Democrats Need their Own Project 2025

Democrats will inherit a hand-me-down democracy and should plan for what comes next.

I have labored to articulate my thoughts on the Trump Administration and have yet to scratch the surface, but please allow me a brief intermission. It’s time to criticize the Democrats.

Part of me would rather not write this piece. Nationally, the Democrats are in their political wilderness phase. They do not control any of the three branches of government and have a national approval rating of 38 percent in recent Economist/YouGov polling. There is also no consensus on who leads the party. Out of a list of 13 prominent figures, Democrats are most likely to say Barack Obama (21%) and Kamala Harris (21%) should be the party's leader. In short, there is no consensus.

Leaderless and divided over how to respond to President Trump, Democrats have a long way to go before coalescing into an effective opposition. It feels mean to kick ‘em while they are down.

I also resisted because there is an industry dedicated to picking the last election apart. Did Kamala Harris lose because Democrats are too “woke”? Maybe it’s because the Democrats are now a party of educated urban elites who don’t appeal to working-class voters. Ezra Klein is selling plenty of books that argue Democrats have embraced process over outcomes. Some voices cry out for an unapologetic embrace of progressive values to better distinguish Democrats from Republicans. Other named culprits include inflation, Joe Biden not dropping out of the race sooner, COVID-era backlash, not enough podcast interviews, the party talks like a nagging HR department, and the list goes one.

Lastly, part of my hesitation stems from the fact I’m not a loyal member of the Democrat’s tribe, even though I haven’t voted for a Republican politician since 2014. The truth is, I vote against Donald Trump in particular, and against Republicans in general for supplicating themselves so thoroughly to his will. Thus, what follows is advice from someone on the outside looking in; a friend, but not a foot soldier.

Let’s break the analysis into parts. Typically, when a party loses all levers of power, it turns introspective and asks itself was the loss due to 1) a tactical failure to mobilize enough voters; 2) the message; or 3) the messenger.

I’m going to dispense with tactics first because I’m not a campaign practitioner. My thoughts on this subject are superficial at best. Democrats have long excelled at local organizing and get out the vote efforts. Plus, the average Democrat votes early and often. That wasn’t always the case. Low propensity voters have largely shifted to the Republican Party, which means get out the vote efforts are now their problem. Thus, I’m inclined to say the Democrat’s should analyze the message and messenger(s).

The Message

The Democrats’ ideological power struggle is just getting started. The progressive wing wants to take over the party because they believe their youth and vision for change will energize voters. It’s why New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders have been barnstorming the country. On the other side, the old guard centrists are begging party activists to move to the center and embrace pragmatism over purity.

Where do I fall on purity versus pragmatism? Well, pragmatism naturally. You have to win elections to wield power and achieve your political and policy objectives. That’s the cold, hard truth. Do you want to be ideologically pure or have the ability to affect change from a position of power? But the real question is: What constitutes pragmatism right now?

In the recent past, I would have pointed to the Democrats’ geography problem as proof the party needs to moderate itself on the national level. Look at the map below, which shows county by county elections results from the 2024 presidential election (the color blue denotes counties Kamala Harris won and red denotes counties Trump won). It shows Democratic voters are concentrated in urban areas and close-in suburbs, primarily along the West Coast, in the North East, and increasingly in the Southwest.

This geographic clustering matters. The Electoral College and the U.S. Senate give disproportional representation to rural areas. USA Facts’ analysis is that one Electoral College vote accounts for 195,000 people in Wyoming and over 700,000 people in Texas, Florida, or California. This is because Electoral College votes are distributed based on Congressional seats not population, and every State has at least one House member and two Senators.

Another way to look at this is to compare the 2024 U.S. Senate races in California and West Virginia. California Senator Adam Schiff (D) won his election by receiving over nine million total votes. West Virginia Senator Jim Justice (R) won his with 514,079 total votes. I’m bad at math, but the back of my napkin shows that in the U.S. Senate, one Republican West Virginia voter has the same power as 18 Democrats in California. The only conclusion I believe can be drawn from the preceding facts is that Democrats must find a way to appeal to voters in rural states.

Republicans dominate geography, which results in over representation in the Electoral College and U.S. Senate.

But America isn’t the same country it was six months ago. Yes, the same geography and voting rules still apply, but President Trump has wiped out the status quo that prevailed since World War II. This means whenever the Democrats regain power, they will inherit a badly damaged, hand-me-down democracy.

