How the Democrats can fight back against MAGA

Return to the liberalism of 1992.

Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel via Wikimedia Commons

Today let’s talk about partisan politics. Not the most fun topic, but an important one.

This is not a nonpartisan blog. I focus mostly on analyzing the world to figure out what’s going on, because that’s what I enjoy the most, and that’s where I think I add the most value. But I don’t hesitate to share opinions or take political sides. And I don’t make any secret of the fact that I want the Democrats to win.

This is not because I view the Democrats as “my team” — I view America, the country, as my team. Nor do I want the Republican party to die; I want it to be a sane and reasonable conservative party that does sane and reasonable things when it wins elections. The problem is that right now, the Republicans are neither sane nor reasonable, because they’ve been hijacked by ideologues and isolationists with autocratic impulses. That’s bad for the country. So I want Democrats to mount a credible, effective opposition to Musk and Trump.

The problem with that is that over the past 12 years or so, the Democrats have also become less sane and reasonable than they were before. They’ve become obsessed with divisive identitarianism, unpopular culture wars, and paralyzing proceduralism. They’ve let an out-of-touch extremely-online educated class dictate their attitudes and language, and they’ve let some of the big cities they run fall into disorder and decay. Their drubbing at the hands of Trump in 2024 was no accident.

This doesn’t mean I view the two parties are equivalent; even if the Dems didn’t change an iota from 2024, I would still want them to defeat Musk and Trump. But the harsh reality is that if they don’t change, they probably won’t defeat Musk and Trump. Dems are rapidly losing ground with Hispanic voters, Asian voters, and even some Black voters, while failing to win back a matching number of White voters. For decades, more Americans called themselves Democrats than Republicans; that has now reversed.

Source: Gallup

Democrats are even starting to lose ground with the younger generation, with both young men and young women calling themselves more socially conservative.

Democrats are simply no longer America’s majority party. That’s particularly shameful and galling, given all the bad things Trump has done.

Right now, a few Democrats are allowing themselves to indulge in the complacent fantasy that Trump and Musk will be so horrible that their movement will collapse on its own and drive everyone back to the Dems. Yes, Trump and Musk will make mistakes — indeed, they are already making mistakes — and yes, this will give their opponents crucial openings to seize upon. But it won’t happen automatically, and if Dems don’t make some big changes, it’ll be difficult to capitalize on those errors.

So anyway, here’s a sketch of what I think the Dems will need to do. My three basic ideas are:

1. Present a sane alternative to Trump’s inflationary policies

2. Defend democracy and freedom of speech against Trump/Musk overreach

3. Ditch the progressive baggage of the 2010s, and focus on the common good

Most of these approaches have been used successfully by Democratic politicians in the recent past — most notably by Bill Clinton in 1992. In fact, recapturing the spirit of 1992 is a good general summary of how Dems ought to think about how to recover from the disaster of 2024.

Become inflation hawks and deficit hawks again

As I like to say, macroeconomics is the natural predator of foolish regimes. Trump beat Harris in part because Americans were mad about inflation, but he came into office without a credible plan to actually end inflation. And already, inflation is creeping back up:

Source: Jason Furman

There may be some natural forces pushing inflation up here — decoupling from China and the reorganization of supply chains. But one culprit is probably inflation expectations, which are now rising. Remember that when people expect more inflation, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Americans are expecting more inflation because Trump is doing stuff — or promising to do stuff — that causes inflation. Trump constantly calls on the Fed to cut interest rates. Lower interest rates raise inflation. Trump has either implemented tariffs or threatened tariffs. Tariffs raise inflation. Trump has promised huge tax cuts, which will inevitably lead to huge government deficits. And so on. Trump is just a very inflationary kind of leader.

In 2021-22 we discovered — or rediscovered — that inflation is really bad for regular Americans. It lowers real wages and raises the cost of living.¹ It erodes the value of bonds, which represents a lot of old people’s savings. It creates uncertainty and makes people feel angry about the economy.

And Americans are already getting angry. Trump’s approval rating on the economy is rapidly beginning to sour, and is now more negative than for any recent President at the start of their term in office:

Source: Gallup