FIRST WIN, THEN ATTEMPT TO GOVERN.

I had been hoping for most of this year to be able to put together some longer-focus stock-taking mini-dissertations on topics of more than passing interest to me that might be more durable than your typical social media fare.  Unfortunately, events have generally dictated otherwise.

One such topic has been the ongoing tussle between the communist and corporatist wings of the Democrats, particularly since one Donald Trump returned to the White House.  That the Jarrett regency took the White House under false pretenses and rubbed Normal noses in a Weimar freak show for four years might have had a lot to do with the second Trumpening.

Oh, expensive gasoline and the corona tyranny doubtless contributed.  The recriminations over the past year don't really call for a stock-taking post as those tussles have involved the usual suspects shouting from their usual corners, and the arguments of the past year are very much like the arguments that came to my attention more recently.

It was Regent Emeritus Barack Obama who offered the suggestion that inspired the title of this post.

Obama told the lawmakers to "focus" on winning back the Republican-controlled House in the 2026 midterm elections, indicating that after that the party could work more through those ideological divisions.

"Because I promise, when that gets done, we have enormous talent, and we are then going to be in a position, as the next presidential campaign ramps up, to sort through some of the differences," Obama said, according to excerpts of his remarks obtained by ABC News.

At best, we have gridlock, which might be the voters' preferred outcome, particularly when once noble-sounding words like "consensus" and "compromise" mean, respectively, the political class wins and the taxpayers get fleeced, and the faction requesting compromise gets three-fifths of what it wants.  What the former president wants might involve another political food fight.

He also told House Democrats that while the short-term goal is to win back the House, the longer-term goal is to "tell a story" to "bring [Democrats] back in." But, he added, they won’t be able to bring those people back in "if we don’t win the House of Representatives."

He's referring to voters who ticked the Trump box or stayed home.  The story to be told, though?

The communist wing, starting shortly after the last presidential votes were certified, was one in which gridlock was not enough: open defiance was the order of the day.  "Dems Reportedly Angry That Progressives Are Pushing Them to Act Like an Opposition Party."  Because the so-called progressives are an irritated rump that provides no end of amusement for Militant Normals?

“Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are architects of the crisis that allowed Trump’s fascism to arise and succeed,” progressive organizer Aaron Regunberg wrote Tuesday. “They have zero credibility to be leading the fights we face today—not in their record, their competency, or their recent performance. Quite simply, they have to go.”

I agree with Mr Regunberg about the incompetence of several New York politicians prominent in Democrat politics.  It's some kind of fascism, though, in which this Mr Regunberg is still free to sound off, and those New York politicians are still in office.

The beat goes on, all the same.  A long-form autopsy of the presidential election offered by people aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America suggests that appealing to that irritated rump well might work.

The mainstream Democratic Party’s relationship to and reliance on corporate interests stand in the way of economic populist policies that, widespread polling shows, would win many votes for the party.

To win back the White House and Congress, we urge the Democratic Party to change course and embrace economic populist policies that inspire and help working-class Americans. The Democratic Party must show voters that it has a spine and can stand up to corporate and big-money interests.

That might help in local elections in the right sort of precincts.  Think high-end college towns and urban slums.  That, incidentally, suggests the relative importance of local elections: there's little your vote for president does in the scheme of things, but your vote for school board chairman or selectman or mayor of dog-catcher might provide the margin of victory.

But getting that communist-adjacent presidential nominee might make the likes of Aaron Regunberg and the Democratic Socialists happy until the final ballots are counted.  And a "Progressive Era" reform, the open primary, might be the root cause of the problem.  Here's Henry Olsen from the corporatist wing with the details.

Most establishment Democrats believe the party’s 2028 nominee needs to tack to the center, especially on social issues, to maximize the party’s chance to win. That looks sound on paper, but implementing it faces a serious obstacle: the party’s primary voters.

Democratic Party primary voters are significantly more progressive and left-leaning than they were even in 2008. That fact was driven home in two high-profile mayoral races, in New York City and Seattle, where little-known progressive challengers easily defeated well-known establishment figures.

Those contests are especially significant when one applies those results to the method by which Democrats traditionally apportion convention delegates. Extrapolating from those victories—and other high-profile progressive versus establishment races—suggests there’s a real chance the party could nominate someone who leans into, not away from, the hard progressive zeitgeist.

That's not going to sit well with the alphabet people or the Islamophiles or the race hustlers.  The squabbles among a hypothetical Democrat majority in either house of Congress will be amusing, if not necessarily edifying.  Moreover, argues Ruy "Liberal Patriot" Teixera, that intersectional coalition is pretty good at antagonizing people.

The original progressive idea was to remove barriers so that people could accomplish what they are capable of, not to disregard the importance of accomplishment. A progressive society—a fair society—is one where people can count on the former not one where they have to worry about the latter. Today’s anti-merit “progressives” are no longer progressive because, in essence, they no longer believe in fairness.

