This has not been a good year for Democrats in national politics.

With the new president dismantling chunks of the federal government and Republicans in control of a sit back-and-watch Congress, that may come across as the mother of all understatements.

But there is an exception, someone’s who’s gaining a bigger national profile at the same time a path to significantly more political power is opening up.

You could argue that no Democrat has had a better first four months of the Trump administration than Brian Schatz.

Hawaiʻi’s senior U.S. senator is constantly popping up in national media reports as a go-to critic of Trumpism and someone who is actually taking action — here putting a hold on the president’s nominees for State Department posts, there introducing a resolution to condemn President Donald Trump’s acceptance of a $400 million airplane gift from Qatar.

He’s also been honing his already formidable social media skills, quickly posting scathing rebukes of the latest White House moves, sometimes in language you may not be used to hearing from a senator.

Schatz had already emerged as one of the Senate’s foremost proponents for building more housing and responding to climate change. But his reputation as mostly a learned insider, someone content to legislate behind the scenes, is changing with the times.

Now, he may have the inside track to becoming the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate hierarchy, behind only Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

When Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin announced he won’t seek reelection next year, Schatz wasted no time declaring himself a candidate for Durbin’s post as Democratic whip.

Already the chief deputy whip, Schatz is well-respected within the party caucus as someone who does the hard work of helping to keep Senate Democrats well-organized and united.

“He is on the precipice of becoming not just a quiet leader within the Democratic caucus, but becoming a real leader where he’s going to chair significant committees,” said Andy Winer, a longtime political consultant and the senator’s former chief of staff. “He has a chance at being in the leadership chain.”

The last time a Hawaiʻi senator ascended to such levels, they named the Honolulu airport after him.

Partisanship In Real Time

Schatz declined an interview request for this story. But as House Republicans labored through the early morning hours Wednesday trying to pass Trump’s “big beautiful bill” to cut government spending and taxes, he had this to say on social media:

“This is the biggest wealth transfer in American history from poor to rich, it kicks 14 million off of healthcare, takes nutritional assistance away from families, and blows up the deficit. You don’t convene a hearing at 1 in the morning if you think your bill is popular.”

Such pithy political points are staples of his two X accounts — “Brian Schatz” and “Senator Brian Schatz.” One is his personal account, the other his office.

“These people are completely fucking out of control,” Schatz posted May 10 on his personal account in response to reports that the feds were considering arresting three members of Congress after a scuffle erupted outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. “Of course I’m going to say that but we need to hear some Republicans stand up for lawful behavior or we are going to take a very dark and possibly permanent turn as a nation.”

The senator has clearly made a calculation that it’s time for Democrats to respond quickly, even coarsely, to a president who rules by rapid-fire executive orders and communicates by social media himself.

But Schatz’s evolution goes further. His grilling of Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Senate hearing last week over cuts in foreign aid was another example of a newfound willingness to step up as a critic of the administration. So was his Senate floor speech condemning Trump’s acceptance of a $400 million luxury airliner as a gift from Qatar.

Schatz is not a far-left Democrat. He voted to confirm Rubio as secretary of state, and he was one of the nine Democratic senators who voted with Republicans to keep the federal government operating when a shutdown loomed in March.

As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, he has placed a “blanket hold” on hundreds of Trumpʻs nominees for State Department positions.

‘I Don’t See Him Leaving The Senate’

All of this has garnered Schatz a lot of attention from the national media in print and on TV, including coverage that points to him as a model for how Democrats should deal with Trump. The online news organization Politico even asked him if he’s running for president.

“Never,” Schatz replied, more stridently than most politicians who prefer to equivocate on such things.

OK, but how about vice president? Or a Cabinet member? After all, his Senate seat is safe in blue Hawaiʻi, so it’s not hard to imagine Schatz getting a shot at a national post in a future Democratic administration.

Winer, for one, takes Schatz at his “never.”

“He is somebody who loves the Senate, loves the institution, understands its position within government, and I think that he’s developed skills over the last 12 years that are going to make him effective moving forward,” Winer said. “So no, I don’t see him leaving the Senate.”

While Trump may have helped turn Schatz into a more nationally known figure, the Hawaiʻi senator enjoyed considerable success in a lower-profile role when Democrats held the majority.

Winer noted that Schatz pushed the Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund the building of more urban housing, especially transit-oriented developments.

And when it came to the senator’s highest-priority issue — climate change — he said Schatz took the lead on incorporating legislation relating to climate resiliency into President Joe Biden’s signature legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act.

“There’s a lot that that you can do in the Senate, when you’re in the minority, as long as you can hold your your team together.”

Political consultant Andy Winer

Schatz also chaired the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, a position that requires dealing with the issues of more than 350 federally recognized tribes.

“When you talk to tribal leaders around the country, he’s been recognized as somebody that has rolled up his sleeves, he’s learned those issues and focused on a segment of the country that doesn’t necessarily get the attention that it needs or deserves,” Winer said.

Another of Schatz’s admirers is the man who gave him the job. When Sen. Daniel Inouye died in 2012, then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie selected then-Lt. Gov. Schatz to be Hawaiʻi’s new U.S. senator.

