How Democrats Win
Not by moderating. Not by grandstanding. But by remembering why they went into politics.
It’s hard to overstate just how unpopular the Democratic Party is right now. A July Wall Street Journal poll found that Democrats are facing their lowest approval ratings in 35 years, with 63% of voters disapproving of the job they’re doing. Only a third of Americans say they have favorable opinions of the Democratic Party; more than 40% view Republicans favorably, even as the economy is faltering, the government is shut down because Republicans want everyone’s health care premiums to skyrocket, the country’s dumbest and worst people are in charge of most federal agencies, and masked agents of the state are grabbing people off of the street and deporting them without due process. It’s incredible that a political party could be less popular than the current berserker GOP, and yet the Democrats have done it.
There’s been a lot written about what Democrats are doing wrong and how they can fix their “voters hate us” problem. Suggestions include: Moderate on so-called “social issues” (trans rights, gay rights, abortion rights). Become the Zohran Mamdani party and move way to the left on everything. Become the party of democracy and rule of law. Embrace a populist economic policy. Run on Palestinian rights and an end to Israel.
And there are long-standing debates on what voters actually care about. Do people actually vote on policy, and if they did, wouldn’t Democrats — whose policies individually poll much better than Republicans’ — be the winningest? Do people just vote on vibes? Do people just cast their ballots based on identity and whether they think a political party relates to them?
I’m in the camp of “there is no single correct unifying theory of what wins, and if there was, people would use it.” Every election is different. Policy matters, but not as much as politics-heads wish. Vibes matter, but vibes shift, and how much vibes matter really depends on the situation. Identity matters, but those shape-shift, too, and may be far less sticky that progressives especially have believed.
What matters most is leading.
Most people want to follow a leader. They want something to believe in; they want the comfort of being led; they want the airplane pilot to tell them where they’re going, not ask if the next stop should be Houston or Atlanta. But that means a political party has to stand for something; it has to be leading you somewhere. The politicians who make up the party need to genuinely believe what they’re saying. They need to remember — and to help the public understand — why they got into politics in the first place. This is what Democrats have lost: They’ve become practiced at using approved words and talking about approved policies, but they aren’t offering a big vision of why they’re here.
Republicans tell Americans that they want to make the country great again. They have a story about a golden age of America, and they’re going to return us to that, only better. Democrats used to tell a story about building on the movements that made America great, about continuing the legacy of the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement. Now, what story are Democrats telling? “At least we’re not the other guys”?
