Aug 22, 2024 7 min read

The Democrats are Finally Becoming the Party They Were Meant to Be

I’m Umair Haque, and this is The Issue: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported publication. Our job is to give you the freshest, deepest, no-holds-barred insight about the issues that matter most.

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There’s something special about this DNC. It feels more like a Taylor Swift concert than a ho-hum political event. People are electrified. The mood is euphoric.

And all that’s because this is a special moment. At long last, the Democrats are an institution in transformation. With transformations like this come moments of euphoria. The transformations in question? They’re about everything, really, that an institution is. Leadership. Values. Strategy. Purpose.

But let me begin at the beginning.

**Who Are the Democrats?**

Who are they? Let me answer that question in a revealing way. The Democrats are one of the most powerful institutions on the planet. They are a political party so moneyed, so powerful, and so connected, that there are barely just a handful of other institutions on planet earth which come close—mega-banks, mega-corporations, etcetera.

Why do I raise that point? Because…it hasn’t felt like it. Has it? When I say “The Democrats,” until very recently, people would be expected to shrug, grimace, frown in disappointment, maybe sigh in irritation. The Democrats act powerless, and make people feel powerless.

Now let me say it again. The Democrats are one of the most powerful institutions on the planet. Yet for some reason—many reasons, which we’re about to explore—they haven’t acted like it. They’ve acted, instead, like the opposite. Everything from weak to supine to beaten-before-they-fought to hesitant to unsure. Choose the word that fits best, the point is that…

Until the last few weeks, nobody much except die-hard party insiders and loyalists would have used any of the following words to describe the Democrats. Bold. Assertive. Confident. Brave. Courageous. Principled. Fierce.

No fucks given.

But now? Everything’s changed.

And because the Democrats are suddenly different, people are euphoric. Where have these guys been all my life, people wonder? This is a party that suddenly doesn’t just claim to “represent” me in some meaningless way, but will fight for me, take it to the mat, and win. No wonder there’s been a huge influx of money, accompanied by the feeling of a Taylor Swift concert.

Let me now sum up why.

The Democrats are one of the most powerful institutions on the planet. And for the first time in a very long time, they’re finally acting like it. That’s electrifying people. And it’s dramatically changing the face of not just politics, but everything it’s made of, culture, society, attitudes, expectations, beliefs. Suddenly, the Democrats are a party that we can believe in.

Not just settle half-heartedly for.

And that’s making the GOP have a meltdown, because for decades? Their opponents haven’t been anything like this.

Strategy, Purpose, and Transformation, or When Institutions Rediscover Their Meaning

Think back to the birth of the modern Democrats. Suffering three terrible defeats in a row—Reagan, twice, landslides, and then Bush Senior—the Democrats came up with a new strategy. Do you remember what it was called? I do: triangulation.

“Triangulation” was a fancy buzzword. It just meant, in plainer English, that the Democrats were going to act…a whole lot more like the…Republicans.

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"In politics, triangulation is a strategy associated with U.S. President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The politician presents a position as being above or between the left and right sides or wings of a democratic political spectrum. It involves adopting for oneself some of the ideas of one's political opponent."

That summary’s a little unfair—it was Clinton’s advisors who came up with it. So what did triangulation yield? The beast we’d later come to know as “neoliberalism.” The “neo” in there meant that neoliberalism was in fact deeply skewed towards the right. It wasn’t, for example, about FDR’s famous Second Bill of Rights.

Think for a moment about how different those were.

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"The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education."

Neoliberalism, the bastard child of triangulation, wasn’t about any of that. It ended up being about adopting “free markets,” privatizing and deregulating everything from energy to finance, making prices paramount over public goods, and creating a society where everyone “lifted themselves up by the bootstraps,” and that stuff today is sometimes called “The Washington Consensus.”

But that consensus failed disastrously. It is precisely what yielded Trump, in turn, as America’s once vaunted middle class fell apart, shrank, and became a minority for the first time in history.

So. Let’s connect some of those dots. The strategy the Democrats adopted in contemporary history was triangulation, or moving to the right, in order to create a paradigm known as neoliberalism.

And that put on the defensive. Because if you’re tacking right, of course, those further right can always look at you, and in scorn, shout, “but these guys aren’t as extreme as us!”

This is why the Democrats ended up being so weak. So supine, so hesitant, so unsure. Their strategy was failing, because their paradigm hadn’t worked. And they didn’t know what to do about it. Meanwhile, the GOP was there to rub salt in their wounds, and portray them as watered-down versions of the macho, manly, aggressive real thing, which, if neoliberalism is what you’re selling, was probably fair enough.

