The Dems are alright

Democrats are in disarray, disorganized and have no message. That's normal and fine

Another week and more chaos. I’m sure that will be a regular story for the next four years. In a span of a few days, Trump has managed to (unlawfully) decimate USAID, which is a big part of American soft power. The consequences have already been severe and will probably get worse. Our reputation in the developing world has almost certainly taken a big hit. Xi Jinping can’t believe his good fortune.

Once again, Trump is not tough on China. It takes a willful blindness of what is right in front of you to think he is. By alienating allies around the world and withdrawing from international organizations, he’s leaving a void that China will be happy to fill. He also isn’t enforcing the ban on TikTok that he used to support before doing a 180 after being bribed. If we can’t carry out something as simple as banning a compromised social media platform, we don’t have a prayer on anything else.

On the domestic front, my very low view of the DOGE has gotten even lower. It’s bad enough that they have no interest in making things more efficient and don’t even know what the federal budget consists of. What’s worse is they’re largely made up of kids who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground but think they’re brilliant. Sorry tech bros, but cutting “waste, fraud and abuse” is not going to save $2 trillion. As smart as they claim to be, you would think they’d have taken five seconds to Google what the federal government spends its money on.

Disrupting the tech sector or any private sector industry is one thing. If [pick your favorite tech company] is outdone by a startup and fails because it can’t adjust, that’s how market economies work. If the Treasury Department is disrupted and stops making payments, we’ll have a major problem on our hands.

Inexperience and cluelessness aside, some of those involved with the DOGE are just horrible people. One resigned, but has been rehired, after it was discovered he had written flamingly racist posts and advocated for eugenics. It’s fair to say many of those on the left are the boy who cried wolf on racism, but, remember, the moral of the story is not that the wolf didn’t exist. Another DOGE hire, who is 19, was fired from a cybersecurity firm for leaking its secrets to a competitor. Giving a child with a history of bad behavior access to sensitive government information? What could possibly go wrong?

I could spend this entire post writing about what happened last week, but I would rather not. What I am going to do here is write about what I know best and that is US electoral politics and how parties operate. Normally, I divide up each post into different sections, but I’m going to do things differently this time.

The Democratic National Committee just elected a new chairman. The entire spectacle was an embarrassment, but luckily the DNC doesn’t matter. To the extent it can help raise money and recruit candidates that’s good, but it’s a toothless organization with no actual power. The same is true for the Republican National Committee.

I have no strong feelings about the new DNC chairman. All I ask is that he helps raise money and recruit candidates and otherwise shuts up and stays out of the limelight. It drives me insane how much coverage DNC elections get when everyone seems to recognize that the RNC elections don’t matter at all. It’s one of many bad legacies of the 2016 primary, but let’s not even go there.

Last week, the New York Times reported on the state of the Democratic Party, such as it exists. When reading the article, I rolled my eyes so many times I got dizzy. Still, it’s a good read and worth going over in detail. It gives some real life examples of many of the things I write about regularly, particularly since the election. It features mostly wrong takes from party bigwigs, but does mention some truths, which I will discuss. The passages are highlighted in bold. Let’s start with the title and go from there.

“We have no coherent message.” That is both factually accurate and irrelevant. When you’re the party out of the White House that will always be the case. To the extent the party out of the White House has any sort of message, it’s opposing the president. I think it’s safe to say Trump (or President Musk) is going to give them plenty to work with. That’s how it works every time.

To do well in the midterms, Democrats don’t need a compelling message. They just need Trump to be unpopular, which he is well on his way to accomplishing. That’s unsatisfactory for those who think Democrats should advocate for all the things they want them to advocate for anyway, but it’s always been like that.

Here’s a pop quiz: how many times has the party not in the White House done well in a midterm because they had a coherent message voters loved? If you guessed zero, you’re correct. Presidents tend to get less popular during the midpoint of their terms and their party suffers for it. That’s really all there is to it.

