As a veteran of many “struggles for the soul of the Democratic Party,” I am sympathetic to the sort of informal 2024 autopsy effort that centrist Democrats are undertaking right now (particularly from the Third Way organization, and from former colleagues Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck, and my more recent colleague Jonathan Chait). When a major political party loses a presidential election as consequential as the one Democrats just lost, despite having an opponent who was both unpopular generally and horrifying to the Democratic base, then reevaluation is in order. The possibility that a proper diagnosis of what went wrong will discomfit some important elements of the party should not be a bar to this reevaluation, unless it’s assumed the Democratic coalition is so fragile that fault can never be found.

Having said that, the “lessons of 2024” can tell Democrats only so much about how to deal with the realities of 2025. Yes, it’s good to get a sense of how heavy a millstone Joe Biden represented for his party last year. But Biden is not the president now, and unfortunately, thanks to the GOP trifecta, Democrats in Washington have been entirely relieved of the burdens of power in a country (and even a world) where people are chronically unhappy and restive.

Sure, today’s Democratic elected officials should be aware of the high price

© Daily Intelligencer