The pundits have decided: The Democratic Party is dead. No one likes them. No one knows what they stand for. Young people snicker at them. Traditional Democratic demographic groups are losing the faith. The Democrats have lost the presidency — twice now — to a personality who in normal times would have been considered toxic and unelectable.
So it's all over, right? Baloney. Look back in history, and you'll see that Democrats have come back from much worse.
In 1928, Democrat Al Smith lost a presidential election by an historic margin, taking only 41 percent of the vote. It was the Democrats' third consecutive loss of the White House, and Smith carried only eight states out of 48, for a 444 to 87 electoral vote tally. The party’s Southern base had panicked at the prospect of putting an urban Catholic in the White House. Traditional rural Democrats hated being in the same room as sweaty city folk, many of whom were immigrants and the children of immigrants.
The Democrats were pronounced dead.
Then, four years later, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) flipped the script. He sailed into the White House with an electoral vote victory of 472 to 59, reversing the thumping that the Democrats had absorbed four years earlier. The Republican victor in 1928, incumbent President Herbert Hoover, carried only six states.
What had changed by 1932? Two things, mostly. First, the country had plunged into an economic depression in 1929 that had lingered for three years. Hoover, lacking the compassion to help suffering countrymen by abandoning capitalist orthodoxy and trying new ideas, could not command the trust of the electorate. Also, Roosevelt was a savvy campaigner who presented a relentlessly upbeat spirit of hope and optimism.
Might we see comparable changes by 2028? Absolutely.
President Trump is the most mean-spirited occupant of the White House in our history. His government glories in cruel actions that should be unthinkable, such as mistreating innocent children brought to this country by parents desperate to improve their lives. He sends immigrants to broken, violent nations from which they did not come, where they know no one and cannot speak the language. He cuts off health care for low-income people who work hard but have low skills or just bad luck. His masked police in unmarked vehicles whisk people off the streets.
Trump also aims to punish or prosecute those who speak ill of him or supposedly do him wrong, even if they have been found guiltless by professional FBI agents and prosecutors. His rage and spite overpower the facts and the law.
His economic policies — arbitrary tariffs, up, down and sideways — resemble the meanderings of a blitherer. The labor market weakens while inflation creeps up. His foreign policy epitomizes fecklessness.
This week he managed a first step toward the promised peace in the Middle East, one that came at tremendous human cost and with no agreement on implementation or any difficult question. He was going to settle the Russia-Ukraine war over a weekend, but couldn't achieve even a first step toward that. He does know, however, how to prance in fancy dress with British royals in palaces.
His use of office to make money is on an epic scale. A recent analysis estimated a Trump presidential profit of $3.4 billion, and he’s been in office less than a year. No other president has devoted so much energy to personal enrichment while so disdaining the fortunes of the middle class and less privileged.
Trump's party presents a target-rich environment of cruel and incompetent policies that a talented political leader could challenge successfully, just as Roosevelt did in 1932. For heaven’s sake, Joe Biden — as unimpressive a presidential candidate as the Democrats have fielded in my lifetime — beat this guy and his party in 2020.
How do we find that talented leader? Start with no preconditions. It doesn’t have to be someone who looks a certain way, has a certain shade of skin, wears skirts or trousers, speaks or worships a specific way, or comes from a certain place.
That leader must be smart and tough, someone who can do “the vision thing,” not just moan about how bad everything is. That leader must be someone who wants to fix things and has ideas about how to do it, plus a willingness to listen to other ideas. And it has to be someone who doesn’t hate.
Quit whining and get to work.
David O. Stewart is the author of five works of American history and five historical novels.
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