Successful American political parties cannot offer narrowly crafted, closely argued programs. Moreover, unlike ideology-based European parties, American parties with their heterogeneous electoral supporters must win majorities to gain office, and this requires coalition building.
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That reality acknowledged, the current Democrat party’s offerings far exceed the usual hodgepodge of appeals. What, for example, links facilitating sex change operations for minors and increasing taxes on billionaires? Or “free” government-funded medical care (“Medicare for All”) and defunding the police? How is “affordability” related to enacting the “Green New Deal,” a policy that invariably increases energy costs? Can government lower prices while simultaneously boosting everyone’s wages? Why defend open borders and sanctuary cities when the resulting cheap labor will drive down wages for American workers? Will millions vote Democrat to allow men to play on women’s sports teams, legalize deadly addictive drugs, condemn Israeli “genocide” in Gaza? This “platform” is an incoherent collection of bumper stickers-like slogans.
Many of these appeals are also unpopular and have zero chance of implementation. Do Americans really want to pack the Supreme Court to advance some vague agenda or replace it altogether? What about supporting a political party that displays a lukewarm enthusiasm for patriotic symbols like the flag and the glories of American history? American political parties typically resemble budget-breaking Santa Clauses, but the Democrat party’s current version of Old Saint Nick promises toys few want, will not work as advertised, and are dangerous.
Nor is altering the English language a winning election strategy though it is alluringly cheap to accomplish. Using “sex workers” versus the supposedly offensive “hooker” is hardly a winning election strategy. Or “birthing person,” to replace “mother.” Such often comic wordplay only conflates terminology with reality and fools nobody.
Particularly desperate is chasing electoral advantage by invoking “socialism.” No doubt, few Americans correctly understand “socialism” other than lots of “free stuff.” More importantly, implementing genuine socialism necessarily requires deeply unpopular measures such as public ownership of key industries, government-controlled media, eliminating private banks and similar draconian government controls over peoples’ private lives.
Even further afield from the party’s historic identity is playing footsie with Muslim extremism, especially Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, despite his anti-American and Anti-Israeli baggage. This is in Michigan, the home of the United Auto Workers, a traditional core Democrat constituency, and one hardly disposed towards Islam. Apparently, the Democrat “Big Tent” here excludes the old faithful in favor of a religion deeply antithetical to American values.
Why not escape the floundering and return to an earlier era when Democrats of all stripes easily rallied around a package of doable, sensible inter-related policies, for example, the Great Society?
Today’s incoherence results from the party’s past successes, and with mission accomplished, a new mission statement is necessary. This “what comes next” predicament is commonplace in all once successful organizations.
A perfect illustration of this “mission accomplished” quandary occurred to a famous American charity—the March of Dimes. Created in 1938 to fight the dreaded polio, a disease that paralyzed millions of children, the organization raised millions for research and healthcare facilities.
In 1955 thanks to the Salk and Sabin vaccine, polio was conquered so, in effect, the March of Dimes had put itself out of business. However, rather than disband their substantial fund-raising apparatus, it soldiered on, and after some initial dead ends, the organization reinvented itself to combat birth defects, arthritis, and virus diseases (premature birth was added in 2005). The mission shift was formalized in 1976 with a new name: the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.
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Today’s Democrat party is in a comparable position of achieving successes in its mission. Consider, for example, the Democrat party’s role in advancing black civil rights. Thanks largely to Democrats, we have enacted dozens of anti-discrimination laws, made huge investments in black-run neighborhoods and cities, elected countless blacks (including one president), created economic set-asides, among multiple other civil rights advances. A stunning record of accomplishment.
What’s left on the Democrat’s traditional agenda? Answer: not much, at least as far as what the government can provide and what works. Absent a new agenda, it is no wonder today’s civil rights movement focuses on ephemeral issues like toxic white racism or reparation. At most, lacking a clear alternative, Democrats can denounce Republican efforts to roll back racial preferences (DEI), but this rhetoric will hardly mobilize millions of voters.
A similar quandary exists in rallying liberal women, given their far-ranging progress. Hard to demand yet one more anti-discrimination law when women college graduates outnumber men, occupy many top corporate positions, enjoy ample political success and even fly fighter jets. In fact, women accounted for 98% of all jobs added to the economy in August 2026. Given this observable progress, it is not easy being a Democrat strategist crafting today’s party’s message promoting greater sexual equality.
Ditto for those motivated to achieve broad economic equality. For over half a century, Democrats have waged “wars on poverty” with massive expenditures on education, subsidized housing, job training, food and medical subsidies, and the like. Alas, hundreds of billions have barely moved the needle, and no magic bullet currently exists. Given this lack of progress and viable options, Democrats have turned to vacuous slogans, for example demanding that billionaires pay “their fair share” or enacting business-killing, unrealistic minimum wage increases, as if these nostrums could uplift millions of poor people into the middle class.
Then there’s the once politically popular Green New Deal to eliminate fossil fuels to save the planet while creating millions of good-paying jobs. This Democrat-led scheme once mobilized voters and had initial successes, but the magic is long gone. Doomsday scenarios are no longer credible, and few voters want yet more huge wind farms or want to ban gas stoves.
The same pattern holds for others who once voted Democrat—their decades-old wish lists are now law or, the promised outcomes have proven elusive. Gays now enjoy same sex marriage and adoption rights while the disabled benefit from ample legal protection. There is hardly any disadvantaged group that lacks government assistance, so Democrats almost desperately search for new “victims” like the transgendered.
Today’s Democrat party plight is not unique. Recall the once popular Prohibition Party that banned alcohol nationally, and look what happened when Americans changed their minds. Or the powerful Whig Party that failed to survive divisive quarrels over slavery? On the other hand, the Republican Party was initially built on its anti-slavery appeal, but it successfully re-invented itself as the pro-business party when slavery was abolished.
As in nature, political survival demands constant adaptation, and the Democrat party must adapt to a shifting political landscape. The list of defunct American political parties is a long one, and it is hard to predict this adaptation, but endless facile sloganeering hardly seems the solution. The party built on helping ordinary wage earners requires a more substantive message than “Orange Man Bad” or “prices are too high.” Yes, thanks to millions of loyal followers, Democrats will still win elections, but at some point, today’s party stalwarts will grow apathetic or die off, and new voters will look elsewhere for champions. In the long run, a party that stumbles from one vacuous trendy issue to another for its core identity is doomed to collapse.
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