Democrats should stop navel-gazing, embrace the future

Jackie Calmes, Tribune News Service

Could there be a better metaphor for the plight of the out-of-power Democratic Party than the fact that it's now a week into debating how the party screwed up an "autopsy" about how the party screwed up the 2024 presidential election? Or that the Democratic National Committee's forced release of that 2024 autopsy last Thursday, after its leak to CNN, produced headlines that all but overshadowed news of the much more consequential malpractice on the Republican side — including President Donald Trump's continued humiliation in his war against Iran and congressional Republicans' mutiny over his billion-dollar ballroom, his $1.8 billion slush fund to reward Jan. 6 insurrectionists and other allies, and his retribution against fellow elected Republicans?

First, to dispense with the autopsy: As former Obama strategist and podcaster Dan Pfeiffer titled his recent newsletter, "Ken Martin has to go." Martin, the DNC chair, is by all accounts a good guy. He's right to promote a 50-state strategy that funds party organisations in red states as well as blue ones; he wisely refuses to lead a political party that forfeits half the nation. Yes, that financing is a burden when donors aren't ponying up amid the months-long controversy over the draft autopsy that Martin bottled up. But no party easily raises money when it doesn't hold the White House or Congress.

Still, Martin alone bears responsibility for the huge embarrassment of the so-called after-action report. He promised immediately after his selection as chair 16 months ago to produce and publicise it. He chose a crony to produce it, then failed to monitor the effort to realise how woefully the draft was falling short: In 192 pages it lacked a conclusion and didn't mention Joe Biden's age and evident feebleness, the divisive issues of Israel and Gaza, or why 11th-hour nominee Vice President Kamala Harris lost the votes of so many Black and Latino men — all topics that ought to have been central to the report.

Once he realised the draft was a disaster, late last year, Martin declined to take remedial action or start over. Rather than fess up, he remained silent about the draft's many shortcomings and simply reneged on his promise to release a report, claiming it was time to focus on the 2026 and 2028 elections. So now the hapless Democrats are months closer to the midterm elections and they're obsessing and spitting furious over an autopsy that would shame a small-town coroner's office. "If you can't do the small things, you can't do the big things," Pfeiffer concluded of Martin's stewardship.

And the DNC has to do big things, including deciding on the calendar, procedures and debates for the 2028 presidential primaries that will produce the party's pick for its post-Trump future. It hosts the nominating convention, but generally its job of supporting the political apparati to win elections is one that's in the background. For the national committee to let itself become the story, and one that screams "weak and hapless," is inexcusable. Whether the Democratic Party gets rid of Martin or not, its leaders — not just those at the DNC — have to show that they have the vision to see clearly that the advantage Democrats have in this midterm-election year has next to nothing to do with their party's appeal, but comes in spite of their unpopularity and thanks instead to Trump's and Republicans' own. Sure, Democrats can win some elections in the short term, as voters send a message to the Republicans in power. But the party can't build a political future by running against a man who's a lame duck.

The Democrats' challenge is all too obvious. The party's popularity in polls is lower than Trump's and no better than the Republican Party's. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center reported this month that 59% of American adults have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party — a statistically insignificant percentage point above the Republican Party's unfavorable measure. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted at mid-month had Trump's job approval rating at a new low of 34% among registered voters, but just 20% approved of how Democrats in Congress were performing, seven percentage points below congressional Republicans' rating.

Clearly Democrats' job No. 1 is to redefine themselves. Yes, they are unfairly tagged in many voters' minds with holding as their top priorities support for transgender rights in school sports, defunding police, open borders and high spending (fiscal fecklessness more aptly describes Trump and his party). But the negative labeling is due in no small part to Democrats' weakness in countering Republicans' attacks, and their haplessness in telegraphing alternative, positive messages of what they stand for.

More fairly, the Democratic Party is seen as too distracted by fringe culture war issues such as teachers' unions, immigrants' rights groups and leftist activists. In fact, more voters consistently support Democrats' positions on many issues, notably healthcare, than they do Republicans'. Trump, meanwhile, is squandering his party's lead on issues including the economy and immigration. Yet former Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, himself a proud liberal Democrat, felt strongly enough that Democrats were allowing themselves to be defined by their left, playing into Republicans' hands, that he literally turned his dying words into a constructive warning, with hospice interviews in the weeks before he died on May 19.

"Get rid of the perception, that we have allowed to grow, that the entire Democratic Party is committed to a series of very drastic social reconstructions that go beyond the politically acceptable," Frank told a New York Times reporter. The good news for Democrats is that they have a deep bench of politicians who reflect Frank's prescription: pragmatism and willingness to support incremental progress. Forget 2024. Win in 2026. Then let the contest to decide the 2028 presidential nomination — and define the party — begin.