Democrats Are Marching Toward Defeat Again Unless They Finally Wake Up
Photo credit Jesse Chan @jessechan42
April 29 marks President Trump’s 100th day back in office, and according to multiple press reports, Democratic leadership still hasn’t settled on a clear strategy for the rest of this year—or for next year’s critical Congressional elections.
Based on what I learned working on local, statewide, and presidential campaigns at a political firm, here are the issues I would urge Democrats to address in a campaign strategy—though some will undoubtedly upset the party’s far-left wing, whose policies contributed to Democratic defeats in both 2016 and 2024. For the record, I support left-of-center policies, not far-left ones, though I do align with a few progressive positions.
Policing: Blaming police every time a minority person is targeted must stop. Instead the party must make it clear that they support the police.
Special Interest Legislation: Democratic politicians too often lecture the public about why certain policies are needed, instead of listening to the voters say why those policies are detrimental to other segments of the population. (This is not to say that specific legislation helping special interest groups are not needed, but they shouldn’t be emphasized as the most important points.) More on this later.
Community Crime: Most crimes are committed against residents of low income communities by residents of those communities. Instead of talking about gun violence in general, Democrats must provide more money for police departments to fight crime in those communities.
Unions: Democrats must make it a priority to enact legislation making it easier for low-income workers to unionize and talk about it. Few Democrats talk out about it, perhaps because some of their largest contributors are from business executives who disfavor unionization. As a result, the historic Democratic voting union workers, are trending Republican. (Puzzling to me, because Republican lawmakers in general are anti-union and Democrats are pro union.)
Immigration: Democrats must make it clear that they are in favor of strict immigration laws, even though it will upset member of their far left caucus.
Helping Other Country’s Neediest: Democrats too often talk about how we have to help the needy in under developed countries instead of talking about helping needy American citizens. This must stop. Democrats must make it clear that priorities of American needs must come first.
Inclusiveness: Inclusiveness must stop being a priority for Democrats. They must make it clear that more qualified job seekers are not denied jobs because of the inclusiveness pressure groups.
Politicians: The United States is more than the East and West Coasts and big cities. They must stop nominating national candidates from those areas and choose candidates whose experiences people who live in rural areas can relate to.
International Policies: President Trump has antagonized our trading and military partners with his actions and has embraced the Russian dictator Putin. Democrats must emphasize how those trade policies have adversely affected lower and middle class Americans by emphasizing price increases because of his tariffs, and how essential it is to repair military alliances to prevent American enemies from taking advantage of the split.
This is not to say that the U.S. should become an America First country. Aid to foreign countries is given, and should continue, because doing so works to America’s advantage. But the Democratic message must be “all Americans first.” Too often it is “some Americans first.”
Too many Democratic politicians still adhere to the losing strategy of former first lady Michelle Obama: “When they go low, we go high.” That was and still is a sure road map to defeat. Democrats must play by the rules that exist, not rules that they want.
What is needed is for the Democratic leadership is to design a policy that can appeal to liberal, mainstream, conservatives and nonaligned voters. In other words, one that appeals to all but the most far right and far left voters. The strategy must include talking points on how President Trump’s policies are hurting low and middle class income voters.
Too often when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House, she defended the actions of the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party. She would have been better saying that while the squad had a right to make their views known; it doesn’t represent the great majority of the caucus. The Democratic Party needs leadership whose statements appeal to the majority of Americans. And they have to stop nominating presidential candidates from the East and West Coast. There are a lot people in between the coasts that they have to win back in order to again become a serious threat to the Republicans.
From a public relations point of view, the Democratic message points are a failure. They bounce off President Trump the same way a rain drop does.
Democratic politicians have to stop attacking Mr. Trump. MAGA people who support him will never change their positions. What Democrats have to do is create a public relations campaign that emphasizes policy differences with the Republican administration and stop playing the blame Trump game. It doesn’t work.
They must designate a few spokespersons from various parts of the country to carry messages of how Democratic legislation will help working Americans and emphasize how Republican legislation is geared to helping the wealthy.
Too often, even after losing an election, the same failed strategists are brought back for the next campaign—just like the pundits who repeatedly get it wrong yet remain the go-to “experts” on cable news. For aspiring PR professionals, here’s some hard truth: if you’re looking for job security, agency life might not be for you. You’d have better odds quitting and becoming a TV pundit or political strategist.
The same is true about the elder statespersons of the Democratic Party leadership. During the 2026 presidential election, they largely used the same techniques that leadership Democrats have used for decades, while Mr. Trump, no youngster himself, made points by reaching voters who get their information from new media techniques. Also, Mr. Trump and his spokespeople presented themselves as young and energetic. In contrast, most Democratic spokespeople, including those in leadership positions, presented themselves as actors in a historical period drama.
