Voters frustrated with Democrats' response as Trump runs roughshod over Congress

By Joseph Ax and Richard Cowan

EGG HARBOR, New Jersey (Reuters) -Democratic voter Heather Ogden is furious at President Donald Trump's assault on the federal bureaucracy - and she wishes her party would show more fight.

"It feels like we are playing by the rules of a game that no longer exists," Ogden, 48, told Democratic Senator Andy Kim at a town hall in New Jersey on Thursday night. 

"They have tossed all of the rules out of the window," Ogden said after the event. She said she believes Kim is one of the few Democratic lawmakers who have spoken out loudly and clearly.

Her frustration reflects growing divisions within the party about how best to oppose the Republican president, who in his second term has shrugged off traditional restraints to exercise an unprecedented level of executive power.

Trump – buoyed by a conservative majority in Congress that staunchly supports him – is testing the U.S. Constitution's system of checks and balances, usurping Congress' authority over spending by dismantling approved programs and agencies and appearing to defy judicial orders blocking his agenda.

"We recognize we are in uncharted territory, and that is why I'm so alarmed, why you're so alarmed," Kim told the audience. "I am here to just say, please stay engaged ... and help me try to build the kind of movement that we need to mobilize."

Republicans have faced plenty of their own complaints. Many in Congress are avoiding town hall meetings after confrontations with voters angry about job cuts implemented by Trump's cost-cutting czar, Elon Musk.

Democrats have sought to portray Republicans as unwilling to answer to their own constituents. Kim's event - held in Republican Representative Jeff Van Drew's district - was one of several Democratic town halls in red districts highlighting Republican plans to cut taxes for the wealthy and possibly slash health spending.

With Republicans holding narrow House and Senate majorities, Democrats have little power to slow Trump down, and they have struggled to respond.

Their divisions surfaced last week when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and several colleagues broke ranks to pass a Republican spending bill, avoiding a shutdown through September.

That drew an intense backlash from many Democratic voters and lawmakers who said Schumer had backed down during a rare moment of leverage. Republicans need at least seven Democratic votes to advance most legislation through the 100-seat Senate.

"I disagree strongly with how Senator Schumer moved forward," Kim said on Thursday. "I also understand there was no good answer here."

Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, a leading progressive voice in Congress, told Senate Democrats to "have a goddamn spine," while Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said Schumer had sold the party out. 

Even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a veteran of many tough votes, criticized his decision. "I myself don't give away anything for nothing," she said on Tuesday.

Schumer, who postponed public appearances this week due to security concerns, has argued a shutdown would give Trump and Musk even more leeway to jettison federal workers and shut down agencies whose work they do not support. His decision also gave cover to some Senate Democrats worried that they would shoulder the blame for a prolonged shutdown.

"If they shut the government down, people don't understand how catastrophic that would be for America and eventually for the Democrats," he said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday.

The Democratic infighting stands in sharp contrast to Republicans, who have united behind Trump after party leaders struggled in recent years to corral their caucus.

All but one House Republican voted for the spending bill, including fiscal hawks who had previously refused to back stopgap funding measures but relented as a show of support for Trump.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in Egg Harbor, New Jersey and Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Saad Sayeed)