If Trump is unpopular when the midterms roll around, Democrats will have a good night. The only way they won’t is if they do what Republicans did in 2022 and nominate psychopaths in every key race. Luckily for Democrats, their voters care about winning above all else and won’t do that.

In private meetings and at public events, elected Democrats appear leaderless, rudderless and divided. That, too, is factually accurate and irrelevant. Unlike most other developed countries, we don’t have a parliamentary system. In those systems, parties have formal leaders who are elected by their fellow members of parliament. The closest thing parties here have to formal leaders is the president/presidential candidate. The party out of the White House has leaders in Congress, but that’s very different. I would be shocked if more than 5% of the public could pick Hakeem Jeffries out of a lineup.

Not only does the party out of the White House not have any official leaders, they shouldn’t want it. Why? Because politics tends to revolve around the president. For better or worse, that is how it works, Biden being a rare exception. For Democrats, their electoral fortunes depend heavily on Trump being unpopular. If he is unpopular, it will be in Democrats’ interest for him to have all the attention.

Midterms are almost always a referendum on the party in the White House. That is exactly the scenario Democrats should hope for. If they were to somehow anoint a leader, then the midterms would become a choice between him/her and Trump, which may not work to their benefit.

Governors, members of the Senate and the House, state attorneys general, grass-roots leaders and D.N.C. members offered a wide range of views about the direction of their party. To the extent there is any formal Democratic (or Republican) Party that is it. It’s normal for party actors to have different takes after losing an election. Some will emphasize policy changes while others focus more on tactical and messaging changes. I discussed this in my second election post-mortem post, but just to remind readers, the last people on earth you should consult if you want to know what a party’s future might look like are its officials, elected or not.

The newly elected DNC chairman has said he wants to conduct a post-election review with a focus on messaging and tactics. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s unlikely to accomplish much. That’s because the kind of messaging and tactics that mattered in 2024 are likely to be very different from what will matter in 2028. It almost always works that way. Looking at what happened during the last election and trying to extrapolate it onto the next election is fighting the last battle.

There is a disagreement over how to deal with Trump. Some want to resist selectively while others want to resist categorically. As with the party having no message, Trump will take care of this. His actions during the last week have likely poisoned whatever well there was. Some Democrats are still willing to work with him, but that’s going to become harder to do with every action he takes.

I think it would be good for Democrats to try to work with Republicans on things like permitting reform, but my guess is that bridge has been burned. On spending measures, given that Trump thinks he can spend money however he pleases, it’s hard to negotiate anything. Whatever spending measures are agreed to, he thinks he can just ignore it. I’m sure the Supreme Court will decide the matter sooner or later, but until that happens it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a point in negotiating on spending measures of any sort.

The government will shut down on March 14 unless a budget or stopgag measure is passed. That’s an eternity away, but at the rate things are going it’s hard to see how we don’t have a lot of drama when that deadline approaches. Democrats will have plenty of leverage given that House Republicans are too dysfunctional to pass anything on their own, but then there’s Trump and Musk. I’m sure I will write about it next month, but that’s all I’ve got for now.

Democrats broadly agree that they need to do more to address the issues that powered Mr. Trump’s campaign, like grocery costs, inflation and immigration. Because Democrats are in the minority in Congress, they can’t do anything on their own. When the midterm campaigns get started, individual candidates will run on all kinds of ideas that address those things, but that’s a long way off. Until then, Democrats in Congress can try to work with Republicans on legislation, but call me skeptical anything significant will happen.

An immigration bill was just passed, but it has a narrow focus and might have some serious unintended consequences. Maybe some other legislation related to border security will make it through, but my guess is most of what will get voted on is messaging bills. Democrats from swing states and districts may feel the need to vote for those things, which is fine, but they’re not bills that are going to become law.

There are plenty of things Congress can do to reduce inflation, but that would involve cutting spending and raising taxes. Funny enough, if Republicans in the House are so dysfunctional that they can’t pass anything and the tax cuts from 2017 all expire that would go a long way towards bringing down prices and improving the country’s fiscal trajectory. I highly doubt that will happen. The much more likely outcome is all the tax cuts are extended with extra tax exemptions added on, which will mean higher interest rates and/or inflation and will make the country’s fiscal trajectory worse.