The “wise men” leadership theory no longer works. What the Democrats need are political leaders and surrogates who exude an aura of energy and modernism. In other words, the party elders should relinquish their positions to younger members of Congress beginning right now. Doing that does not mean that the party has to change all of its legislative goals. It means that they must be presented differently than they have been. The wisdom of the greybeards should not be entirely dismissed. They can educate young members of the leadership off camera and still express their viewpoints in podcasts and op-eds.
And extremely important is the Democrats messaging. The Republicans won the last election because they had two main message points: The border problem and inflation. The Democrat message points read like the items in a department store: There’s something for everyone: Democrats must choose two or three message points and campaign on them, even if it means disappointing some elements of the party. Their message points must appeal to all Americans.
A few of my positions read as if they were written by Donald Trump. But to make it clear I am not a supporter of The Donald. I support left of center policies – some very far left. But I learned in the days when I worked on political accounts that the only way a political party can enact legislation is by winning. Losing respectably only helps the opposition.
During my days with a political PR firm, where I worked on local, statewide and presidential campaigns, a veteran politician of many years told me the
following: “When constructing a campaign for a candidate, emphasize things that will help people who work for a living. Statesmanlike programs can be emphasized after the candidate is elected.
In my opinion, Sen. Bernie Sanders summed up the problems of the Democratic Party during a Nov. 7, 2024, N.Y. Times interview.
Mr. Sanders said, “It’s not just Kamala. It’s a Democratic Party that has increasingly become a party of identity politics, rather than one that understands the vast majority of people in this country are working class. This trend of workers leaving the Democratic Party started with whites and has accelerated among Latinos and Blacks.”
While much attention has been given to the number of Black voters who switched from Democrat to Trump, voting analyses show that shift was not enough on its own to determine the outcome. What ultimately hurt Ms. Harris was the significant number of Latinos — who had previously supported Democrats — switching their votes to Trump, according to an article by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein in the Wall Street Journal on March 11.
Another critique of the Democrats problems was expressed in the Times’ Sunday Magazine on March 9 by Democrcrtic Gov. Maura Healy of Massachusetts. Ms. Healy said, “Democrats have a big brand problem.” She said, in part, “I’ll say that part of what got the Democratic Party in trouble this last election is the fact that there was a perception that leaders within the Democratic Party were not actually seeing and feeling people’s pain. I think it’s a perception that lived out to a certain extent among Democratic leadership, that they just didn’t have their finger on the pulse, that they’re talking about issues that weren’t bread-and-butter core economic issues that resonate.”
Ms. Healy also has publicly said that Congressional t Democrats should now put up a fight against President Trump’s policies.
Amen
Looking into my crystal ball, I think that the Democrats chance of winning control of the House of Representatives next year is 51-49, and that winning control of the Senate is nil.
I think Democrats have a better chance of winning the presidency in 2028. They should view next year’s Congressional election as a test run for the 2028 presidential one. They can do so by deep sixing their current play book and introduce new younger politicians from mid and rural America to the general public. Finally. Every day that the Democrats are silent while developing a plan to counter President Trump’s executive orders is a day when the orders seem legitimate because they go unchallenged. The Democrats must begin attacking those executive orders today, not tomorrow. Too few Democrats are doing so.
From 1922 to 1935, Will Rogers, the popular humorist of that era, wrote a syndicated column for the New York Times. One of his famous quotes is “I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” The same is true of the Democratic Party today and they better fix it. If they don’t, they are sure to become the minority party for years to come.
As I write this, too many Democratic leaders still believe that the reason they lost the 2024 election was because their messaging was poor, not because voters preferred what Republicans campaigned on. The Democrats have had a long lime to develop better messaging to use during the 2026 and 2028 elections. But even the best messaging in the history of politics will not result in Democratic victories if it is not accompanied by new policies that can win back some Republican, independent and disenchanted Democratic voters who either stayed home in 2024 or voted Republican.
And the best way to win back those drifting voters is for the next Democratic presidential candidate to come from a red or purple state a with a vice presidential running mate from a blue state. That would show voters that the Democrats are no longer an elite party dominated by East and West Coast intellectuals and extreme left wing socialist Democrats, but a party that represents all Americans, college graduates and none college graduates, with a tent big enough for people regardless of their political leanings.
If I had to grade President Trump’s performance today, I would give it an F. Sadly, if I had to grade the Democrats response to his policies today, I would give it an F-minus.
PR Lesson
I’ve long believed that PR practitioners can learn some of their most valuable lessons by studying the political arena. The Democratic Party’s strategies haven’t kept pace with the times — and neither have many PR professionals, who still cling to tactics that date back to the founding fathers of the industry. Meanwhile, President Trump shattered the traditional rules of politics and captured the imagination of enough voters to win the presidency twice — and as of today, he’s still doing it. The takeaway is clear: original thinking grabs the attention of agency leadership, clients, and reporters alike. If you want to stand out, don’t be afraid to break from the pack.
