I’m on record as suggesting that Democrats not waste too much time on recriminations over 2024 while the wolf of Trump 2.0 is at the door. But there are some lessons relevant to the challenges right before them, and I tried to discuss at few at New York:
The ritualistic “struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party” that ensued after the Republican election victory of 2024 was cut somewhat short by the brutal realities of the real-life consequences of letting Donald Trump regain power with a Republican-controlled Congress and all sorts of ridiculous claims of an absolute mandate to do whatever he wanted. But, in fact, while factional finger-pointing might have been are a self-indulgent luxury an opposition party living under the MAGA gun can’t afford, there are some lessons from the election results that are important to internalize right now. Here are a few.
For much of the 2024 campaign, a lot of observers believed that the only way Trump could win was if Democrats failed to mobilize their party base, either out of complacency or because key constituencies were disgruntled with Joe Biden (and, to a lesser extent, with Kamala Harris once she became the presidential nominee). An enormous amount of money, time, and effort went into securing maximum turnout among young, Black, and Latino voters on the theory that if fully engaged, they’d win the day. And in the end, these constituencies did turn out reasonably well (a bit less than in 2020, but more than in 2012 or 2016). Trouble was, too many of them voted for Donald Trump.
No, Trump didn’t win Black, Latino, or under-30 voters overall, but his performance in all those groups improved significantly as compared to 2020. Among Black voters (per AP Votecast, the most reputable exit poll), he doubled his percentage of the vote, from 8 percent to 16 percent. Among Latinos, his percentage rose from 35 percent to 43 percent. And among under-30 voters, his share of the vote jumped from 36 percent to 47 percent. Meanwhile, the GOP advantage in the Donkey Party’s ancient working-class constituency continued to rise, even among non-white voters; overall, Trump won 56 percent of non-college-educated voters. The Democratic base fractured more than it faltered. And there were signs (which have persisted into early 2025 polling) that defections have made the GOP the plurality party for the first time in years and one of the few times since the New Deal.
While rebuilding the base (while expanding it) remains a crucial objective for Democrats, just calling it into the streets to defy Trump’s 2025 agenda via a renewed “resistance” isn’t likely to work. Many former and wavering Democrats need to be persuaded to remain in their old party.
Republicans have massive incentives to pretend that all their messages struck home, giving them an argument that they enjoy a mandate for everything they want to do. But the honest consensus from both sides of the barricade is that demands for change to address inflation and immigration were the critical Trump messages, with doubts about Joe Biden’s capacity to fulfill the office and Kamala Harris’s independence from him exacerbating both.
What we’ve learned in 2025 is that Trump has considerable public backing to do some controversial things on these issues. A 2024 poll from Third Way showed a majority of swing voters agreed that excessive government spending was the principal cause of inflation, a huge blow to Democratic hopes that rising costs could be pinned on corporations, global trends, supply-chain disruptions, or, indeed, the previous Trump administration. But this wasn’t just a campaign issue: Trump took office with some confidence that the public would support serious efforts to reduce federal spending and make government employees accountable. And the fact that (so far) his approval ratings have held up despite the chaotic nature of his efforts to slash federal payrolls is a good indication he has some wind at his back, at least initially.
If that’s true on inflation, it’s even truer on immigration, where solid majorities in multiple polls support (in theory, at least) the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. If the administration was smart enough to limit its deportation campaign to those convicted of violent crimes, it would have overwhelming public support. But Democrats should fully accept they didn’t just lose votes on this issue in 2024: They lost an argument that persists.
That is why it is critical that Democrats point to evidence that Trump’s own agenda (particularly his tariff policies) will revive inflation that had largely been tamed by the end of the Biden administration, while focusing their immigration messaging on vast overreach, inhumane excesses, and ethnic profiling of Latinos by Team Trump in its efforts to deport immigrants.
Joe Biden in his 2024 presidential campaign (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Kamala Harris as his successor) put considerable stock in playing on public concerns about the threat to democracy posed by Trump as evidenced by his conduct on January 6, 2021, and his lawless behavior generally. While these arguments found traction among voters already in his corner, there’s little evidence they mattered much at all to the voters who decided the election in Trump’s favor. Indeed, a considerable percentage of voters worried about a broken political system viewed Trump as a potential reformer as much as an insurrectionist or autocrat.
At the moment, most office-holding Democrats and (more quietly) many Republicans are aghast at how Trump has gone about pursuing his agenda early in 2025, with a blizzard of executive orders, a federal funding freeze, and a blank check issued to eccentric billionaire Elon Musk to disrupt federal agencies and intimidate federal employees. Again, Trump is drawing on long-standing public hostility toward the federal government and to the size and cost of government as a spur to inflation and a burden on taxpayers. Fighting him with alarms about his violation of legal and constitutional limitations on presidential power is unlikely to work with an electorate unmoved by Trump’s earlier scofflaw attitude. Voters must be convinced in very concrete terms that what he is doing will affect their own lives negatively. As with tariffs and the immigration policy, Trump’s tendency to overreach should provide plenty of ammunition for building a backlash to his policies.
