What Does It Mean When Your Party Brand Collapses?

Repairing a deeply negative image is never easy. Democratic “fusionism” may be needed.

“After widespread Democratic losses, the party brand is weak, and Trump is strong,” as the clear-eyed researchers at GBAO summarized following post-election focus groups conducted with various ex-Democrats and disengaged voters.

In the aftermath of losing a second election to Donald Trump, this time in a far more decisive manner, non-delusional Democrats have concluded that their party brand is in the toilet. “In the toilet” implying that the party image is something repulsive to many voters that needs to be flushed away as soon as possible, not something to be salvaged for future use.

Delusional Democrats, of course, say everything is fine, 2024 was close even though Harris lost the popular vote and all the battleground states, and more anti-MAGA, anti-Trump resistance will lead the party to Valhalla. No need to worry about the party’s image.

Among the realists, there are two main groups of Democrats who see the party brand in a free fall but offer different diagnoses for the cause and prescriptions for renewal.

On one side are the centrists who say the party is too culturally elitist, too anti-capitalist, and too obsessed with identity politics and other extreme values that are antithetical to working-class voters and other “normie” Americans. They want a “common-sense approach” better connected to mainstream cultural norms and pro-growth economic policies.

On the other side are progressives who also say the party is too elitist but mean that it is too pro-corporate and too obsessed with white working-class voters who hold supposedly reactionary social values that are odds with base Democrats and young people. They want more “economic populism” that attacks the rich and powerful while arguing that culture wars are GOP distractions and Democrats shouldn’t “throw anyone under the bus” to address them.

Those party members who blend a bit of both sides—or who hold more complicated views about politics—have either become independents or are basically “Democrats in Name Only” because they don’t want to become Republicans or give up their historic party allegiance.

How exactly is a Democratic Party split along these lines—centrists versus progressives with a heaping portion of disengaged and uninterested members—going to repair its brand anytime soon?

Without some factional co-mingling under the strong leadership of a charismatic new party figure that everyone accepts temporarily (think Barack Obama), the only way this gets resolved is if one of the two sides wins majority control of the party institutions and sets it on a course more in line with their approach. This seems unlikely since neither faction is particularly interested in coherent and cohesive party building outside of their strongholds. Centrists are a diffuse bunch mostly concentrated in districts and states that are highly competitive where politicians must downplay their connections to the party or run against it to attract more moderate to conservative voters. Progressives are concentrated in deep blue areas of the country where increasingly left-wing economic and cultural views rule the day among party faithful and where swing-voters either don’t exist or aren’t determinative.

Given the current geographical limitations of the Democratic coalition, if you had to pick one side of this intra-party debate over the other, you would favor the centrist model purely for political expediency in trying to win more House and Senate seats and Electoral College votes in battleground states. The math is brutal otherwise.

As is usually the case with Democrats, however, stasis is the more likely winner of the upcoming battle meaning nothing really will change over the next few years in terms of the party brand. Centrists will keep focusing on their turf and ideas and progressives on theirs with both sides fighting each other through various institutions and social media platforms to define what it means to be a Democrat on the national level.

Given the narrow GOP margins in the House, the status quo may be enough to take back control of at least one branch of Congress with the partisan stand-patters claiming vindication for not changing anything and letting Trump and Republicans sink on their own with voters.

A different outcome that takes the party brand challenge seriously ahead of the 2028 presidential election—meaning party leaders accept that decline is real and multifaceted based on adverse perceptions, misplaced values, and policy failures—would require either an Obama-like figure to emerge or Democrats figuring out something akin to Ronald Reagan’s “fusionism” after the Ford defeat in 1976. In simplest terms, Reagan successfully forged a new Republican Party based on “freedom, free markets, and traditional values,” represented by the famous three-legged policy stool of anti-Communism, deregulation and tax cuts, and anti-abortion measures plus other socially conservative policies.

Is this type of ideological and coalitional fusionism possible for Democrats? It’s hard to tell.

Theoretically, Democratic fusionism that would bring in more voters and enable the party to win more elections across the country would need to blend pro-growth and populist economics together with traditionally liberal but pluralistic and more moderate cultural values. This would mean developing a Democratic Party that is committed to building and making more stuff in America and cracking down on concentrated economic power that harms consumers. Expanding universal social benefits for the middle class and increasing the bargaining power of workers. Standing for equal protection under the law and pursuing a “live and let live” cultural approach that isn’t preachy or harmful to working-class voters.

Practically, this fusionism would require new policy and political institutions to devise a concrete and easily communicated agenda that defines the party positively with voters and allows multiple candidates to win in divergent electoral environments. These norms and institutions currently do not exist but should be considered and funded by party members and donors alike. In the meantime, the existing factional infrastructures on both the centrist and progressive sides could forego the attempted takeover of the party for a while and try to create new mechanisms for cooperation and the development of a party brand that all sides can embrace without watering it down to meaninglessness.

This fusionist approach will require a series of difficult but necessary debates conducted in good faith and without an eye towards taking to social media to lambast the ideological perfidy of the other side. Questions to hammer out include:

• What is the Democratic Party’s overall approached to growing the economy and ensuring widespread gains for all Americans?

• What economic policies are worth salvaging from the most recent Biden and Obama presidencies—and which policies should be jettisoned or reconsidered?

• Why did the Biden administration policy agenda—from the American Rescue Plan to Build Back Better to the Inflation Reduction Act—fail to garner political support? What are the political advantages and disadvantages of pursuing giant, complicated legislation with narrow majorities?

• What is a viable Democratic policy agenda on climate and energy policy? On immigration? On crime?

• What is the Democratic Party’s position on social spending? What existing programs can/should be cut or pared and which ones should be protected/expanded?

• What is the Democratic Party’s approach to taxation and how do Democrats plan to pay for its social programs and other economic policies?

• What is the Democratic Party’s position on governmental and political reform? Which parts of the federal bureaucracy can or should be cut? Which regulations are holding back national economic development and should be tossed? Are there a few precise and achievable reforms that multiple factions could agree to pursue that would improve governance and reduce the role of money in politics?

• What is the Democratic Party’s position on contentious social issues that divide people? Which positions are clearly anathema to voters and should be discarded? Which issues are core to the party’s historical commitments and should be defended? Which issues can the party agree to let voters disagree on without lecturing them and without issuing purity tests for candidates?

Trump and the GOP have been elected to govern the country basically on their own terms for at least the next two years, if not longer. Democrats should take this time in opposition to answer these questions honestly and really figure out how the party can better represent the economic and cultural values of more Americans. Democratic fusionism may not be possible given the hardened positions and incentives of various factions, but it is worth a try if the party wants to seriously confront its brand decline among multiple groups of voters and win more elections in different areas of the country.

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Editor’s note: The Liberal Patriot will resume publishing on January 2, 2025. Have a nice Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s break!