Which way for the Democrats?

A look at some emerging narratives

I was recently interviewed on CNN regarding options for Democrats in interpreting the 2024 election. Since I don’t often show up on national TV I figured I’d post it here. I’ll also mention this recent podcast I did with the guys at the Get More Smarter Podcast on roughly the same subject.

But also, I have a piece in today’s the Los Angeles Times getting further into this topic. I look at some of the emerging narratives for Democrats, including:

• This was about Kamala Harris’ race and sex

• The Democrats were too woke

• Democratic messaging was poor

• Harris didn’t have enough campaign time or a competitive primary

I find these debates within the party useful, in the sense that they’re trying to give the party a path forward as it considers candidates and strategies for 2026 and 2028. But I don’t consider them equally factual. I get into the evidence supporting each interpretation.

One thing I’ll add here is that it’s perfectly defensible (if not scintillating punditry) to argue that the best Democratic strategy going forward is to not change at all. That is, despite the weak evidence for the claims above, there’s strong evidence suggesting that the Democratic loss was the result of very specific aspects of the post-Covid economic environment, which hurt majority parties all over the world, and that this will not harm them in future elections. Stated another way, it’s plausible that Democrats already have a winning formula for future elections and that over-correcting from 2024 could jeopardize that.

Anyway, I hope you’ll read the whole thing!