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Washington, DC \u2013<\/strong> One year into US President Donald Trump\u2019s second term in office, Democrats hope the Republican president\u2019s campaign pledges \u2013 vows to end foreign wars and pivot to \u201cAmerica First\u201d \u2013 are coming back to haunt him.<\/p>\n Leaders of the party have long hammered affordability as a key issue in the upcoming 2026 midterms in November, in which the opposition party hopes to reclaim both chambers of Congress from Republicans and, in turn, regain the ability to check the president\u2019s expansive use of executive power.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Trump\u2019s military pressure campaign against Venezuela, culminating, to date, in the extraordinary abduction of Nicolas Maduro on January 3, as well as his increasingly caustic effort to take control of Greenland \u2013 an autonomous territory of Denmark \u2013 have emerged as powerful cudgels on the issue.<\/p>\n Speaking at a news conference in the wake of the Maduro operation, Chuck Schumer, the 75-year-old top Democrat in the Senate, adopted decidedly Trumpian language as he promised \u201crelentless\u201d messaging on affordability in the year ahead.<\/p>\n He added, \u201cWe Democrats are fighting to prevent military adventurism in Venezuela and other countries and endless wars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo Democrats in the House and Senate are focusing on lowering your costs, dealing with affordability,\u201d Schumer continued. \u201cRepublicans led by Donald Trump seem to be focused \u2013 not seem to be, are focused \u2013 on spending our treasure and, God forbid, lives in military adventurism overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n Ken Martin, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee \u2013 which establishes the party\u2019s platform, national strategy and messaging before elections \u2013 took a similar line in a statement following the Venezuela operation.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump promised peace, but has delivered war,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, Trump has committed the United States to running another country for the foreseeable future while Americans foot the bill for regime change\u201d.<\/p>\n Added Sherrod Brown, a former Democratic Senator from Ohio seeking to reclaim his seat in a special election this year, in a post on X: \u201cWe should be more focused on improving the lives of Ohioans \u2013 not Caracas.\u201d<\/p>\n To be sure, foreign policy has traditionally been seen as a low-impact issue at the ballot box in the US, often overshadowed by more domestic concerns, such as crime, social issues, and, most pressingly, the economy.<\/p>\n But with Trump\u2019s brand of politics largely relying on pledges to eschew high-concept international manoeuvring in exchange for the lived experience of US voters, any perception of costly initiatives abroad offers a unique opening for Democrats, according to Democratic strategist Arshad Hasan.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump has a vulnerability right now because he cannot connect the things that he\u2019s doing in Venezuela and Greenland to the lives of voters on a daily basis,\u201d Hasan told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cAnytime the Democrats want to talk about what he\u2019s doing overseas, they still have to make it relatable to what voters are going to see in their everyday lives,\u201d he said. \u201cThis chaos isn\u2019t bad just because it is chaos. It\u2019s chaos because it doesn\u2019t actually serve anyone or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n To critics, Trump has vastly increased his scorecard on international adventurism in the first weeks of 2026, after pursuing bombing campaigns in Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia and the Caribbean in 2025.<\/p>\n Military assets have remained stationed off the coast of Venezuela in the wake of Maduro\u2019s January 3 abduction, with Trump floating the idea of using US troops to secure the country\u2019s vast oil wealth. Experts have repeatedly warned that the relative stability under interim President Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro\u2019s former deputy, remains tenuous, with the prospect of greater entanglement remaining very much on the table.<\/p>\n While threats against neighbouring Colombia have fizzled, Trump has appeared committed to the White House\u2019s stated goal of establishing US \u201cpreeminence\u201d in the Western Hemisphere. In an NBC News interview published on Monday, Trump again refused to rule out military force in seizing Greenland. Forebodingly, Trump told Norway\u2019s leader in a text message on Sunday, \u201cI no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace\u201d.<\/p>\n Even Trump\u2019s Republican allies have warned that US military aggression towards Greenland would effectively blow up the NATO alliance, as Democrats have sought to capitalise on the discord between Trump\u2019s campaign messaging and his threats against purported US allies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe American people voted for affordability at home, not threats to invade our closest friends abroad,\u201d Democrats on the House foreign affairs committee said in a January 6 post on X.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump is ignoring Americans\u2019 affordability concerns with his foreign escapades, and making things worse with more tariffs. This will only further raise costs for the American people,\u201d the panel wrote earlier this week, referring to Trump\u2019s threats to further tariff European countries over Greenland.<\/p>\n The Trump administration, for its part, has sought to connect both Venezuela and Greenland to cost-of-living issues.<\/p>\n That has included pushing dubious claims over the effect US access to Venezuelan oil will have on markets, and floating far-flung plans to exploit the untapped natural resources of Greenland, ownership of which Trump has maintained is imperative to US national security.<\/p>\n Of course, with the midterms more than nine months away, much is subject to change under an administration that has relied not only on bold, attention-diverting policies, but their rapid and unrelenting deployment.<\/p>\n But several potential signs have emerged of brewing trouble for Trump\u2019s Republican Party, which has so far broadly fallen in line with the president\u2019s agenda, including refusing to exercise congressional oversight of his military actions.<\/p>\n Economists have argued that despite signs of economic growth, a relatively comfortable unemployment rate, and a so-far muted domestic impact of Trump\u2019s wide-ranging reciprocal tariffs, inequality has continued to yawn under Trump.<\/p>\n For many in lower and middle income brackets, there has been little shift in their lived experience and the daily life expenses that inform perceptions of affordability, as reflected in a slate of recent polls. That may dovetail with other public opinion surveys showing discontent over Trump\u2019s actions abroad.<\/p>\n An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted January 8 to 11 found 61 percent of US adults disapproved of Trump\u2019s foreign policy approach, with 56 percent saying they felt Trump had \u201cgone too far\u201d on military intervention, even as support for Maduro\u2019s ousting remained relatively high. That was particularly pronounced among independents, a voter segment targeted by both parties, with 63 percent saying Trump had overreached.<\/p>\n A Reuters\/Ipsos poll of US residents found particular dismal support for the US acquiring Greenland, with just one in five respondents supporting such a move. A separate CBS poll found that just 14 percent approve of using military force to seize the island.<\/p>\n Democratic strategist Hasan assessed that messaging from both major parties has been inadequate on affordability, with Republicans asking voters \u201cnot to believe their own eyes\u201d, and many old guard Democrats offering only \u201cmilquetoast\u201d alternative visions.<\/p>\n An \u201cantidote\u201d in the months ahead, he said, could be embracing bold positions that weave US actions abroad and impacts felt at home. He pointed to the recent success of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a possible blueprint.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a place where the Democrats really have a test as to whether or not their messaging can meet the very perilous moment that we\u2019re in,\u201d Hasan said. \u201cThey actually have to stand up for something.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Washington, DC \u2013 One year into US President Donald Trump\u2019s second term in office, Democrats hope the Republican president\u2019s campaign pledges \u2013 vows to end foreign wars and pivot to \u201cAmerica First\u201d \u2013 are coming back to haunt him. Leaders of the party have long hammered affordability as a key issue in the upcoming 2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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