Washington Post: “After previous defeats, the modern Democratic Party typically plunged into a discussion between a moderate wing and a liberal wing. George McGovern’s 1972 loss led to an internal party battle against the New Left. After Walter Mondale’s 1984 defeat, a group of moderate strategists formed the Democratic Leadership Council. After the 2004 defeat of John F. Kerry, a new generation of like-minded strategists launched Third Way, with a focus on lost moderate voters.”

“There is nothing like that in 2017. Democrats, taking cues from their base, have given Trump’s key Cabinet nominees the smallest level of support from an opposition party in history. They have joined and sometimes led protests, organizing more than 70 rallies against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and joining activists at airports to help travelers affected by Trump’s executive orders on immigration and refugees. The scale has even impressed some Republicans.”

Politico: “A painful Democratic rift over Barack Obama’s political legacy is finally bursting into the open. For years, the former president’s popularity among Democrats stifled any public critiques of his stewardship of the party — a period in which the party suffered tremendous losses at the state and local levels.”

“But now that Obama and the political operation that succeeded his campaign, Organizing For Action, have expressed interest in playing a role in the task of rebuilding, it’s sparking pitched debates over how much blame he deserves for the gradual hollowing out of a party that now has less control of state elected positions than at any other time in nearly a century.”

Jonathan Swan: “After eight years of Obama, Democrats are learning how to be in the opposition. And they’ve now got powerful new tools, lessons from the Tea Party movement, and authentic national rage to be tapped.”

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll shows that just 34% of Democratic voters want their party’s elected officials to find ways to work with the new president. A 56% majority say Democrats in Congress should stick to their principles, even “if that means blocking all legislation or nominees for government posts.”

Rick Klein: “President Obama is off the bench. Members of Congress are chanting with the protestors. The party has found its cause –blocking the Trump agenda. Just a week ago, talk in Washington was about how Chuck Schumer could be a closer partner to the president than Mitch McConnell. Now, the president is making fun of Schumer’s tears when he appeared alongside people impacted by the travel ban. Add that to the late-night firing of an acting attorney general over an entirely political disagreement and you have a base plus elected officials who are losing any incentive to work with the new president. Democrats can thank the president for showing them the strategy that now seems inevitable for the next four years: stand strong, and stand in his way.”

“Following GOP victories in the 2016 elections, Democrats have descended to their lowest levels of power in Washington, D.C., and capitals across the country since the Hoover administration. And with the Clintons and Obamas exiting the stage, there is no natural leader to take the party forward,” the Boston Globe reports.

“Unfortunately for Democrats, the race for Democratic National Committee chairman — one of the party’s most powerful open posts in D.C. — is unlikely to give much clarity to their conundrum. The DNC chairman’s race features no clear front-runner and, so far, little debate about the soul and direction of the party.”

For members: The Democratic Frontrunner in 2020

New York Times: “Party leaders, eyeing the huge protests last weekend and growing worries over the promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act, are hoping to recreate the mass movement that sprang up in 2009 and swept Republicans to power in the House and in governor’s races across the country — a Tea Party equivalent from the left.”

“And they are turning to the same playbook that guided their conservative counterparts in the aftermath of Mr. Obama’s election: creating or expanding a number of groups outside the formal architecture of the party, focusing on often-overlooked state legislative and redistricting campaigns, and bringing together frightened fund-raisers to underwrite it all.”

NBC News: “When President-elect Donald Trump replaces Barack Obama on January 20, the Democratic Party will find itself more removed from power than at almost any point since the party’s creation. Scorned by the same voters who once embraced the New Deal, built the Great Society, and put their hope in the nation’s first black president, Democrats are now locked out of power in Washington and out of two-thirds of state legislative chambers across the country.”

“Simply put, Democrats’ once vaunted coalition of the ascendant — younger, multiethnic, educated, and urban — failed them in 2016, and in 2014 and 2010 before that. That coalition proved to have major handicaps, part demographic and part geographic, that have been hollowing out the party for years.”

“The Democratic fissures exposed in last year’s presidential primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have roared back to life, with party officials wary the split will hamper their ability to fight President-elect Donald Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

An example: “There are few major issues of substance that divide DNC members and party activists, but one key sticking point is Mr. Sanders’s refusal to share his fundraising list with the DNC. Not turning over the list, which raised more than $200 million from two million donors, echoes a complaint party members had with President Barack Obama, who didn’t share his supporter list with state Democratic parties until after he won re-election in 2012.”

“Warning that beleaguered Democrats cannot afford a replay of their contentious presidential primary in the race to lead the Democratic National Committee, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, entered the contest for party chairman on Thursday, presenting himself as an alternative to the two leading candidates,” the New York Times reports.

Said Buttigieg: “This is not a time to relitigate an old battle. We’ve got to transcend the narrative that this is some kind of proxy fight.”