This situation is daunting, but it is also an opportunity. Many of the prevailing special interests and institutional constraints that make reform difficult have been pushed aside.

It’s time Democrats engaged in blue sky thinking. To borrow Kamala Harris’s incredibly clunky phrase, Democrats should imagine “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” It’s time to explore unconventional concepts without ideological limitations or constraints. To borrow a hockey phrase, Democrats should, “skate to where the puck will be” and think about the next election, not the last.

Voters will want answers to big questions, existential ones, much bigger than the Democratic Party is prepared to coherently and comprehensively address, at this time. We aren’t talking about the margins anymore—whether we extend a tax cut to this industry, reform that department, increase a line item in a budget over here, or launch a new initiative over ten years. It’s far deeper. It’s about who we are as Americans.

With that said, the Democrats must not repeat the mistake of assuming voters will endorse a return to the past. The ‘Republicans are a threat to democracy’ approach has been deployed in the last three presidential elections, and its track record is one for three. Perhaps it will be more poignant next time, but I wouldn’t count on it. There is only so far anti-Trump sentiment goes. His approval ratings are still in the low- to mid-40s after everything that has transpired these past months.

So here are my thoughts on some big questions the Democrats should debate:

• Trump will hand you an all powerful Executive Branch, do you use it to expeditiously accomplish your policy goals or do you seek to reestablish checks and balances?

• The Department of Education no longer exists, what should a new Department of Education look like? The same goes for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

• What does justice look like for the victims of this presidency? Will you hold accountable the federal law enforcement agents, government officials, and CEOs who broke the law in furtherance of the Trump Administration’s agenda?

• America’s finances will be a mess, can you present a realistic plan for curbing the deficit? This means hard choices. How do your values guide the trade-off decisions?

• Given the messy financial situation, what does a reformed social safety net look like?

• The Administration has stopped enforcing a number of rules and regulations, should they all be restored or a just some?

• How might you remake the federal civil service to be more performance oriented and insulated from politics?

• Are you going to re-liberalize trade or stick with Trump’s tariffs and on-shoring strategy?

• What about proposing a DOGE-like entity that would actually help government deliver services more efficiently?

• Are you going to regulate Artificial Intelligence? What about social media?

• What is your specific stance on immigration and border security? No wiggle room allowed.

• What is your vision for healthcare?

• Ultimately, how will you heal the nation?

The answers should be written down in a detailed playbook for the next Democratic administration to use in whole or part, in the same way Project 2025 went agency by agency and laid out tactical level implementation guidance. Project 2025 is a bad word in Democratic circles, but the idea of a large-scale effort to develop a detailed governance playbook is inspired and should be emulated.

Now here is the key part, don’t confuse policy with politics. Democrats have a bad habit of talking about policy details and failing to communicate thematic issues. Issues that are more emotive and less intellectual in nature.

The chosen themes also need to be communicated in plain language. I like wonkery and new vocabulary words. Most people don’t. Academic language and jargon are usually turnoffs because they require you to think about the meaning of the words. Forcing people to use more cognitive processing power to understand what you are trying to tell them will necessarily limit the number of people willing to listen. For example, in the last sentence, I could have said use ‘more brainpower’ or ‘think harder’, instead of ‘cognitive processing power.’ I wrote ‘cognitive processing power’ because, as I was typing, I was thinking about a book I once read called Thinking, Fast and Slow. But you don’t need to read a book about how the brain processes information to understand the concept ‘keep it simple, stupid.’

To sidetrack us with a personal anecdote for a moment. A few weeks back, I was standing in a line to get a bratwurst with sauerkraut at a spring festival. The woman behind me said to her friend, “We need to have a discourse surrounding the normalization of the post-college glow down.” I understood every word she said, but her mix of academic words and internet slang hurt my ears. This is a bit of kids these days rant, but I wondered why she didn’t say something simpler like, “Why do women let themselves go after college?” I cared nothing about their conversation, but their language choice bugged me on some visceral level.

My point is how you say something is as important as what you say. The message must be adapted to the audience. Which brings us to the question of messengers.

The Messenger

In my opinion, as long as a party is leaderless, its factions will vie for control and the message will remain muddled. The debates are never truly settled until a leader imposes discipline in the ranks. That’s what happened to the Republicans after President Obama and the Democrats swept the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2008.