“It was the best decision I ever made politically and personally,” Abercrombie told Civil Beat.

He said he thought at the time that Schatz “possessed the personality, character, and accumulated legislative perspective to succeed there.” Today, he added, “it is clear to me that scenario is unfolding.”

Even with the Democrats in the minority, Schatz’s leadership within the party caucus will be crucial “because the Senate operates for the most part on the need to get 60 votes,” Winer noted.

“There’s a lot that that you can do in the Senate, when you’re in the minority, as long as you can hold your your team together,” Winer said.

Schatz has been in the Senate only 12 years, and at the relatively youthful age of 52, it’s easy to imagine he could someday be the Senate minority leader — or majority leader.

That’s something Inouye — the airport guy — never accomplished in his 49 years in the Senate despite seeking the leadership post several times.

How It’s Playing In The Islands

Sometimes the folks back home worry that their elected leaders might be spending too much time on national issues at the expense of local ones. But if Schatz’s March 8 telephone town hall was any indication, his constituents view today’s national concerns to be local as well.

Of the 18 questions the senator fielded from across the islands, only one was completely provincial, a complaint about Molokaʻi’s airline service. Schatz commiserated: “It is completely unreliable, and I think we need competition in this market.”

A couple of others put island spins on broader worries: Could we lose our local pubic radio and TV stations due to federal cuts? What’s going to happen to marine monuments that seem to be in Trump’s crosshairs?

Regarding the former, Schatz was optimistic: “I could be alarmed about everything, and on some level, I am, but I think on this one, we’re going to have enough bipartisan support to reject cuts to public broadcasting.”

The outlook was mixed for the marine monuments: Trump has the right to open up the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to fishing because it was originally established by an executive order, but any attempt to significantly change the status of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands would take years, Schatz said.

The rest of the questions could have been asked at a town hall anywhere in the country, dealing with tax cuts for the rich, tariffs, student loans, climate change, vaccines, Social Security and Medicare, health research funding, FEMA, the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“If the Congress appropriates money, it is not within the chief executive’s authority to not spend those dollars.”

Sen. Brian Schatz

One man asked if Schatz knew how many federal workers had lost their jobs so far. He didn’t, but offered this:

“There’s a kind of overall strategy to bully federal workers out of the workforce, but there’s a combination of tactics to do that. Some of it’s what I would consider to be pure harassment … this is an area where I think the Republicans thought that they had a sort of political advantage. And I think that what has turned out to be true is that nobody wants to punish a postal worker, nobody wants to punish an FAA worker, nobody wants to lay off a National Park Service worker.”

Schatz mentioned several times that Trump is pretending to have more power than he actually does to cut federal spending.

“There is a federal law that says it’s not like state government, it’s not like county government,” he said. “If the Congress appropriates money, it is not within the chief executive’s authority to not spend those dollars.”

Following The National Scene 

The town hall participants were clearly attuned to today’s national politics — one even prefaced her question to Schatz with, “Good luck in the whip race.”

Another asked if congressional Democrats were pointing out to Republican colleagues that they won’t hold complete power forever so maybe more bipartisanship and less rubber-stamping of the presidential requests is in order.

“The argument you’re making is one of the arguments that I make, that frankly, what is the point of being in the United States Senate if you are not going to perform your duties?” Schatz said.

“The door swings both ways in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “There will be a point when Democrats are back in charge, and to the extent that the legislature is forfeiting a lot of its authorities and prerogatives under the Constitution, that’s going to not just harm them from a policy standpoint, but it just diminishes our country.”

“I think where this is going to curdle for them is if these tariffs bite in their home states … So I am making those arguments. I wish they worked immediately. They seem to be gaining traction, but obviously not quickly enough.”

One of the most poignant moments started with a Hilo woman who said, “There’s so many issues that are facing us today, I feel very helpless about every situation … What can a normal everyday person do?”

“I think a lot of people feel this sense of wanting to be helpful, but not being exactly sure how to be most helpful,” Schatz responded. “A new congresswoman from Delaware said something that I really found very compelling, that her dad told her, which is that if everyone’s just a little more courageous, then we won’t need any more heroes.

“I think about the immigration raids on the Big Island and Maui. If we can provide comfort and support to our friends and neighbors, that’s an important act of resistance.”

Sen. Brian Schatz

“This is something I used to say to school kids, but I’ve been telling it to myself instead of the school kids, and that is: ‘Where do you start? Wherever you are. What do you use? Whatever you have. What do you do? Whatever you can.’

“I think there is, especially among people who care deeply, a sense that we have to have some master plan. That somebody is going to present us a PowerPoint about how to take our democracy back. That’s not really how this works. Whatever it is that you are in a position to do, that is what you are supposed to be doing.

“I think about the immigration raids on the Big Island and Maui. If we can provide comfort and support to our friends and neighbors, that’s an important act of resistance.

“I think about lobbying the Legislature and the county councils to try to provide whatever backstop we can in case there are federal funding decreases.

“I think about talking to your friends on the continent and doing more political mobilization on that level.

“There are lots of things that you can be doing, and I don’t want you to be wondering too much about if it’s the exact right thing to do.”