Democrats Must Make Working Americans a Better Offer

Americans voted for radical change in November, and judging by the chaos he’s already generated before taking office, Donald Trump might give them more than they bargained for. Can Democrats offer a saner alternative?

So far, the signs aren’t encouraging. Instead of taking a hard look at how they managed to lose to the most ethically tainted and unpopular presidential candidate in memory, many in the party seek refuge in self-exonerating excuses.

President Biden was too old. Kamala Harris didn’t have time to wage a real campaign. Republicans and Elon Musk dominated social media and flooded the campaign debate with lies and bigoted attacks on immigrants and transexual people. The high cost of living warped voters’ perception of the nation’s economic health.

And anyway the race was still close, even if Harris failed to win a single battleground state, Trump cut his losing margins in blue cities and states, and Latino and Black voters without college degrees continued to defect to the Republicans.

This is the politics of evasion — the recurrent tendency of badly whipped parties to blame everything but their own failure to make a convincing case to voters that their ideas and governing commitments would serve them best.