republicans following a divisive election.

"What they're pressing for is not just Democratic leaders to lash out because that's going to make their followers feel good," said former Pennsylvania congressman Conor Lamb, who held a town hall-style event in Pittsburgh last week.

Though Lamb said he is not currently running for office, he felt a hunger within the Democratic base.

"I think they feel like the survival of the system we have all counted on is itself on the line, and they want us to act with that level of urgency," Lamb told the BBC. "I think it's important for us not to forget just to be advocates for things that are specific and concrete, and really affecting people."

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez's tour is just one attempt to solve that. It stops in conservative-dominated areas and remains laser-focused on the economy, citing cost of living grievances that propelled Trump to a second term, while framing him and his billionaire ers like Musk as the culprits.

Ocasio-Cortez put the argument simply: "Oligarchy or democracy":[]}