What Do Democrats Stand For?
In recent years, particularly over the last eight, the Democratic Party’s identity has been largely defined by its opposition to Donald Trump. They have positioned themselves as the party of the so-called Resistance, striving to defend democratic institutions against what they perceive as a dangerous and fundamentally undemocratic movement. This period has been marked by two impeachments, four criminal investigations, 34 felony convictions, and countless warnings about the threats to democracy. All of these efforts stemmed from the belief that Mr. Trump posed a significant threat that could not be addressed through traditional political means. This has shaped what it means to be a Democrat in the contemporary political landscape. However, this approach has failed spectacularly, culminating in a clear path for Mr. Trump to potentially reclaim the White House with a decisive popular vote victory.
As Democrats grapple with this painful defeat, they stand at a crossroads that could lead to a moment of rebirth for the party as it seeks to forge a lasting Democratic majority.
A Necessary Reckoning
The first step for the Democratic Party is to reckon with the chain of events that led to this point. The origins of Resistance politics can be traced back over a decade, even before Mr. Trump emerged on the political scene. In 2011, as Mr. Trump gained notoriety as the leading voice of birtherism, Barack Obama’s team seized the opportunity to frame him as the embodiment of the Republican opposition. Years later, David Plouffe, who served as an Obama campaign manager and later as a presidential adviser, explained this strategy succinctly: “Let’s really lean into Trump here,” Mr. Plouffe recounted, believing it would benefit their cause.
Initially, this strategy proved effective. So effective, in fact, that when Mr. Plouffe joined Kamala Harris’s campaign in the summer, it still appeared to be the foundation for a winning coalition. The Democratic Party had reinvented its policy stance multiple times since Mr. Plouffe’s tenure in the White House, shifting from Hillary Clinton’s technocratic progressivism to President Biden’s ambitious vision of a second New Deal, and then pivoting back to a centrist approach with Ms. Harris. The anti-MAGA coalition repeatedly rallied around a common cause, conveniently alleviating Democrats from the challenge of articulating a cohesive belief system beyond their shared opposition to Mr. Trump.
The Costs of Resistance Politics
However, there is a significant cost associated with this approach. Despite progressive rhetoric, Resistance politics often comes across as inherently conservative. This reactionary stance means that the opposing side sets the terms of the debate, often resulting in a focus on defending norms under attack, responding to new outrages, or protecting institutions deemed at risk.
Regardless of the specific missteps made by Ms. Harris—of which there will surely be many for postmortems to dissect—her greatest challenges were rooted in the inability to establish a Democratic identity that transcended the #Resistance movement. The commitment to uniting an anti-MAGA coalition rendered it impossible to articulate the priorities that would have guided a potential Harris administration. As a result, there was no unifying vision to distinguish her policies from those of Mr. Biden, nor was there a coherent narrative about what lessons Democrats had learned while governing a nation that most Americans perceive as heading in the wrong direction.
The Incoherence of Strategy
This fundamental problem sheds light on the perplexing incoherence of Ms. Harris’s campaign strategy. If one were to judge the campaign based solely on media coverage, they might conclude that the primary targets were Never Trump Republicans, eagerly awaiting a signal from Liz Cheney to cast their votes for the Democrats. However, a closer examination of the advertisements that aired in swing states reveals a populist message that would not have seemed out of place coming from Bernie Sanders. These ads featured direct-to-camera addresses from voters asserting that Ms. Harris would “cut taxes for working people like me” and expressing their frustration that “billionaires pay less in taxes than I do.”
