Democrats, discombobulated, say they lack agenda beyond ‘Trump is bad’
by Amie Parnes - 09/11/25 6:00 AM ET
Unmute
Captions
Fullscreen
Share
It’s been more than 10 months since Democrats were crushed by an election that cost them not only the White House but both chambers of Congress.
After the humiliating loss, Democrats vowed to change. They promised a new message and a revamped push to connect with voters who had abandoned their party.
But skeptics within the party argue there has been little movement, and their frustration is showing.
“It’s like watching a family of cockroaches who have just been blasted by a can of Raid in the middle of the night and the lights are now on,” said John Morgan, a prominent Democratic donor and injury lawyer, describing the state of his party.
“They are discombobulated,” Morgan said, echoing an exasperation shared among more than a dozen Democratic operatives and donors interviewed by The Hill.
Shouting In House After Prayer For Charlie Kirk; Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) Takes Oath
“How has the Democratic Party changed since the last election? Amazingly we’ve gotten worse,” said Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis. “No message. No vision. No strategy.”
Since the election and President Trump’s return to office, Democrats have banded together to oppose the president and his policies, just as they did when he was first elected in 2016.
But they have been unable in that time, Democrats told The Hill, to agree on a unifying message about who they are and what they represent.
“Dems have been good at opposing Trump and it’s breaking through in polling, but I don’t see much of a forward-looking message or agenda,” said Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons. “Even if voters agree on what’s wrong with Trump, they still need to know how Democrats will make their lives better.”
Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who ran former President Obama’s Florida operation during his 2008 campaign, said his party has “to be more than just ‘Trump is bad.’” As “maddening” as it is, Schale said “it probably won’t get better until we have our nomination fight.”
Operatives attribute the stagnation to the split within the party. Some believe Democrats need to veer left, while others say the party needs to move toward the center to pick up independents and soft Republicans.
Progressives arguing the party should shift to the left point to Zohran Mamdani, who is the favorite to be New York’s next mayor, because he has excited voters on issues like affordability.
Other Democrats say Mamdani is an anomaly and they have to go beyond their base if they want to win national races.
“The Democratic Party is two parties, socialists and benevolent capitalists,” Morgan said. “Both factions are opposed to each other, as demonstrated in New York City. … The problem they have is each message will piss off the other faction.”
There’s also a divide in the thinking around Trump.
“Democrats still don’t have a united message because we’re still divided on how bad things are, exactly,” said Democratic strategist Christy Setzer. “There’s a portion of the party that believes Trump 2 is bad but survivable. That keeping a low profile and letting Americans see how lawless and destructive he is will be enough.”
“The problem with that calculus is, it underestimates the hold of right-wing media on public perception, and it badly ignores that Trump will keep escalating the tactics and the illegality until someone or something stops him,” Setzer added.
There’s also still residue from the election — and in some cases PTSD.
Many Democrats are still angered by former President Biden’s insistence on running for a second term and say they feel betrayed by his team.
“Why would anyone write a check for anyone in this party right now unless we see some serious change?” one Democratic donor said. “Why would we waste our time and energy?”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris added fuel to the debate Wednesday by suggesting it was reckless for Biden to run for reelection.
Harris said she and others left the decision about whether Biden should seek reelection to the former president and his wife, Jill Biden.
“Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness,” Harris writes in the forthcoming “107 Days,” in an excerpt published by The Atlantic.
“The stakes were simply too high,” Harris wrote. “This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”
Democrats seeking solutions have conducted postmortems and focus groups.
They’ve also been criticized for overthinking ways in which to win back support from Black and Hispanic voters and young white men.
Third Way, a Democratic think tank, put out a list of words and phrases last month that Democrats shouldn’t use, including “Latinx,” “small ‘d’ democracy,” “heuristic” and “postmodernism.”
It said it was doing so to spotlight language “that puts a wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions and ethnicities.”
Some Democrats rolled their eyes at that exercise.
“This ain’t rocket science,” one Democratic strategist said at the time of the memo. “But Dems need to do three polls and a focus group before they decide to do anything.”
At the same time, there have been bright spots, Democrats said in interviews. They point to presidential contenders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has led a redistricting effort in his state and has employed a recent strategy of mirroring Trump.
Those efforts have resonated with Democratic voters, as evidenced by recent polling that shows Newsom catapulting ahead of his would-be Democratic rivals.
Newsom and other Democrats, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, have been praised for seeking to go on offense as they fight Republicans on issues.
Still, Democrats acknowledge they need help from Republicans if they want to win in the upcoming election cycles.
“The best hope in the short run is Trump’s promises don’t come through and with it, Trump fatigue: inflation, job loss, tariffs that make no sense, measles outbreaks and the constant chaos,” Morgan said.
Put more simply, he added: “The Democrats can’t win on their own. Republicans will have to beat themselves.”
Welcome to Billionaire Club Co LLC, your gateway to a brand-new social media experience! Sign up today and dive into over 10,000 fresh daily articles and videos curated just for your enjoyment. Enjoy the ad free experience, unlimited content interactions, and get that coveted blue check verification—all for just $1 a month!
Account Frozen
Your account is frozen. You can still view content but cannot interact with it.
Please go to your settings to update your account status.
Open Profile Settings