On the specific issue of food prices, nothing will pass and that’s a good thing. Passing something would probably mean giving people more money, which will make inflation worse. Otherwise, it will be some law against price gouging, which, at best, would be symbolic and at worst would cause food shortages.

The fortunes of the party may depend on how Mr. Trump’s disruptive policies are received. Preach! That’s exactly how their fortunes will rise or fall. As I wrote about last week, Trump rescinded his executive order freezing all federal grants and loans because of the disruption it was causing. He can get away, for now, with wreaking havoc throughout the parts of the federal government that don’t normally affect peoples’ daily lives. Messing with things that do affect peoples’ daily lives like Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps is a different story.

For all the attention on Trump’s executive actions, arguably the biggest story of the year is going to be whether the tax cuts are extended with any offsets. If they are it will come heavily from Medicaid, food stamps and possibly the Affordable Care Act. Those are things that affect tens of millions of people and slashing their budgets will be highly disruptive.

Hardly anyone remembers it anymore because it failed, but Trump attempted to repeal the ACA in 2017. It would have kicked millions of people off of their insurance and was very unpopular. That effort did more to hurt his approval rating than anything he did before January 6. If Republicans in Congress opt to have that fight again it will be even more unpopular and will unite Democrats of all stripes against it.

For now, Democrats have an even better foil than Trump: Musk. It looks like many Democrats in Congress are recognizing that, including ones from swing states and districts. It makes for an easy attack line. People elected Trump, not Musk and the latter wants to make cuts to popular programs that the former has disavowed. Trump is not popular, but Musk is more unpopular and will probably become even more so.

Mr. Martin acknowledged that the party’s 2028 presidential primary race — probably two years away from fully beginning — would go a long way toward determining an affirmative Democratic message. The reference is to Ken Martin, the new DNC chairman. That is the most important line in the article. Parties are heavily defined in the public eye by the president when they’re in the White House. When they’re not in the White House, the closest thing they have is their presidential nominee.

I wrote a long post last year on what I think Democrats should do differently. The way the party, such as it exists, will change is by having a presidential nominee who works to steer everyone else in his/her direction. If he/she wins, the rest of the party bigwigs will go along with him/her. Examples of that include Clinton and Trump.

Clinton was a new kind of Democrat in that he accepted that the 1970s were over. Taxes were going to be lower, free trade was good, the party’s left-wing was stale and big spending measures weren’t going to happen. His getting elected and reelected while embracing those ideas got most other Democrats in Congress and elsewhere to go along with it. People like to win elections and if an approach is seen as winning they will embrace it no matter how much they resisted it before.

Trump is an even better example. Before he showed up, Republicans in Congress almost all favored entitlement reform and free trade. Today, the former is comatose and the latter is close to it. Most members of Congress aren’t policy wonks and will go with where they think their party is heading. Trump is clearly the party’s dominant figure and has brought in many new voters. Seeing his approach as a winner, other Republicans have followed him.

If Democrats nominate someone in 2028 who has a forceful and commanding presence, he/she will be seen as the party’s leader. If he/she wins, whatever he/she advocates for is what others in the party will support, enthusiastically or not. For all the handwringing over the influence left-wing advocacy groups have gained lately, the cure for it is very simple. The Democratic nominee and, if he/she wins, president, will have to be someone who gives those groups the finger and doesn’t care what they think.

Clinton and Trump did plenty of that and the next Democratic nominee/president hopefully will, too. If he/she pushes back against the party’s left-wing and wins, it will send a signal to other elected officials and party actors to do the same. Who is that person? I have no idea and neither does anyone else. We’re just going to have to wait to find out.

