Democrats Real Problem Is a Lack of Options

By Mike Koetting May 27, 2025

I am increasingly skeptical that characterizations of the Democrats as chronically disorganized are useful. Democrats probably are disorganized. But all political parties are…and the more democratic they are, the more that is the case.

No doubt, mistakes were made in the last election. The biggest one was when Biden insisted on running. Maybe you could blame that on the Party. But just ask the (former) Republican establishment how easy is it is control someone who had structural momentum. And, although a year or so later one can spin all kinds of counter-historical scenarios, at the time there were compelling reasons not to pursue various alternatives.

Post-election, options are even more limited. The other party controls the national government and Democrats have no leverage. Republicans would prefer to toss over all reason (not to mention the Constitution) rather than strike any kind of compromise.

I believe the Democrats made the right choice on the one decision where they had any say—the government shutdown. It’s pie-in-the-sky to imagine that Republicans were so afraid of shutting down the government they would have made deals if only Schumer had held out for some concessions. There is no reason to believe that would have worked and letting the government shut down would have created hardships for the very people Democrats are trying to protect. Republicans seem to have lost sight of the fact they are in Congress to meet the needs of the people, not win partisan skirmishes. Democrats should not follow them.

There is a broader issue of the degree to which Democrats should try to work with Republicans or perhaps just leave them alone to make their own mistakes as opposed to an active agenda of opposition.

I understand this as a debating point, but I am not sure what is the practical impact. It doesn’t seem to make any difference to Republicans whether Dems cooperate or not; most issues are being decided solely with Republican votes. What passes for active opposition in this context is largely symbolic—demonstrations, angry speeches, and a tsunami of critical memes. I suppose it’s possible to see the flood of litigation as in the “opposition” category, but that’s a different category until, if at all, enough Congressional Republicans remember their Constitutional duties.

Nor do I see the argument that there are a material number of people who would vote for Democratics if they just “cooperated” more with Trump and company. In short, the world won’t be any different with one theoretical choice or the other.

Beyond that, there is the ongoing debate of how much Democrats should sanitize their discussions of any reference to things likely to be considered “woke”. I generally support that impulse, but I am skeptical that will make much difference either. Arguments based on the furthest reach of “woke” are very often a smokescreen for opposing something they would have opposed no matter what. Changing a few expressions of “woke” may make it easier for people who are concerned about Trump excesses in other areas, but I don’t think there are many people out there who were voting against Democrats because of those phrases. People most concerned with “woke” are voting against Democrats because they don’t like the essential Democratic values that are core to what “woke” stands for.

Another debate is the extent to which Democrats should focus on economic issues, presumably as opposed to other issues. As a theory, I am largely behind more direct focus on economic issues. As a practical matter, I am not sure how it plays out. I have a hard time figuring out what voters are saying when they trust Republicans more on economic issues than Democrats. I could see, maybe, a certain loss of trust as Biden was insisting things were getting better when on the ground voters weren’t experiencing that. (As a reality matter, both were true.) But the voter belief that Republicans are better on the economy has been the case for years…and apparently remains so even as they lose confidence in the Trump clown show.

Maybe it is that they think Republicans are better at managing an economy for the economic state they hope to achieve—that is, no matter what their current state they can imagine themselves or their kids as somehow becoming rich and that’s more likely with Republicans. Seems to me even if that was once the case, the grinding reality of the last fifty years would have removed that illusion.

Another possibility is that many voters have concluded that Democrats are committed to “free trade”—which has caused the economic devastation in portions of the heartland. Of course, what actually happened is infinitely more complex. But Clinton and others opened the Democrats to this criticism and voters aren’t given to nuanced arguments. In this simple-minded world, Trump’s tariffs have appeal. To the extent the Democrats are focused on attacking the tariffs as stupid (which they certainly are), they will have limited returns until the tariffs become so painful that Democrats barely need to point it out.

For me, the most plausible reason people say they think Republicans are better on the economy goes back to how much a large section of the electorate hates “woke”. They believe that if Democrats had control, they would use tax money, and possibly raise more, to give more resources to Blacks, immigrants, people in foreign countries and other people and policies they see as undeserving. So, what these people mean when they say Republicans are “better on the economy” doesn’t have anything to do with the economy in the way economists think about it. It means they believe Republicans are less likely to spend money on people/things they don’t like.

Then there is a longer-running intraparty struggle about how much to moderate progressive demands in the face of critiques from more centrist economists. While the concerns of that element have substance, an even in their worst constructions are not as problematic as Republican proposals, they have kept Democrats from crafting an economic message as clearly progressive as part of the party would like. I suspect a more unambiguously progressive agenda would actually improve Democratic appeal. Some potential presidential candidates will be fleshing out what they might say along those lines. It is, after all, the platforms of presidential candidates that define what the party “believes”.

In short, I believe many of the current critiques of Democratic positions are moderately useful to define what we might want to present as a party position but do not by themselves offer a robust road map to what must come next. Most of these arguments assume small changes within the existing political world will make enough difference to put Democrats in control. Maybe. I think, however, a more important question is what will it take to get the country out of the partisan quicksand in which it’s mired itself. Small shifts in Democratic strategy won’t do it. I believe a much more fundamental paradigm shift will be required to do that. At this point neither party is closer to a paradigm shift than occasionally saying the words out loud, unless you consider Republicans willingness to countenance authoritarianism a paradigm shift.

****

My next post will address why suggestions that Democrats “need to get organized like Republicans” are not as helpful as it might seem.