Today I read this piece in Vox comparing the 2004 and 2024 elections and discussing what Democrats today can learn about how the Democrats came back from defeat. Author Nicole Narea says Democrats did three things: 1) They pursued a 50-state strategy, 2) They reevaluated their messaging, 3) They sought to become the party of ideas.
There’s some truth to Item #1. A 50-state strategy is absolutely something Democrats should pursue. But none of these three things are actually what happened. And they’re not why Democrats scored two successive wave elections in 2006 and 2008.
The Vox article speaks of a “reckoning” the Democrats had to have then and another “reckoning” they have to have now. I absolutely see red whenever I see people using this word in a political context. In post-election terms, it appears to mean a kind of ash and sackcloth self-criticism session on the part of whoever you have decided is to blame for the Democrats’ loss.
No.
What Democrats actually did after 2004 and actually began in earnest in the final six weeks of 2004 was simply to become an effective party of opposition, which meant opposing basically everything Republicans proposed to do and tripping them up over the actions they took born of the arrogance of unchecked power. House Republicans’ first big move after their victory was to change their caucus rules to make it okay to be in the leadership if you were currently under indictment. Bold move.
Then the reelected President decided he would use his “political capital” from his election mandate to partially phase out Social Security. If Democrats didn’t like Bush’s proposal, Republicans and DC opinion said, they needed to put forward their own plan. Democrats said no. They didn’t have a plan and didn’t need one. They opposed getting rid of Social Security full stop. Over the next 90 days Bush’s plan cratered and never even came to a vote. Bush never really recovered.
The details differ. But gist is the same. The real work of an opposition party is to oppose. It’s not to originate new theories of governance or have “reckonings.” It’s to oppose. It’s to hold the people in power accountable.
There’s plenty of time for theorizing and message testing. But the first thing to do is to oppose. Less arguing, more doing.