As that happened, a new class arose in society. The punditry. You know who they are. Pundits all share one curious thing in common: they’re neoliberals. That’s because neoliberalism came to occupy a position of power, and pundits didn’t just associate themselves with it, power defined itself as legitimate through punditry. Only the opinions of neoliberals were to count—everything else was lunacy, irrationality, hysteria, “communism,” “socialism,” and so forth.

And so the pundits did what their class was designed to do. Every time the Democrats would have the dim spark of a new idea with which to go on the offensive with, the pundits would shout them down. Warn them off. No deviation from the neoliberal orthodoxy was to be allowed.

Decades passed that way. The Democrats found themselves trapped, in this prison of their own making, a failed strategy their jail, and pundits their jailers. Every once in a while, they’d try to make a break for freedom—and found themselves quickly punished back into line.

And as that happened, more and more people began to roll their eyes at them. Who were they? What was the point of such a party? It seemed faded. It felt obsolete. It was old, incompetent, ineffective. It couldn’t fight for anything much.

Until now.

This Is What a Party on the Offensive Looks Like

Now, the Democrats have a new strategy. Triangulation has been left far behind. They’re not on the defensive anymore. They’re on the offensive.

And that’s electrifying people.

You can see it in…everything. The way that Barack Obama spoke contemptuously of Trump. The way righteous fury poured forth from Michelle Obama. That’s different, too. The first time around, Obama would say things like “there are differences between us.” That’s not going on the offensive—but mocking Trump for being a petty, angry old man is.

You can see it, too, in Kamala’s approach, which is about “joy.” But that joy isn’t just some kind of naive happiness as in ignorance-is-bliss. It’s the laughter of poking fun at fascists. Of dancing as they splutter in rage. Of her comms teams just roasting Trump again and again, to everyone online’s amazement. That’s joyful, too, the idea of going on the offensive against a movement that’s so inimical to democracy and peace and justice and truth. It feels good because it’s right.

The Democrats’ new strategy is to go on the offensive, then, in…every way. There they are, slamming Trump, making JD Vance look like a fool, absolutely shredding the GOP. All that’s summed up in Tim Walz’s now legendary line: “weird.” How simple is that? And yet it illustrates just how powerful going on the offensive is, and how long the Democrats have lacked this approach, and how much people have longed for it from them.

It’s not just about rhetoric. The policy couldn’t be more different, too. Instead of triangulation’s paeans to neoliberalism, we have a muscular form of a new approach to liberalism that begins to take America, step by step, closer to social democracy. Millions of new homes. Making it easier to have a family. Combatting monopolies and making life affordable again. Neoliberalism didn’t care about any of this stuff. You were on your own, in the jungle, left to fend for yourself, and that was what was morally right.

All of that adds up. It connects with people, because it’s something different, new, and what they’ve been hungering for. This is a party that will fight for me. Will fight for me. That won’t be cowed into just being a lightweight version of the other guys. That will actually take on fascism, inequality, lies, hate, spite, violence. That’ll openly champion values like peace, justice, truth, dignity, decency, equality—not sort of simper about them, here and there, and then back cautiously away from them when it counts.

The Institution The Democrats Were Meant to Be

So these are two absolutely tectonic transformations we’re not just witnessing, but that we’re invited to be a part of, if we choose to be, and more and more people are doing just that. A transformation in purpose: who the Democrats are, and what they’re for. And a transformation in strategy—going from meek, befuddled defense, to no-fucks-given offense.

No wonder all that’s sparking euphoria. Like I said: one of the most powerful institutions on planet earth is finally acting like it. No wonder the GOP’s running scared. This is the party Americans have wanted the Democrats to be, for a very long time now. The party the Democrats have been afraid to be. But now they’re finally maturing. Stepping into their adult shoes. Embracing their destiny. And when we see that sort of courage, strength, determination, especially from an institution as beaten and lost as the Democrats—we cheer it on, because that’s what leadership is about.

The Democrats are finally becoming the party they were meant to be. They’re maturing, operating at a higher order now, in terms of purpose and strategy and leadership. That’s why the GOP feels beaten. It doesn’t know how to respond. It’s on the back foot, stumbling, off balance.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the third tectonic shift for the Democrats—leadership. The incredibly poignant moments from Biden. From Obama. From Kamala. This essay’s gotten too long already. I just wanted to share these thoughts with you. Fire away in the comments. And by the way, old friends among you know—I’m not a die-hard fan of the Democrats. Far from it. But I am delighted to see them becoming the party they should have been long ago.

Who Are the Democrats?

Strategy, Purpose, and Transformation, or When Institutions Rediscover Their Meaning

This Is What a Party on the Offensive Looks Like

The Institution The Democrats Were Meant to Be

❤️ Don't forget...

**Who Are the Democrats?**