Realignment

For permanent change to take hold, we need the tools to deliver on our promises

This is the fourteenth in a series of occasional posts about rebuilding democracy after Trump. You can read an overview of the series here.

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We know what promise feels like.

And we know how disappointment feels.

Right now we are faced with a dark moment. But, it is also one brimming with promise. We have to move deliberately and strategically to make sure that promise doesn’t end in disappointment.

This means viewing the upcoming political cycle as a rare generational election when the establishment of an enduring progressive electoral coalition can genuinely come to pass, and with it the revitalization of American democracy.

At fixed times in American history, we have lived through moments of political realignment, when windows that were sealed shut for decades burst open as new alliances make once unthinkable policies possible.

It was unthinkable in 1860 that slavery could be erased from the Constitution. But it was.

It was unthinkable in 1932 that Americans would create a large, robust social welfare state. But they did.

It was unthinkable in 1980 that the country would lurch to the right and end fifty years of political and social progress.

You know how that turned out.

In each of these moments, a spent regime was repudiated by the public and replaced with something entirely new. Two of these moments followed the tragedies of the Civil War and the Great Depression.

Those moments more than realigned our political arrangements.

They redefined America.

We are in one of those moments again. As Donald Trump’s chainsaw government upends our lives and the lives of our neighbors, we have a remarkable opportunity to imagine America anew—to reclaim the liberties we have lost while remaking institutions that have stacked the deck to favor the very few.

But we have to do it thoughtfully. We have to do it strategically. We have to proceed sequentially through a number of steps aimed at building a new majority coalition that can first reclaim our freedoms and then create policies to manifestly improve our lives.

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Let’s work through the sequence of events that will need to happen in order to build an enduring, democracy-affirming majority coalition. And let’s work backwards from our goal of revitalizing democracy to figure out how to get there.

The objective: A democracy that works. Our democracy has been ailing for a long time. Before it began rapidly backsliding during the Trump presidency and accelerating towards authoritarianism during the second, people already felt government wasn’t working for them.

The signs were everywhere: Years of people saying the country is off track. Massive levels of distrust in government. Overwhelming negativity about the political system. The widespread sense that politics is exhausting. A prolonged stream of change elections where voters acted like they were desperately looking for a new direction—without finding it.

Now, as the country comes around to the view that MAGA is a failed experiment, there should finally be an opportunity to change this once the Trump presidency is finally done.

A democracy that works will have to be built through the Democratic party. As the only major pro-democracy party remaining, and as the only viable alternative to MAGA, the work of rebuilding the country will by default fall to Democrats. Should Trump fail to institute a permanent American autocracy, voters will turn to the Democratic party to repair the damage he leaves behind.

This will not be a new development. Voters turned to Barack Obama to bail the country out of the Great Recession and to Joe Biden to bail the country out of the first Trump experiment.

Only this time has to be different. This time, Democrats will need the latitude to implement big policy changes that were impossible under the prevailing political conditions of 2009 and 2021.

For the Democratic party to rebuild democracy, it will need to implement a bold policy agenda. To secure a lasting coalition that will be more than a one-time repudiation of the unpopular Trump regime, Democrats need to be able to deliver policies that will rebalance economic inequities and open the political process to everyone. In other words, they need to deliver on the promises they make.

The specifics of that agenda will be debated during the upcoming presidential campaign and in the early days of a new administration. However that agenda evolves, the objective should be to make sure promises can be turned into actions that make life better for everyone who is suffering under MAGA governance.

For the Democratic party to implement a bold policy agenda, we will need to remove institutional impediments to governing. The only way to convince people that government works for them is to establish a government that works for them. Political participation can be empowering when it leads to meaningful outcomes—when you can draw a straight line between the promises candidates make and the results they deliver.

To make government empowering, we need to remove institutional impediments designed to make sure it isn’t. These are the institutional obstacles I have discussed in this series.

Of the six specific changes I believe we need to make in order to enable a future Democratic majority to claim power and govern effectively, four of them are necessary to facilitate effective governing outcomes:

• Campaign finance reform

• Filibuster reform

• Judicial reform

• Media reform

This list isn’t intended to be comprehensive, but it would go a long way toward allowing policies to emerge from a Democratic legislature that address the interests of voters over donors, have those policies affirmed by the Supreme Court, and then be communicated effectively to the public.

