There was a time, not so long ago, when the Democratic Party thought it could survive the populist wave. It was November 2022, just after the midterms in which they not only managed to maintain the majority in the Senate, but were very few seats away from doing the same in the House of Representatives, where a Republican party s was divided and fought between the Yes, it took days to agree on the choice of a speaker, Kevin McCarthywho barely lasted eight months in power.
The MAGA movement seemed to oscillate between the return of traditional conservatism in the figure of Ron DeSantis and far-right caricature in the form of Matt Gaetz either Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Trump, who did not run, was designated as the main person responsible for the failure of the announced “red wave”: he had supported candidates who were too extremist, far from the center where elections are won and lost. At 76, after two years away from the White House, the New York magnate saw his political career hanging by a thread.
Ironically, seen in perspective, this outcome was the worst thing that could have happened to the Democratic Party. The focus was on the GOP’s internal squabbles and any self-criticism of the ruling party was avoided. They appealed to the tradition that midterm elections always harm White House tenants and opted for harmful continuity. Instead of promoting the image of a Alexandra Ocasio-CortezA Gavin NewsomA Josh ShapiroA Laura Kelly or even a Tim WalzDemocrats felt satisfied with what they had and no one discussed Joe Biden’s decision to run for office.
The Sanders-Hillary trauma
It was an unforgivable mistake. Biden had already shown signs of physical and mental weakness, which is normal at 80, and his administration was coping as best it could with a high dose of unpopularity and galloping inflation. Its vice-president, Kamala Harris, had gone from great hope in 2020 to almost disappearing from the public agenda. Someone should have taken the reins and stood up to the president, but no one dared. The trauma of 2016 was still relevant.
And it’s impossible to understand what’s happened in the Democratic Party over the past eight years without remembering the primaries that tore the party apart as it searched for a successor to Barack Obama. . The confrontation between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders has left wounds difficult to heal between the most conservative and the most progressive sectors. Even with the threat of Trump already on the horizon, left-wing leaders like Susan Sarandon announced they wouldn’t vote for Clinton anyway. The result was what it was: Hillary won the popular vote, with nearly 66 million votes (a record at the time), but lost the electoral college and the White House..
Since that time, the Democratic Party has become obsessed with pleasing everyone and taking no chances. Nothing that could bother big families and nothing that could give rise to criticism from those further to the left. Nothing. She remained in this immobility for eight long years, trying to give an image of cohesion that was pure balance. The Biden administration’s stance on the war between Israel and Hamas is a good example: as Harris and other senior officials focused on the humanitarian issue and demanded the resignation of Netanyahuno one has stopped arms deliveries or managed to impose an agreement to pacify the region.
The shot backfired: although it is unlikely to have had a decisive influence on the elections, the truth is that a certain pro-Israeli sector began to distrust Biden and Harris, opening the door to destructive, even unfair, criticism of Trump. In turn, the pro-Palestinian sector camped out at universities and demanded measures that were never taken, so that distrust spread across the political spectrum. By dint of pleasing everyone, it ended up pleasing no one.
The Spanish
Far from technological innovation
In other words, no clear message was sent. While Donald Trump allowed all kinds of atrocities to escape without any remorse, within the Democratic Party, everything seemed excessively calculated so as not to deviate from political correctness. During those eight years, he failed to shed whatever label he had as a “woke” party and became too closely tied to the hated Washington establishment, prompting suspicion among rural people and the lower middle classes. voters.
At the same time, it has not decided to bet on the new technologies and innovation of Silicon Valley. The emergence of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel on the political scene completely surprised them.. The new millionaires called for risk and deregulation, the Democratic Party proposed more taxes and fewer investment incentives. The explosion of cryptocurrencies blindsided the Biden administration and, in general, with the exception of Google – itself part of the tech establishment – it never managed to understand what was happening in California and to what extent this power was exercised. will be transferred to other spheres across the country.
Voting for the Democratic Party is no longer motivating and has become a necessary evil. Disconnected from rural America for years – despite the relatively good results of some of its candidates in local elections in Kansas, Nebraska and even Montana – the party has only known how to appeal to fear. He let Biden’s tantrum last until August and then he had to invent a new candidate with a new approach. It didn’t fit. What should have been an open primary process with several candidates from the start of the year became an election led by a competent but, as we said, very unpopular politician.
Two years to recover
And so the Democrats ended up cooking in their own fear. Since 2008, his candidates for the White House have been Barack Obama, Barack Obama’s secretary of state, Barack Obama’s vice president and, to top it all off, Barack Obama’s vice president. Of course, the former president played a major role in the central events of the campaign despite the scandalous absence of Biden, relegated to the background.
We don’t yet know what the future will be, but we must not rely on nostalgia. It would be enough to meet Michelle as a candidate in 2028 to complete the circle. The Democratic Party must seek a visible face and a message that does not ring hollow. It does not need major revolutions or changes in one political direction or the other, simply to reconnect with minorities, understand citizens, and not insist on acting as a moral beacon of American life.
Few things annoy the average American more than having to endure being told how to live their life. The Democratic Party has been playing this Jiminy Cricket role that it hasn’t owned for at least eight years. It’s up to you to listen, suggest and manage. Far from the major decision-making centers of national politics, he has at least two years to rally ranks and prepare for the 2026 midterm elections without the need to obsess over Trump and appeal to his own narrative. Only if he succeeds will he be able to defeat populism again.
