Democrats Are Already “Moderate.” It’s Not Working.
The perpetual advice to Democrats is that moving rightward will solve all their problems. But look where the party is at the moment: already embracing Republican affect and policies, yet still losing.
Democratic senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio is backing “the most conservative border bill in decades” and a fentanyl law bearing Donald Trump’s signature. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
Every election cycle produces the new miracle cure: Democrats should moderate. Ezra Klein has framed it as choosing power over purity — living with candidates who diverge from standard progressive preferences on abortion, immigration, or trans rights, the way Barack Obama once opposed same-sex marriage to win a national coalition. Matt Yglesias argues that economic populism can’t bribe noncollege voters out of disagreements on policing, immigration, guns, or gender; the party needs a more moderate national brand, not just a few carefully triangulated nominees. Adam Jentleson warns that celebrating competitiveness in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin while writing off Ohio or Florida is bar-lowering that cements minority status.
There’s wisdom in the call to moderation, but little novelty. I don’t even disagree with the instinct — it’s just that it doesn’t reckon with how Democrats already ran their 2024 campaigns.
Watch the highlight reel of some of the highest-spending advertisements of Democrats in swing seats in 2024:
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