The Ghost of Democrats’ Future
What a second Trump term would do to the Democratic party.
Hey fam: I’m on the road to Philly. Tonight’s show is sold out, so we’re going to livestream it for everyone who can’t be there. The stream will be here at 6:30 tonight, show starts at 7.
Before we start, a quick word about Kamala Harris on Fox last night with Bret Baier.
Harris did fine. Not a triumph, not a disaster. To the extent the interview helps her it will be because it makes her the focus of a news cycle and shows she can be tough with a hostile questioner. I don’t see any downside from it. Your mileage may vary.
But I want to say a word about Baier, who has long been the “respectable journalist” at what is at best an infotainment network and at worst a propaganda outlet.
If he wants to conduct a hostile interview with Harris and play gotcha in ways his employer never would with Trump, that’s fine. That’s his business.
But when he asked Harris about Trump’s “enemies within” line and then Baier played a clip of Trump trying to do cleanup and not the actual clip from the inciting incident? That was a mask-off moment. And everyone in media should mark it down.
(See Andrew Egger’s breakdown here.)
For a long time the rap on Bret Baier was that, yes, Fox prime time might be a cavalcade of dishonesty and partisanship, but Baier was a real newsman. He had a point of view, he’d fit in fine at a mainstream outlet.
There was something weird about this notion. It’s like saying that the copy editor at Pravda is just a workaday professional who shouldn’t be considered a commie tool and sympathizer, because he’s not writing the propaganda. He’s merely focused on the technical work of cleaning up typos.
I mean, sure? But also, you don’t take the copyeditor job at Pravda by accident. And someone who is involved in the business of promoting propaganda—even if only by cleaning up the stray mistakes—is still in the business of propaganda.1
There is an entire branch of philosophy to hash out the nature of cooperation with evil and you can take the concept too far.2 But last night, when Baier tried to try to fool his audience about what Trump actually said, it was like seeing the copyeditor write a bylined editorial for Pravda defending the liquidation of the kulaks.
Last night Baier showed everyone that he’s not actually an innocent, straight journalist trapped inside a malignant organization.
He is in the business of propaganda.
1. Haunted
There’s been a fair amount of discussion over the years about the future of the Republican party.
“What happens if Trump loses?” people ask. “Will the GOP go back to being Mitt Romney’s party? Will a MAGA heir take control? Is it Trump, forever?”
Here is a question I have not seen anyone ask:
What happens to the Democratic party if Kamala Harris loses?
Warning: This isn’t a prediction. This isn’t anticipatory grief. I’m fully onboard with the nobility and urgency from Kristol and Carville this morning.
This is merely a thought exercise borne of my belief that it’s best to start thinking through big questions before they land on your door step. And if Harris wins and we never have to find out the answer to this a question?
Well, that’s great. I’ll take it.
Start by considering the contours of what a Harris loss would look like. She’d be likely to have won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College. There is a chance she could win a flat popular majority—by over 50 percent—and lose the EC.
If she loses, Republicans are likely to have unified control of the federal government: A Trump victory almost certainly means a Republican Senate and it probably means a Republican House.3
At which point Democrats would have lost all three branches in the course of four years—a disaster.
And yet, any objective reading of those four years would conclude that Democrats had governed successfully. Biden took office with a pandemic raging and people dying by the thousands every day. He beat COVID, oversaw a soft-landing from the post-pandemic shocks, and passed a lot of popular, bipartisan legislation.
In hindsight, the Biden administration would look a lot like George H.W. Bush’s administration: A successful enterprise that was well regarded by history.
The only difference being that George H.W. Bush lost to a next-generation political talent while enduring a mild recession. And Biden would have seen his hand-picked successor—herself a next-gen talent—lose to a bloated, doddering felon in the middle of a steady economic expansion.
So . . . not the same thing, really.
Further complicating any post-mortem would be the fact that Harris won the popular vote, extending a historic streak of dominance during which Democratic candidates won the popular vote in 8 of 9 elections. That would be an entire generation of Americans who had grown up seeing Republicans win the popular vote only once.
I’m not sure what lessons the Democratic party could learn from all of this?
That Democratic presidents shouldn’t pursue substantive, bipartisan agendas?
That economic reality is now completely untethered to voter sentiments?
That popular majorities are unimportant?
You see the problem. It’s one thing to lose with Jimmy Carter in 1980 and have to rethink your party’s approach to governing. It’s another thing to do everything people want—pass popular legislation, have a good economy, and win the most votes—and still lose.
Put on your strategist hat for a moment and imagine that it’s January 20, 2025. Donald Trump has just been inaugurated after winning 270 Electoral Votes and losing the popular vote by 50.3 percent to 47.9 percent. Republicans hold the Senate and will soon have a bloc of six (or seven) relatively young Supreme Court justices picked by Trump.
Maybe the Dems have a five-seat majority in the House. I don’t know.
But those are the contours of American politics.
What lessons would you draw for the Democratic party? How would you advise the party to move forward?
As always, don’t substitute your preferences for your advice. Be hard-headed as you discuss it in the comments.
Most of all: Remember that what you propose has to be politically realistic for the Democratic coalition as it exists in vivo.
But I’ll get you started with two thoughts.