Since Barack Obama left office, the Democratic Party has been split between the moderates and the progressives but were able to put aside their differences to jointly oppose Trump.
In 2020, Democrats came together and backed the moderate Biden. However, as Third Way, a US think tank that champions modern centre-left ideas put it, while a moderate Democrat won the presidency, progressives won the White House.
After being elected, the Biden administration shifted its economic policy from a neo-liberal framework to one of pre-distributism, in which government intervenes in the market at an early stage to skew business outcomes, such as Biden’s executive order making non-disclosure agreements illegal.
Now, the Democrats must come to grips that a progressive agenda coupled with a focus on identity politics will keep them in the minority.
We see the battle commencing such as Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison responding to criticism that Democrats have abandoned working class people as “straight up BS”.
The Democrats need to go back to the drawing board to find a way to win national elections. The country does not want what’s coming from the party’s left.
The 2024 national wipeout should teach the Democrats the same lesson they learned in 1988, after losing a presidential election for the third straight time.
Move back to the centre. Win. Govern from there.
It should not take three consecutive Republican terms for the Democrats to do this. The second term of Donald Trump should be enough.
Steven Okun serves as CEO of APAC Advisors and has lived in Singapore since 2003. He served as Deputy General Counsel of the US Department of Transportation in the Clinton Administration.