In private discussions, former President Barack Obama has compared this moment to early 2005, after Democrats had lost the White House and control of Congress, according to a person briefed on the conversations. Two years later, Democrats gained control of Congress. And two years after that, Mr. Obama became the country’s first Black president and re-energized the party.

He would certainly know a thing or two about that. I think the aftermath of the 2004 election is a good analogy. It’s always tempting to think one party is doomed forever, but it’s never been true before and it’s not true now. Democrats are doomed to be a permanent minority the same way they were doomed to be a permanent minority after 2004 and Republicans were after 2008.

Yet there is little question that for now, at least, Democrats are at a low point. The article cites a poll from Quinnipiac showing the party’s unfavorable rating at 57%. Other polls from CNN and Gallup have shown a big increase in unfavorable views of the party. The name of this blog is cold political takes and I’m going to give a freezing cold take here: the party is doing fine.

I’m not denying those polls said what they said. I’m just saying don’t overinterpret it. What polls should be asking, in addition to how people see the parties, is how they view Trump and Biden. That’s what a Wall Street Journal poll did last month. What it found was the views of the parties were virtually identical to the views of Trump and Biden.

The reason favorable views of the Democratic Party are low now is because Biden is very unpopular. Views of him and views of the party are basically one and the same. Since Biden is gone and won’t be coming back that will change with time. Trump won and people like winners so whoever wins a presidential election gets a temporary boost in favorable views of them. It never lasts and when Trump’s favorable rating goes down, so will the Republican Party’s.

What I think makes the presidential election results last year so psychologically painful for Democrats is not just that Trump won again. It’s not that he won the popular vote or that he’s now normal and mainstream. It’s that Democrats have had, for the first time since Jimmy Carter, a president who left office on a very bad note. Biden accomplished many things, but his presidency was a failure in that he dropped out and his VP lost. Democrats haven’t had a one term presidency since 1980.

That outcome was going to happen sooner or later. If you win the White House enough times, at some point you will wind up with a very unpopular president who drags down the party’s reputation. The good news is it doesn’t matter as soon as they leave the scene. Bush left office in 2008 with an approval rating in the low 30s and Democrats had a huge congressional majority. Two years later, Republicans came roaring back to life. If Republicans can survive Bush, Democrats can definitely survive Biden.

In any event, you can cite polls all you want, but I can cite something even better: election results. As I’ve said before, the election last year was NOT, and I repeat NOT, a red wave. To call the Democratic Party toxic is an odd way to describe a party with 215 House seats, 47 Senate seats and 23 governorships. If you consider that to be terrible, I don’t know what to tell you.

If this is a low point for Democrats, I’m going to pop a champagne cork. They’re in way better shape now than they were after 2004 and 2016. Between having a coalition that reliably shows up and Trump being unpopular, I expect them to thrive in elections held between now and 2028.

None of this is to say they have no problems, they do. They need to gain back some of the non-white and non-college educated voters they’ve lost ground with. Those groups matter much less in midterms, but in presidential elections they’re very important. Whether they will make inroads with those groups won’t be known for some time.

Eight years ago, after Mr. Trump’s first victory, party officials followed the lead of liberal voters, who rushed to protest, poured money into Democratic campaigns and ran for local offices. This time, demonstrations have been minimal to nonexistent, as corporate leaders curry favor with the new administration and liberal celebrities mute their opposition out of fear of retribution.

This all very normal. What was unusual were the instant large protests the first time Trump won. Even more unusual was how so much of corporate American was against him, substantively and performatively.

There is resistance to him now, it’s just happening in courts, and to a lesser extent in Congress, and not so much in the streets. As for Democratic voters being demoralized, that’s not the case. Just because people aren’t watching MSNBC, subscribing to the Washington Post and protesting doesn’t mean they’ve tuned out.

One small piece of evidence for continued engagement was a special election in Iowa for a state senate seat. The district was won by Trump by about 21 points last year, but a Democrat won the election by 4 points. Since Trump showed up, Democrats have dominated among high propensity voters. A worry some had after the election was they would stop being engaged, but that is unfounded.