There they were, dressed in hot pink, waving signs, banging on a cane.

If that is what counts as resistance, we are all in trouble.

The fact is that by showing up, the Democrats gave the president an audience he doesn’t deserve. Would they all have shown up at a Donald Trump campaign rally? That’s what it was. He doesn’t deserve the respect of the presidency. It’s not that kind of presidency.

Chris Murphy, the senator from Connecticut who is emerging as the most effective Democratic spokesperson and should-be Leader, was right to stay away.

Other Democrats should have followed suit. Instead, they just looked small and silly, like willing foils for Trump to belittle and castigate.

One hundred minutes — the longest ever for a presidential address to Congress — of boasting and lying, attacking and dividing, tossing red meat to the band of Republican cowards who are increasingly afraid of their own constituents.

We need a real resistance, and pink dresses are not it.

In his first six weeks in office, the president has given Democrats all the ammunition they need. It’s time to use it.

At my local Costco last Sunday, fights nearly broke out when the store opened as people jockeyed to buy eggs at record prices. Imagine Joe Biden were still president, and this happened. Trump would be eating him for lunch.

America’s corporate leaders are warning that prices at Target and Best Buy are going to go up because of Trump’s tariffs. Why? Even he can’t explain the rationale for the tariffs. A bully bullies. He is doing it because he can. Americans are going to suffer as a result. Is this what “America first” means? It’s Donald Trump first, not America.

He is doing real harm to real people. Democrats need to make that case. It is there to be made. It is one thing to reform federal agencies like USAID. It is another to take away food and medicine from the poorest children on the planet. That is what Trump is doing.

His big, beautiful budget bill will finance tax cuts for the wealthy by cutting health care for the poorest Americans who depend on Medicaid. There is no way the numbers add up without cutting Medicaid. And Social Security? Elon Musk has called it a Ponzi scheme. Will Trump protect what his closest adviser considers a Ponzi scheme? Imagine some other president whose closest adviser so nakedly attacked the system that protects seniors who have, for a lifetime, paid into the system that they depend on to avoid poverty. Any other president would disown that adviser.

Trump just tells him to put on a suit and tie.

Democrats need to do more than just say no — and be voted down. We need to be clear about not only what we are against but also what we are for. The Democratic Party that I grew up with was the party of working-class Americans who play by the rules and expect government to work for them. We lost those voters, and we need to get them back. Pink suits won’t do it.

Republicans had their Project 2025 — a radical plan to dismantle government as we know it, abandon the environment, and serve the rich at the expense of the poor and the working class. They are putting that plan into effect. And what are we doing? Waving signs.

There are some Democrats who believe that all the party needs to do is sit back and wait for the Trump/Musk administration to self-destruct. I’m not that optimistic. As my father used to say, you can’t beat a horse with no horse. And too many people will suffer in the interim.

And we need to hold Republicans’ feet to the fire. Shame them. Present alternatives they can’t say no to. Why not a budget bill of our own that forces them to vote against protecting Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare? Why not an emergency appropriations bill to support Ukraine, even as the president abandons it and humiliates its president?

The president is successfully beating the mainstream media into submission. He purports to celebrate free speech and the First Amendment, even as he does everything he can to limit it and punish those who speak freely. The billionaire bros are being bullied into submission. The Democrats must do better.

EDITOR’S NOTE: To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.