A little more than a year after the worst election defeat imaginable and the Democratic Party hasn’t come to terms with the reasons.
The victories we saw throughout the country in November 2025 haven’t absolved us. Americans may never recover from the corrosion of communities, institutions, and economic opportunities, yet Democratic Party leaders sound like they’re still in 2017. They are deeply out of touch, insulated “elites.”
It’s why their resistance is paltry. It’s why they’ve botched every negotiation against Trump, letting the government shut down and food assistance lapse, only to give up on protecting health care. It’s why they were silent amid flagrant abuses of civil rights, allowed the expansion of ICE into terror squads, and ignored the illegal detentions and deportations of citizens. It’s why they denied an economic crisis until recently, were quiet during layoffs, housing scarcity, and suffocating costs of living, yet shouted from the rooftops to save Jimmy Kimmel’s job. It’s why, one year later, the Democratic Party is as listless and complacent as the final months of Biden’s presidency.
From East Palestine to the West Bank, Democrats have abandoned our values. We proclaim to be “defenders of democracy,” while undermining democracy in our own party. We’ve become righteous preservers of a broken system, excusing institutions that fail their mandates. And we’ve seen the limits of performative resistance. The people suffer as politicians glide through reelections, endorsements, and primaries, selectively or performatively “resisting” by writing all-caps posts or strongly-worded letters.
READ: Despite Recent Victories, Many Democrats Are Still Down on Their Party, a New AP-NORC Poll Finds
It’s on us to reckon with 2024, despite the best efforts of the DNC. Every Democrat needs to ask themselves some tough questions about the last decade. How many corporate-sponsored media narratives have been shattered? How far has the collective “wisdom” of political chatterers gotten us? How credible are talking points from the self-proclaimed experts comprising the “consultant class”?
We’ve experienced the diminished returns of “winning by default” against unacceptable opponents, of tripling down on wealthier, suburban ex-Republicans at the expense of all others, of being defined solely by opposition, unmoored to real objectives.
They’re depending on us to forget.
They need us to forget how badly we lost. They need us to forget they failed; all the “strategic compromises” and calculated optics, failed. They need us to forget they were completely out of touch, to forget their definitions of “electability” and “extreme” were meaningless, to forget they acted like there was a plan, while covering for an aimless administration. They need us to forget they lied about President Biden’s condition, while 80% of the public said he was too old. They need us to forget Biden’s team projected a wipeout of 400 Electoral College votes, yet said nothing. And Kamala Harris’ internal polling never showed her leading, yet changed nothing. They need us to forget they thought it bright to campaign with the Cheneys and Clintons in the final weeks. They need us to forget the billions of dollars raised to lose, and not to ask where it went. They need us to forget how our coalition unraveled, how suppressing democracy in our party weakened us. They need us to forget we were robbed of a Primary, that those who challenged Biden were punished, that we’re constantly scolded for “infighting” while they bicker and backstab at the top. And they really need us to forget their complicity: rubber-stamping billions to destroy and destabilize abroad, while supporting authoritarian forces at home. Remember that “Democrats” funded ICE, set record deportations, enabled genocide, and had thousands of student protestors arrested, beaten, and doxxed.
READ: Why Is the Democratic Party Hiding Its 2024 Autopsy Report?
Restoring faith in this Party requires true solidarity, not just fear to hold us hostage. If we continue prioritizing funders over voters, we’ll continue yielding expensive defeats. If we won’t demand accountability from incumbents, their standards will continue sinking. This is why primaries exist: let candidates run, let voters vote. Then we can rebuild a coalition on shared values.
It’s not clear where the ideological core of the Party sits, but what is obvious – from NYC to Tennessee – is that there are two types of Democrats: those demanding change and those clinging to the status quo. What happens in the midterms and to our country afterward as a result will largely depend on which Democrats ultimately steer the direction of our Party.
