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I fear another opportunity for Democrats to become the majority party will be wasted again this election cycle. The generic “affordability” issue plus Trump’s sinking polls put the wind at Democrats' backs, but when the far left wins a few primaries, they’ll do an end zone dance in the false belief that America shares their most progressive appetites. But they don’t.
As early as 1989, Bill Galston and Elaine Karmarck (Brookings Institution) wrote:
“Many Americans have come to see Democrats as inattentive to their economic interests, indifferent if not hostile to their moral sentiments, and ineffective in defense of their national security.”
And in a reprise article in 2022:
"Worst of all, too many of the most vocal Democrats have adopted stances on fraught social issues — policing, immigration, public schools, and others — that repel a majority of Americans.”
“Repel” is a strong word, and it unfortunately fits.
The Democratic Party is a very big tent, but its face cannot be Bernie (a Socialist and not a Democrat …who let him in?), Mamdani (another Socialist who hangs with Democrats out of necessity), or AOC, who represents one of America’s most liberal districts. Their agendas include free buses, municipal-owned grocery stores, and rent control, all utterly unsellable and foolish aspirations. They season these with a blend of messaging disasters: defund the police; open borders; gender identity is real gender. These may sell in New York, but not so much in, say, Fort Dodge.
What America needs is a whole lot of Blue Dog Democrats, people with common sense focused on practical, free market economic solutions, recognition that a safe and free world requires a strong American military, that Americans' tolerance for higher taxes may already have been met, and that the far left’s social agenda is irritating well past the eye-rolling zone.
There are plenty of Democratic candidates who know this (Haley Stevens in Michigan (my former Congresswoman) and not Abdul Al-Sayed; Angie Craig in Minnesota and not Peggy Flanagan), but who must mollify the far left while simultaneously maintaining their integrity as rational Democrats in touch with ordinary Americans’ values, both economic and moral.
We may get the candidate we need in 2028, if not 2026, when one individual will emerge as the voice of the Party. One hopes he or she will Blue-Dog-it all the way to the White House. But I don’t hold my breath.