In 2024, as in 2016, Trump managed to win because unhappy voters who didn’t particularly like or trust either presidential candidate (or their parties) in the end chose to produce a change in party control of the White House and of Congress. In office, Trump and his allies will try to perpetuate as long as they can the illusion that they are still fighting for “change” against powerful interests aligned with the Democratic Party, even though it’s Republicans who control the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and also dominate the U.S. Supreme Court. The idea that Team Trump is a brave band of insurgents speaking truth to power is undermined very specifically by the fact that its chief disrupter, Musk, is the richest man in the world and the first among equals of a large band of plutocrats surrounding the president.
As the New York Times’ Nate Cohn observed during the transition to the second Trump administration, many of the same anti-incumbent tendencies that put a thumb on the scale for the GOP in 2024 will now work for the opposition:
“The president’s party has retained the White House only once since 2004, mostly because voters have been unsatisfied with the state of the country for the last 20 years. No president has sustained high approval ratings since [George W.] Bush, in the wake of Sept. 11 …
“Looking even further back, the president’s party has won only 40 percent of presidential elections from 1968 to today. With that record, perhaps it’s the winning party that really faces the toughest question post-election: How do you build public support during an era of relatively slow growth, low trust in government and low satisfaction with the state of the country?”
Based on his conduct since returning to the White House and his well-known narcissism, it’s not all that clear that the 47th president even cares about building public support as he ends his political career. That may give him the freedom of the true lame duck, but it also means Democrats can batten on his broken promises and the disappointments they will breed. The 2028 presidential candidate who may be in real trouble is the Republican who succeeds the 2024 winner.
My motivation for writing anything usually comes from a feeling I need to say something. (probably from the poison of the internet) Of those somethings these list/ kitchen sink posts come out of noticing something that needs to be mentioned or been given attention and as far as I know, it has not. like “hey, you dropped something”
And with my previous post here sometimes unrelated anger can be a meandering force. wow (not all of that was entirely serious) also there are many government responsibility somethings that are all over the place. what to do.
I don’t share complete pictures of what I support, believe or am angry about online or even to most people I know unless it happened to be something I thought was important to mention AND it hadnt been given adequate attention to, so never. And with all of these links to articles about the full employment option most everything was already covered.
Anyhow I’m thinking its looking like a good time to retire from commenting on all of this stuff online anywhere – for my own reasons but also for the public good. 🙂 Some things need to be finalized.
well wishes to the Democrat party!
on the arguments against they say the skill set (or lack of) that the unemployed or underemployed has isn’t needed by the government, but there is plenty of work that would serve the public good and it doesn’t all have to be about infrastructure. There could be more retraining or self improvement. concerts, theater, art displays outside or in.. promoting inventions.
I think something similar was mentioned already but delivering food to seniors, disabled or anyone who isn’t able to get out for whatever reasons is nice too.
There could also be people who putting boxes of food, clothes, hygiene related products together for people in the Middle East, or anywhere –again Nice.
It wouldn’t hurt to be paid to learn a foreign language, preferably having something to do with your heritage. Because as a person or as a collective if we bury our heads in the sand or enriched soil as it were, in our own problems we will suffocate. But you could also learn Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese because Republicans.
As far as the problem of the “impossible” task of assigning everyone a job: aren’t there already structures in place that could be adjusted for that?
DSHS, Temporary employment agencies, public schools all levels. state job programs… just expand them, (or get contracts or follow business model) add options.
you could open something like a public computer facility similar to a library for some kind of online training (and the a bonus would be getting the computers out of the library and the traffic that comes with them) You would pay something small per hour to use them. Add cafes for revenue
You could break up Homeland Security and send some of that funding over to Americans financial security. You ask the people buying our elections/representatives to make a donation. “Dark money source #4 bought the software for this certification you’re using today.”
the other problem mentioned was small business owners or was it just private business would take a hit. As a temporary fix couldn’t small business owners have their employees wages partially paid to make up the difference in wage? (whatever they agree is the correct amount. I think it was 11.84 to 15.00) .
If you argue our economy or a good one cant survive by everyone having a decent job, youre saying failure is built into the system but also you’re arguing for building up the safety nets, which might not be a bad idea. But instead of work requirements only add a choice of self-improvement requirements. (Sure it has a patronizing feel, some syrupy ickness but could be ultimately for the public good. Actually more free places to go where you have to be doing something productive, which would include music would be for self improvement and the public good as well. If there could be a place for the homeless to hang out and get them out of the library where they could shower add that on the list too.)
If you are against safety nets too then you’re arguing for a vision of crime, jail, and drug addiction for America. With Republican control, you’re most likely arguing for our public schools to become religious-military preparation facilities for their religious and social wars and/or your life being an income source for their private prison or international war buddies.
(I hope I’m wrong but these people do have a vision. They aren’t failing because they’re dumb.)
So yes full employment option. This needs to happen. Aim high