Ninety days after Donald Trump’s victory, Democrats are still debating when and how to effectively resist the president’s agenda. They should look south — Mexico’s experience suggests they have little time to waste.

Trump’s return to power was in no small part due to his refusal to step aside. After losing in 2020, he seized absolute control of the Republican Party and established a shadow presidency that made political hay from every mistake President Joe Biden made. From the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan to rising inflation, Trump had a critique of everything ready. He became the ever-present voice of the opposition and the de facto Republican candidate from Day 1. The results of this approach bore fruit in November.

Mexico had already gone down a similar path. After Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s defeat in 2006, and then in 2012, he declared himself the “legitimate president of Mexico.” He imposed his political persona on the left, silencing other voices and becoming the public face of the opposition. Like Trump during Biden’s presidency, he soon became a thorn in the side of sitting presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto. He relentlessly criticized them from their first day to their last, establishing an active and constant opposition agenda. The result? The shadow president finally became the president in 2018.

Mexico’s opposition never learned to emulate López Obrador. Confused and divided, it did not manage to put forward a voice strong enough to counterbalance López Obrador’s never-ending stream of public pronouncements. During his six-year presidency, López Obrador held daily news conferences and, as a result, ended up as Mexico’s narrator in chief. His presence was inescapable as he set the public agenda.

López Obrador’s monopoly over discourse helped him consolidate his grip on Mexico’s politics. The opposition not only lost the 2024 election, it also failed to explain why López Obrador’s abuses were so damaging. It failed to convince voters, for example, that López Obrador’s judicial reform — which threaten to dismantle the entire framework of Mexico’s legal system — are taking the country closer and closer to fully unchecked authoritarianism. The arguments were made, but after more than 10 years of López Obrador setting the agenda, they just couldn’t punch through.

For Democrats, there are two fundamental lessons here:

First, consistency is crucial. Day-in and day-out, Democrats need to highlight the lies and potential illegality of the president’s actions. Given the volume of the transgressions, this won’t be easy. But meticulously labeling every false statement as a lie matters — and not just for the historical record. Politics is about narratives and trust, and building both takes time.

Second, the opposition must find its own “Donald Trump” to counter Donald Trump — a figure capable of articulating a daily response to the Trump administration’s every move.

This, too, won’t be easy. The Democratic Party is a coalition of diverse voices, not a disciplined movement centered around a single figure. Even so, it must figure out a formula. Perhaps a rotating group of Democratic governors or members of Congress can offer a daily news conference to counter Trump’s. And perhaps out of this public competition to define Trump’s record a particularly charismatic Democratic voice will emerge.

There is no shortage of possibilities. What there isn’t is time.

Trump’s increasingly frequent news conferences demonstrate that, unlike in his first term, he now understands the importance of omnipresence. He is everywhere, all the time, never missing an opportunity. This is no coincidence. It’s part of a strategy to dominate the narrative. If he’s left alone on the stage, he will end up owning it, and then effortlessly pass it on to his successor.

The opposition in the United States needs to find its voice — and soon.