Early in this century, I was talking to a friend who was about a decade younger than I was. He is an Ivy League-educated scientist who grew up in Canada. He expressed surprise at my distaste for Marxism and its science-fictional solutions, and in our conversation, I realized that he thought Marxism was the default explanation for how the world worked — yet, he wasn’t a Marxist or a communist. It was just that that was what he was taught. And, his primary interests being in other fields (science), he didn’t spend much time questioning what he was told about economics.
Similarly, I think that today, many people aren’t supporting progressive ideas and proposals because they have concluded that they are the best of the lot; the ideas are just about the only plans that are being pushed aggressively and frequently. I don’t begrudge the visibility of Bernie Sanders and AOC, who are very vocal about what they want. But they’re riding a wave created by the relative absence of an alternative. The centrists need to get their people out there. They need more Rahm Emanuels.
Too much of the internal party debate has been taken up with attempts to market the same old goods better or to double down on progressive policies that are proven losers.
A recent Democratic Party poll should have been sobering. It found that only 44 percent of voters “think Democrats respect work, while even fewer — 39 percent — said the party values work,” Politico reported. “Only 42 percent said Democrats shared their values. A majority, meanwhile — 56 percent — said Democrats are not looking out for working people. Only 39 percent believe Democrats have the right priorities.”
Sounds about right.
Matt Bennett, vice president of “radical centrist” group Third Way, told Politico these perceptions of the party are in reaction to Democrats’ move to the left after 2016. “There was an enormous shift in the culture and in our politics, and some of that was very good and some of it went too far.” He said the 2024 election showed “voters saying, ‘Whoa, we don’t think that the shift that the Democratic Party has taken was calibrated correctly. It went too far on a whole bunch of things.’”
The problem with the idea that all Democrats need to do is repackage themselves to dupe some more voters is that it is small-ball when what is needed is a return to the hard-headed center-left strategy followed by its two most successful candidates in the past half century, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Rahm Emanuel, who has served as ambassador to Japan, Chicago’s mayor, Obama’s chief of staff, congressman, and advisor to Clinton, knows a thing or two about politics and how to win elections. He led the 2006 Democratic campaign strategy that returned the Democrats to a majority in the House of Representatives and resulted in Nancy Pelosi’s elevation to speaker.
Too much of the debate has been about marketing the same old goods better or doubling down on policies that are proven losers.
Emanuel recently told Bulwark podcast host Tim Miller that the party needs to stop the stupid human tricks and focus on the issues people care about. “There’s a lot of people in the party that say, oh, the Democrats don’t fight. Well, you don’t have a gavel and you don’t have the bully pulpit. But what you can do is win in 2026, and it’s framing up for a win.” He criticizes the Democrats’ silly $20 million effort to “understand” men (calling it “dumb”), but he says there are issues that Democrats can learn that are of supreme importance to men. Emanuel suggests harping on issues that are particularly important to 18- to 35-year-old men. And no, it’s not about more “masculine energy” or whatever the heck Mark Zuckerberg thinks the world needs. It’s about GOP cuts to veteran benefits. It’s dissatisfaction with the Elon Musk disruption and meddling. He says the president’s hallmark “Big Beautiful Bill” is an abomination and Democrats should “hang it around [the GOP’s] neck, make them choke on it, and then have a bunch of people that . . . help communicate that we’re a safe set of hands.”
When he led the congressional effort to retake the House majority in the 2006 elections, Emanuel made a point to find candidates who were good fits for their districts, even if they didn’t line up with party orthodoxy on some issues. He got pushback from some party leaders (”These aren’t Democrats!”), but his rule for recruiting candidates was that they didn’t have to fit the Washington party standard; “Washington had to be flexible enough to fit the district standard.”
Imagine. Diversity in the ranks.
I started this miniseries on the Democrats by knocking Governor Gavin Newsom. Yes, he seems to understand that tens of millions of people just don’t trust his party and it needs to back away from some of its toxic issues. I just don’t think Newsom “sells” outside of California; and even in California, I think a lot of people are wondering if Newsom believes what he’s saying or if he’s just positioning himself for a 2028 presidential primary run. Some battlefield conversions are real, deep, and lasting; others are fleeting once the smoke has cleared.
Emanuel is reportedly interested in throwing his hat into the 2028 ring. I think Emanuel does sell outside of his upper Midwest base. But whether he should be the nominee or not, I won’t hazard a prediction right now. That’s because beyond just focusing on the next presidential hopeful, the Democrats have to focus on every election — local, state, and national — before and after 2028, and that means connecting with Americans where they are, addressing what they want, and not lecturing them for their failure to conform to some U.C. Berkeley adjunct professor’s ideals.
“The party used to be a broad, big umbrella, big-tent party,” Emanuel told Miller. But now, it’s dominated by “the college educated, very smart, very sophisticated . . . Aspen Institute-attending, Brookings scholarship attendees and readers of all the journals sitting around telling everybody how to live their lives. I’m just [telling them], ‘You guys have run this car straight into a wall; sit down, shut up, and actually you have a moment to learn something. Stop telling people how to live their lives, because you don’t know squat. Nobody’s had the [courage] to tell you that. And I just did.’”
More Rahm, please.