For the Democratic party to implement a bold policy agenda, we will need to remove institutional impediments to Democrats holding power when they have popular majorities. When a party delivers for its constituents, it should be given an extended opportunity to govern. It’s not much of a stretch to assume the results of the 2026 and 2028 elections will be turbocharged by the negative public reaction to Donald Trump. But political conditions will change rapidly once Democrats run things. That’s when impediments to Democrats holding power will really kick in—and why institutional roadblocks to electing Democrats need to be addressed. Of the six changes I discussed in this series, four of them are necessary to allow representation to reflect the represented:

• Gerrymander reform

• Campaign finance reform

• Voting reform

• Media reform

Democrats shouldn’t struggle to win elections if people understand and like the results they get when Democrats are in office.

To make these institutional changes, Democrats need a mandate to govern. Lasting changes cannot be supported by slender or fleeting majorities. Just winning the 2026 and 2028 elections will not be enough. Democrats will need a mandate to make big changes to how government operates.

To get a mandate to govern, Democrats need to win elections—and win big. Winning candidates like to throw around the term mandate, and understandably so. Mandates are a form of political capital. They add jet fuel to a president’s agenda. Even though Ronald Reagan won just a hair more than a majority of the voters who turned out in 1980, his large winning margin over Jimmy Carter and his sweep of the Electoral College gave him the latitude he needed to claim his election was an endorsement of his ideas rather than just a repudiation of his opponent.

Presidents who claim fantom mandates risk being punished by the electorate for over-reaching. Donald Trump is fond of exaggerating his electoral performance, and has claimed a MAGA mandate despite barely winning the popular vote, failing to win an outright popular majority, and only narrowly exceeding Joe Biden’s electoral vote total four years earlier. It is unsurprising that he has lost the support of the public, especially in light of how radical his administration has been.

On the other hand, presidents who are actually given a mandate by the country—like FDR and LBJ—have the latitude to act on bold ideas and the political heft to get Congress behind them. Governing mandates come from winning elections—and winning them big.

To win big, Democrats need to broaden their coalition. A majority party is by definition a national party with a message that resonates with voters in a broad coalition. That coalition can be unwieldy, like the New Deal coalition that managed to bring southern racists and northern liberals under the same umbrella. It will likely require attracting groups with different objectives and priorities, some of which may be at odds.

But party coalitions are built through addition.

It isn’t enough to eke out narrow victories in a few swing states. Majority parties compete everywhere and appeal to a wide range of constituencies. Perhaps it’s prairie populism in the agricultural Midwest and mountain West, a form of Democratic Socialism in the coastal urban centers, and pragmatic progressivism in the suburbs. If constituent groups are united by effective governance that works for them, coalitions can hold together despite the inevitable forces working to pull them apart.

During the Reagan era and the MAGA interregnum, Republicans held onto power in part by playing to cultural and racial animosities and dividing groups with common economic interests. In a new post-MAGA alignment—especially one born of the damage Trump is inflicting—common economic interests addressed by effective policy could put up real resistance to the wedges the opposition will repeatedly use to break the coalition apart.

To broaden their coalition, Democrats need to listen to voters. This means showing up everywhere. It means showing up early. It means building relationships rather than just asking for money. It means empowering ordinary people to take a meaningful role in Democratic politics at the grassroots level if they are interested. It means understanding the needs and concerns of voters and shaping policies to address them.

It also means asking people for their vote, but only after building relationships with them. When people get to know party officials and grassroots organizers where they live, it’s much harder for the opposition to mischaracterize them as scary or out of touch with local interests and values.

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There is a path to a new America after Trump. A progressive America. A democratic America.

It is a long and challenging path and it is fraught with difficulties. It will require years of sustained effort. There is no guarantee of success.

But it is possible.

For the first time in decades, a functioning progressive majority can come to power in this country.

To make it happen, Democrats need to broaden their coalition by listening to voters nationwide in order to win big in 2028.

They need to win big in 2028 so they can claim a mandate to govern.

They need to claim a mandate to govern in order to clear away impediments that could prevent them from winning elections when they have the support of the public behind them.

They need to claim a mandate to govern so they can deliver progressive policies that work for the country.

Only then can we reverse the cycle where people lose faith in government because government doesn’t work for them—a cycle that undermines democracy and paves the way for authoritarian figures like Donald Trump.

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And there is one more thing.

This has to be a collective effort.

It needs you.

It needs us.

Even with the wind at our backs like I expect it will be next year and in 2028, it’s going to take a massive effort by so many of us to reclaim and restore democracy.

The task before us is large and complex. The outcome is not preordained. It can feel overwhelming.

In the final post in this series next Monday, let’s break it all down into something manageable. Because political earthquakes are born of the countless quiet acts of millions of people.

There is a role for everyone in building the future we want.

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UP NEXT: Us.