Sometimes it takes a while to put things in perspective. Elections for example. What happened back in 2024? After Nov. 5, Democrats who didn’t expect to be losers struggled to explain to themselves why Kamala Harris lost to a repugnant narcissist: Biden didn’t step aside soon enough, Dems somehow (with most of four years to do it) didn’t get the message out about Biden’s legislation pushing the economy, voters faced with the price of eggs didn’t think inflation was coming down, she was female, she was black, once was soft on crime, Dems had lost touch with the working class… Or maybe all of the above.
Yes, all of the above, and something more. The other side had a story. Things aren’t going well, and times are not as good as they used to be. You’re not making the money you deserve, Democrats are giving it to illegal aliens, the ones taking your jobs, replacing white Christians, destroying the country with abortion, same-sex marriage and, oh yeah, letting “transgender” people, whatever they are, play on girls’ sports teams. The Republicans’ story had one idea or another (including, notably, lies repeated over and over) to appeal to nearly everyone, all part of the same story. A story easy to join. And they did. Voters, the ones that showed up (turnout was lower than 2020), moved right.
The Democrats did not, and it looks like still do not, have that kind of convincing story, one that will reach voters in their daily lives, one that embraces the hopes of a variety of people, one folks can say yes to. Democrats have lots to offer but it’s in pieces, something for this group or that group, good things, high-value things: equity, fairness, health care, things a majority of voters support, like abortion. But those things did not claim a majority of voters in 2024. They didn’t come together to form a story to which people could attach their lives.
What’s next? Well, there’s always James Carville’s advice: sit back and watch the Trump administration fly apart and it may be so bad people will vote for Dems in 2026, or maybe 2028 just to restore calm, a sense of security.
If what people want from government can be captured in a single word, this might be it: security. Still, what’s the story?
Hard to figure out right now. And over time, no matter what Democrats offer, they are at a disadvantage. Much of what happened in 2024 was driven by social media, often misleading or outright lies spread by real people or legions of bots. “It’s the algorithms, stupid,” which really move people through the net to sites that raise blood pressure, stimulate anger, and discovery that here’s a group that shares your views.
This is what “doing your own research” can turn up. The social media algorithms are not taking you toward love and fellow feeling. Thus, the Democrats’ disadvantage. If you’re talking about what good things the candidates stand for, will vote for, will do, none of that gets carried very far on social media.
The challenge ahead for the Democratic Party then is twofold: develop a story that competes with MAGA and find a way to make social media carry the story effectively, massively, in order to compete with what Republicans (who claim falsely that social media is biased against them) already have out there.
This is so true! Thank you for saying it.
They should just use the “story” developed here. Olympia’s policies have been utterly successful at neutralizing GOP power where it counts in Washington, both the elected offices in the Puget Sound region and control in Olympia. It can’t be emphasized enough how complete the Democratic Party’s control is over the three branches of this state’s government. Our secret sauce? High regressive taxes, non-existent corporate income taxes and personal income taxes, and state control of critical development and economic growth policies — all of it framed by the social equity “story” that the national Democratic Party seems afraid to rely on.
Democrats, particularly progressive Democrats, are in a tough spot. They have yet to realize that, albeit by a slim majority, Americans no longer agree with them. Locked in their siloed prayer circles they haven’t figured that they can’t continue to embrace, or just shrug off, some of the positions of their most progressive wing, i.e. open borders, defund the police, drug crime isn’t really a crime and the battle for sexual identity is equivalent to the civil rights battles of the ‘60s.
And crowded into enclaves on the coasts, Democrats have yet to acknowledge to themselves that this is what losing an election looks like. Just being more progressive by excoriating Chuck Schumer or Gavin Newsome is not going to win back formerly reliably competitive states like Iowa, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.
And Democrats have yet to realize that their fabled ‘working class’ is not their father’s or grandparent’s working class. Today’s workers are younger, more diverse and more entrepreneurial. Particularly since the pandemic they are more apt to work for small businesses or have side hustles. This is why Hispanic voters, in particularly, no longer vote in lockstep with party establishment.
Democrats shouldn’t be distracted by MAGA craziness, they just need to work to regain the trust of middle American voters.