When President Donald Trump delivers the first official State of the Union address of his second term, many top Democratic leaders want the focus to remain on him.
With Trump’s agenda either faltering or sparking a backlash, they are following a familiar Washington principle that when your enemy is drowning, you don’t give them a hand.
I have spoken with members of Congress, senior Democratic strategists and outside organizers about how Democratic members of Congress should react during the big speech.
They point out that the Supreme Court just rebuked Trump over tariffs, which are also dividing Republicans. Health care costs are rising. Immigration agents’ brutal tactics are sparking a voter backlash. There’s even a partial government shutdown.
If Trump stands in the well of the House and gives his usual mix of false statements, self-aggrandizement and bizarre asides, they think that will just remind voters why they aren’t happy with him right now. Why give him a foil?
The logic is not unserious. But it is incomplete.
Let me be clear. I’m not calling for chaos or for Democratic leadership to orchestrate a spectacle. Caucus discipline matters. But there is a difference between declining to encourage disruption and actively suppressing it. And suppressing it is a mistake.
Empty seats will send a message whether or not leadership intends them to.
Roughly two dozen Democratic members have announced they will not attend, opting instead for alternative events such as the People’s State of the Union or the State of the Swamp. Others may be absent because the winter storm upended travel and forced votes to be postponed. Empty seats will send a message whether or not leadership intends them to.
For those who attend, the guidance has reportedly been silent defiance.
But silence in a room with Donald Trump is not defiance. It is background.
The country has watched Democrats sit through one year and a few weeks of institutional erosion. Through attacks on election administration. Through the weaponization of immigration enforcement. Through executive overreach that stretches constitutional boundaries. The feedback from voters is not that Democrats need to be quieter. It is that they need to show they grasp the severity of the moment.
I keep thinking about last year, when Texas Rep. Al Green stood up and refused to sit quietly. He was removed by the sergeant-at-arms and censured. Leadership signaled its discomfort. Inside Washington, the verdict was swift: It was a distraction, it handed Republicans a talking point, it muddied the message.
Outside Washington, something else happened.
The image spread. It resonated with people who feel ignored, who are furious about prices, about health care, about what they see as government indifference or cruelty. They saw someone inside that chamber who looked as unsettled as they felt. That moment did not fracture the resistance; it energized it. It preceded months of organizing and demonstrations that made it clear that a significant portion of the country does not accept this as normal.
The disconnect between how political insiders interpret these moments and how regular people experience them is real. The disconnect between how political insiders interpret these moments and how regular people experience them is real. And it has consequences. Democrats do not have a policy deficit. On tariffs, health care and the economy, public opinion is moving in their direction. The administration owns the economic anxiety of working families now. That is political reality. The vulnerability is not ideological. It is perceptual. Politics is substance, but it is also theater. Voters measure seriousness not just by white papers but by posture and whether leaders appear concerned about a crisis. When leadership’s instinct is to manage, smooth and contain the members most willing to express urgency, it risks projecting something unintended: timidity. Tonight is not a normal State of the Union, because this is not a normal political era. Americans understand that instinctively. They feel it in their grocery bills, in their health care premiums, in their uncertainty about what institutions still hold. The country does not need Democrats to manufacture spectacle. It needs them to demonstrate that they understand power, and that they are willing to meet this moment with visible moral clarity. The American people already sense that something is off balance. The only remaining question is whether the opposition party will reflect that reality — or try to soften it. Don’t forget to subscribe to “MS NOW Presents: Clock It,” Symone Sanders Townsend’s new podcast series with Eugene Daniels on the latest political news, the catchiest cultural moments and how they converge. Listen to the latest episode here.
Symone D. Sanders Townsend is an author and a co-host of "The Weeknight." 
