The Democrats’ X account is starting to get spicy. It’s about time.

The image in the tweet may have been blurry, but its message was unmistakable.

On Sunday afternoon, the official X account for the Democrats responded to news that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly had a second Signal group chat about missile strikes in Yemen by demanding that Hegseth be removed from his role. Hegseth, who has not admitted wrongdoing, replied to the tweet with a pugilistic dispatch attacking the Dems’ agenda.

So far, so 2025—that’s when things took a turn.

Instead of disputing the specifics of Hegseth’s reply, whoever controls the Dems’ social media escalated to DEFCON 3-level shitposting. The account tweeted a bleary, double-vision image of an iPhone home screen, with the caption: “Pete’s POV.” It was clearly a nod to the many allegations of alcohol abuse that Hegseth faced on his rocky path to confirmation back in January.

It was also way spicier than the party of they-go-low-we-go-high tends to get. But this is just the latest sign that the Dems are ready to fight back against the GOP—both on and off social media. 

It’s about time.

Since Donald Trump resumed his presidency earlier this year, the official White House social media account has been markedly aggressive and joyfully cruel. Rather than merely echo Trump’s enthusiasm for deporting undocumented immigrants, for example, the WH account on X has made a series of joking tweets about it. The account recently posted a mock-ASMR video about deporting immigrants, deportation-themed Valentine’s Day cards, and even a Studio Ghibli-style AI rendering of a woman sobbing after her capture by ICE. 

In many ways, this account has mirrored the IDGAF antagonism of this administration’s constant chaos—all the DOGE firings and budget cuts, tariff recklessness, executive orders, academic shakeups, and anti-DEI initiatives that have proved so destabilizing.

The White House’s X account also adds its own special dimension to that onslaught, though, by giving Dems yet another thing they must officially comment on. While Democrats struggle to get their arms around the flurry of MAGA activity on any given day, the WH account might tweet, say, an AI image of Trump as a literal king. High-profile Democrats like Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and New York Governor Kathy Hochul then have to take time and attention away from whatever messaging they had in mind that day and respond to Trump—thereby ceding the day’s agenda to him.

This game of attention and power unfolds online 24/7, with the deck stacked in Trump’s favor. For too long this year, Dems didn’t seem to know how to score an advantage.

The message is the medium

Although VP candidate Tim Walz’s pugnacious “They’re just weird” messaging about GOP politicians last August energized young voters, the results of the 2024 presidential election seemed to scare Democrats into playing it safe.

Even as a February 2025 Harvard CAPS/Harris poll revealed that 64% of registered Dems believe their party should “oppose everything” Trump does, many Dem leaders complied instead. Perhaps convinced that the JD Vance couch memes cost them some swing voters, prominent Democrats like Governor Gavin Newsom of California kicked off the second Trump era with misguided appeals toward bipartisanship.

The tendency toward acquiescence hit a nadir in mid-March, when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to help Trump avert a government shutdown of his own making, without getting any real concessions in return.

At that point, Dems didn’t need the White House to mock Schumer online—their own base did plenty of that on their own.

Fight or flight

Something has changed since then, however. Somewhere between the tens of thousands of people showing up to individual stops on Bernie Sanders and AOC’s “Fight Oligarchy” tour and the hundreds of thousands who came out for the recent Hands Off protests, more and more elected Democrats seem to have internalized that their people want to see them fight back.

Starting with Senator Cory Booker’s bladder-bruising 25-hour filibuster speech on April 1, Dems have commanded attention with bold action. The next day, Senator Richard Blumenthal held a “shadow hearing” to highlight Trump’s slashing cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Senators Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff then joined forces a week later for a similar event, this one about Trump’s alleged abuses of the law. Newsom has since sued Trump over his spate of tariffs, while Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador last week to meet with a constituent who was wrongly deported to a terrorist prison.

That wrongly deported man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has lately become a flashpoint in Trump’s presidency—especially since first federal courts and then the Supreme Court ruled that he should be returned to the U.S.

Trump’s team was likely counting on Dems to back off from the topic, to avoid being tarred as defending the rights of an alleged terrorist, no matter how flimsy the allegations. They almost certainly did not expect Garcia to become synonymous with the need for due process, inspiring no less than Joe Rogan to defend him.

Trolling with the punches

All the attention that Dems are now putting on Garcia has placed Trump’s team on the backfoot.

When the White House’s X account sent out a trolling tweet about Garcia the other day, it was addressed directly to Van Hollen. Much like what the White House has done with its social media activity all year, Van Hollen forced the other side to respond. He successfully seized control of the conversation. 

Now, as the Dems continue fighting back, their social media presence seems ready to take off its gloves in lockstep. Hours after the tweet nodding toward Hegseth’s reputation for alcohol abuse, the account trolled a White House post about Easter with a headline about egg shortages, and started a cheeky countdown for Hegseth’s seemingly imminent firing.

Not all negative messaging at this moment may be a net positive for Dems. House Rep Jasmine Crockett, whose inventive insults are often internet gold, was nearly censured in March for referring to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, as “Governor Hot Wheels.” Although that insult was not well received on either side of the aisle, it shows Crockett’s willingness to push the envelope and test how much tolerance go-high Democrats have for go-low tactics.

The Democrats’ reply to Hegseth on X suggests that the party is finally loosening its strict adherence to norms, in an era when their opponents are veering ever further from normalcy.

It’s a sign that Democrats in 2025 may just be ready to fight fire with fire—rather than pointing at the flames and declaring them too hot.