Republicans found themselves in exactly the situation Democrats are in today. Leaderless and defeated, the traditional Republicans wanted to reposition the party to attract more Latino voters. At the same time, a new tribe emerged from the right and it was angry. It was the proto-MAGA Tea Party. Over time, the Tea Party gained power, but the old guard fought back, and Mitt Romney was the party’s nominee in 2012. He lost, and eventually Donald Trump emerged and consolidated power. Only after a unifying leader emerged did the party fall into lockstep. It took over a decade to accomplish.

America doesn’t have the luxury of waiting a decade for the Democrats to get their house in order. Sadly, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are temperamentally ill-suited to the present challenge. Neither are particularly effective communicators, especially on new media, nor parliamentarians.

There is no more damning proof of these leaders’ ineffectiveness than the fact Republicans don’t even waste time demonizing them. It’s because they lack the force of a Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell, both of whom knew how to fight on their backs and bend Congress to their wills. When an opposition leader is good at their job, they become the other party’s boogie man (or woman).

A long list of Democratic politicians want to fill this leadership vacuum. With over three years before the next presidential election, many are already auditioning for the starring role. The most aggressive candidates are California Governor Gavin Newsom, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy.

For what it’s worth, I think Wes Moore is the one to watch. He is yet to be tested on the national stage, but offers much to like. Starting with the superficial, he’s young, tall, attractive, charismatic, male, and black. He young family is photogenic as well. In terms of cross-over appeal to moderates, Governor Moore served as a Captain in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne division and deployed to Afghanistan, where he earned a Bronze Star. He was also a college football player and delinquent youth who can bro-out with the podcasters. Here he is practicing with the University of Maryland’s football team nine months ago in a made for ESPN montage:

I want you to imagine a scenario where J.D. Vance, wearing eyeliner, steps to the debate podium and tries to pedantically lecture a former football playing paratrooper about what it means to be a man. That man responds with a coherent vision of a different future. A vision where a man doesn’t seek to dominate and degrade others, or corrupt institutions to enrich himself. A vision of service, not self.

For the Christian community, he talks the talk as a Southern Baptist. Elite credentials? Check. He holds degrees from Johns Hopkins and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and has written several books. For the business people skeptical of Democrats, he worked at Deutsche Bank and Citibank, and is generally friendly with CEOs.

Mt progressive friends might be feeling a little turned off right now. Don’t worry, you will find plenty to like as well, including his work on racial equity, police reform, and combating poverty. His world view appears rooted in his experience as the child of immigrant parents and as a young black man on the wrong side of the law.

Perhaps as equally important as all of the above, his time in politics has been short. He can still position himself as an outsider and adopt new positions without having to defend a lifetime of votes. It’s why I think Gavin Newsom isn’t the best choice. Newsom brings the good looks and polish, but also the baggage of decades in San Francisco and California politics.

Which leaves Buttigieg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Murphy, and Rahm Emmanuel. Let’s start with Rahm. He lacks charisma. He’s more of a solid number two, getting things done behind the scenes, than a frontman. Murphy is making a name for himself in the U.S. Senate as an effective inquisitor of Trump Administration officials. He might emerge as a contender, but as of right now I think he is Vice President material at most.

As for Buttigieg, he is a top shelf political talent, but he’s gay. Our country isn’t there yet. It won’t play in South Carolina. Don’t hate me, but I’m going to give Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the same treatment. Women have not fared well at the top of the ticket. For some reason, a country that overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama twice won’t embrace a female president. I’m not saying it’s right, just that the pragmatic approach is to neutralize your opponent’s advantages. For whatever reason, being a man increases your likelihood of becoming President of the United States.

Final Thoughts

In addition to the politicians jockeying for center stage, there are Democratic think tanks trying to articulate how the party should adapt. For example, the Third Way, a Democratic centrist organization, has made recommendations, but they aren’t looking far enough forward. For example, as of me writing this post, their homepage features an article about forging a centrist position on transgender rights. All well and good, but that’s a culture war issue driving a small number of voters.

You will notice not one cultural issue made my list of big questions. Nor did Israel and Palestine, abortion rights, or debates about identity. I’m not dismissing the importance of these topics, but there are foundational issues at stake in upcoming elections. If the foundation isn’t firm, such debates become moot. My questions focus on our Nation’s core values and apply to everyone equally. Who do we want to be?

The Democratic intelligentsia should not become bogged down in analyses of the present moment or what went wrong last November. Look to the future.

Blake