The Democrats’ Refusal to Break With a Broken System Cost Them Dearly

In this environment, Donald Trump’s promise to “crush the system” is a winning message. The Democratic Party could have all put on hard hats, joined laborers in building infrastructure projects, flown out to Gaza to personally disarm Israeli munitions, and told Liz Cheney to take a hike, and it wouldn’t have made the difference for a straightforward reason. Democrats defended the system, and all its dreary norms, and hoary traditions—the very ones most Americans say are broken, can’t be trusted, and don’t work for them. Not only did it make Donald Trump an attractive candidate to many, but it also was likely a factor in the decision of millions of voters to just stay at home, stewing over their feelings that the choice was to keep the system that they feel is broken and not working at all for them or vote for a fascist.

This is not to say that Democrats have to embrace authoritarianism; far from it. But no issue, no outreach to any constituency, and no return to the party of labor is going to matter until Democrats fully embrace the idea that Americans across the board see our government as a stale, stodgy, ineffective, and corrupt 250-year-old relic and believe that every promise you make to them will be broken. To these voters, Washington is where all the pretty promises are forced through a sausage grinder, only to come out the other side an unpalatable mess, if they come out at all.

Here, Democrats might take a cue from one of their own: Elizabeth Warren. In 2020, the senator from Massachusetts had a boomlet in the Democratic primary with two simple messages:  “We need big, structural change,” and “I have a plan for that.”