The Democrats Decide to Lose
by David Catron
6–8 minutes
At the end of October, the center-left group WelcomePAC published Deciding to Win, a comprehensive exploration of why Democrats lost the 2024 election and what they must do to start winning again. It drew on surveys of more than 500,000 voters conducted over a six-month period and found that 70 percent of voters think the Democratic Party is “out of touch” and only 39 percent say the party has the “right priorities.” It recommended that the party moderate its most unpopular positions, avoid ideological purity tests, and offer genuine solutions to issues the voters actually care about. This is good advice based on a serious analysis of concrete data and it is being ignored by the Democrats.
The reason they are ignoring Deciding to Win, is a refusal to repudiate their ideological purity tests — particularly where they concern the “Israel lobby.”
Instead, the party is devoting its energy to an internecine struggle between its progressive and establishment factions. Inspired by Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City, the progressives believe the time has come to remake the party in their own image. Backed by a variety of donors and leftwing activist groups such as Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement they are mobilizing to purge longtime Democrat incumbents by recruiting “ideologically pure” candidates to challenge them in primaries prior to next year’s midterms. This is taking place from coast to coast. Moreover, their targets are by no means limited to “moderate” members of the party.
more
https://spectator.org/the-democrats-decide-to-lose/
