Democrats are moving toward a "total war" against President Donald Trump – with liberal activists leading the charge ahead of this weekend's selection of a national chairman, The New York Times reported.
"My belief is, we have to resist every way and everywhere, every time we can" when Trump offends core American values, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington told the Times, saying there would been a "tornado of support" for resistance to Trump.
"Ultimately, we'd like to have a few Republicans stand up to rein him in," he added. "The more air goes out of his balloon, the earlier and likelier that is to happen."
According to the Times, after the November election, Democrats were divided on whether to confront the new president – or to coax him to the center with compromise.
"But senior Democratic officials concede that the blueprint has already been chosen for them — by an incensed army of liberals demanding no less than total war against President Trump," the Times' reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns wrote.
The strategy has its risks: anti-Trump hostility could imperil lawmakers in red states where the president won – or efforts for Democrats to present themselves to moderate voters as an alternative to the polarizing president.
"There is this vitriol and dislike for our new president," Democratic Delaware Sen. Thomas Carper told the Times. "The challenge for us is to harness it in a productive way and a constructive way, and I think we will."
According to the Times, a handful of liberal groups have already sprung up threatening to wage primary challenges against incumbent Democrats who they see as insufficiently anti-Trump.
In the Saturday vote in Atlanta for a new chairman of the Democratic National Committee in Atlanta, the liberal activities are behind Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., against the perceived front-runner, Thomas Perez, Obama's labor secretary, the Times reported.
"This is not a normal Republican president and these are not normal times," Christine Quinn, a vice chairwoman of the New York State Democratic Committee, who was a prominent surrogate for Hillary Clinton last year, told the Times.
"This isn't a time for polite parties anymore. This is a time to take a different posture of true aggressiveness."
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