U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party continue to push an agenda that alienates Middle America, writes Konrad Yakabuski.Amanda Sabga/Reuters
Before his death this month, former Democratic representative and gay liberal icon Barney Frank gave his thoughts on what his party must do to start winning again.
“The key to liberal democracy being able to come back is to get rid of the perception … that the entire Democratic Party is committed to a series of very drastic social reconstructions that go beyond the politically acceptable,” Mr. Frank said in a New York Times interview. “The problem with my friends on the left is that they want all these things to be litmus tests, immediately. … So what happens is they demand that more mainstream liberals sign on to these things, and then they lose because of it.”
Mr. Frank’s comments were a timely wake-up call to Democrats as they aim to retake the House of Representatives (and maybe the Senate) in the U.S. midterm elections and, crucially, begin the process of choosing a 2028 presidential nominee. Unfortunately, the belated release of an internal autopsy on the party’s 2024 election loss has reignited a feud between progressives and moderates that could cost Democrats the 2028 election, too.
To be sure, the party’s prospects look better for the midterms, though that has more to do with President Donald Trump’s sliding approval rating than anything Democrats have done to win over voters. Mr. Trump’s war on Iran – which has driven up gas prices and threatens to entrench the Islamic Republic’s control over the Strait of Hormuz – is seen as a betrayal of his promise to eschew new wars and cut the cost of living.
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His overcorrection on immigration (see his brutal Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids) have erased 2024 GOP gains among Hispanic voters. His weaponization of the Justice Department to settle personal scores and his unabashed cronyism are finally starting to irritate voters. And his backing of hardline MAGA loyalists over moderate incumbents in Republican primary races will help Democrats in November.
Still, one must never underestimate the ability of progressive Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Their reaction to the autopsy released last week by the Democratic National Committee shows why the party may repeat its 2024 mistakes all over again.
To be fair, the rollout of the report was a train wreck. The DNC included a disclaimer dissociating itself from its contents, insisting that it had not been provided with “the underlying sourcing, interviews or supporting data for many of the assertions contained” in the 192-page document. The report focused largely on campaign mechanics and glossed over Kamala Harris’s weaknesses as a presidential candidate.
Yet, it did get one basic fact right: it noted that Democrats have alienated vast swaths of the American electorate by focusing on issues that make them come off as self-indulgent or out of touch.
“We must organize everywhere to Win Anywhere,” the autopsy report argued. “Winning Anywhere means providing for a renewed focus on the voters of Middle America and the South, who have come to believe they are not included in the Democratic vision of a stronger and more dynamic America for everyone.”
The party’s progressive wing continues to push an agenda that alienates Middle America. Its leaders still insist that, if only Ms. Harris had embraced her inner progressive by promising to back universal health care, an arms embargo on Israel and the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, she could have mobilized more young Democrats to vote in 2024.
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Now, progressive firebrands Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have endorsed several non-mainstream midterm candidates in Democratic primaries whose controversial pasts and opinions cast a shadow nationally over the entire party.
These include Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, an impolitic Iraq veteran who until recently had a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest, and Abdul El-Sayed, the frontrunner in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary who wants to abolish ICE and has campaigned on university campuses alongside a controversial far-left streamer accused of making antisemitic statements.
Many Democratic progressives insist that Zohran Mamdani’s come-from-nowhere victory in last year’s New York mayoralty race is proof that American voters are ready for the radical change eschewed by the party’s establishment, as currently embodied by its charisma-challenged congressional leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.
But New York is not America, and Mr. Mamdani, despite being an exceptionally gifted politician, could not likely get elected statewide in Maine or Michigan. And his economic populism – he vows to tax the rich more, introduce universal childcare, freeze rents and open city-run grocery stores – still risks running up against the hard realities of governing and budgeting.
Regardless of what happens in the midterms, Democrats could still lose the White House in 2028 unless they internalize Mr. Frank’s message soon.
As of now, they have not.