There is a lot in that passage to appeal to a student of the Scottish Enlightenment, not to mention a libertarian, as nowhere in that passage is an explicit appeal to the Men of System or to throwing public money with the hope of removing barriers.  To Democrats, though, it's still all about the Men of System and the throwing of money at perceived problems.  Let lapsed Republican Chris Coons, now a Democrat senator from Delaware, elaborate.

Democrats need to stop telling Americans how to be and what to feel and believe. Instead, we need to listen. Then we need to solve the problems they’ve shared with us. In the last few years, it’s not just our message that was wrong—it was some of our policies, too. People didn’t recognize the impacts of the bills we wrote and the votes we took. That’s why Americans don’t believe us when we preach at them from auditorium stages, cable news desks, and social media posts.

We have to get back to the values and ideas that draw people to be Democrats to begin with.

I would know because they’re what drew me to the party. I didn’t begin my political life as a Democrat. My parents were Republicans, and I was raised on the idea that if you worked hard, you could attain the American dream the way my family had. In college, I helped found the Amherst College Republicans. My freshman summer, I interned with Senator Bill Roth, a Delaware Republican.

He ultimately threw in with the Democrats after listening to "See that big house? See all those little houses?  Are you comfortable with that?"  But, he laments, Republicans and Democrats alike could concur in the discomfort whilst differing on how best to ameliorate things.

I think that’s what all Americans want—regardless of party. Those are the values my Republican family instilled in me, but they could just as easily have been taught to me by Democratic parents.

My parents believed that the way to uphold those values was in freedom from taxes and regulation so that they could keep more of what they earned and then give back to our community. The difference between that centrist Republican position of my youth and the centrist Democratic position of my adulthood is that I believe we are also required to make the world more just. Scripture tells us in Micah 6:8 that we are called to do justice, walk humbly, and love mercy. Part of living up to that call is pushing our elected officials to create just conditions under which everyone will thrive. That’s the kind of fairness that would have given children in the South Bronx access to more opportunities; the kind of care that would not leave rural communities behind; the kind of policy that would not raise up one group at the expense of another but would instead make sure no one was left behind.

These were the values that inspired me to join the Democratic Party.

Today, I and many others worry that we’ve lost sight of those values, and that we’ve in turn lost sight of how to engage Americans. Ever since the shattering loss of the White House and the Senate majority in 2024, Americans have been asking about the direction of the party. What do we stand for? Where will we take the country if voters give us the chance to lead again? We should have run better campaigns in 2024, but more than a year later, we also need better answers to those questions than what we offered on Election Day.

Here's where the Men of System, and the throwing money at problems, and the tussles between the communist and corporatist wings, present themselves.

Opportunity means social mobility is possible—that your children can do better than you if you work hard, play by the rules, and invest in their education and well-being. It’s a version of our country where good jobs are plentiful, dreams are made real by hard work, and government helps clear the way rather than standing in it.

That’s only possible when housing is affordable and good schools are within reach. Americans shouldn’t have to devote their whole paycheck to necessities they can barely afford. Wages must keep up with the price of groceries, gas, and housing. Small businesses need government as a champion, not an adversary.

We need to make sure better jobs are available everywhere—not just in a few coastal bubbles, but also in the towns across the country where so many of us grew up. Government must partner with the private sector to rebuild the middle class and create opportunity for hardworking people.

Our society and economy will be reshaped by artificial intelligence, digital communications, quantum computing, autonomous vehicles, and more. Democrats need to approach these transformations with both an attitude and policies that are optimistic about the boundless opportunity they represent but also careful to protect Americans from their risks, especially for our children and our privacy. The Democratic Party has to build things again, and we need to make sure that Americans are trained for the future that these technologies will bring.

It's straightforward enough to frame libertarian policies to achieve those goals.  Government clears the way by attempting to do less.  The so-called progressive bundle of restrictive zoning, no school choice, no fiscal restraint, championing favored small business, and banging on about  "affordability," subject to the realities of the equilibrium buyer provides all sorts of opportunities for grift and rent-seeking, even without some sort of carping about Somalis to rile up the groundlings.  Managing emergence will prove a fool's errand.  But the so-called progressives will want to attach all sorts of strings to preclude any "disparate impact" on whoever the local mascots are.  Mr Coons sort of gets some of this.

The other party says it values liberty, which its members define as freedom from regulation, taxes, and any other constraints on the wealthy and corporations. Our party has focused more on justice, which we define as redressing wrongs to ensure an inclusive and fair society.

True justice is much broader and deeper than purity tests and the “cancel culture” that so many Americans are tired of. A passion for justice is part of what brought me to the Democratic Party—but those purity tests and quick condemnations of different views, had they been in force then, likely would have thrown me out just as I was beginning to consider these new ideas.

To achieve the justice that I’m speaking of, and that the party must advance, requires the freedom to choose our families, our homes, and our futures; to speak our minds and read what we want; and to work through the difficult chapters in our history to make a better future. It means defending due process and fundamental fairness.

His advocacy of "redressing wrongs" opens the door for all manner of "purity tests" and the intersectional coalition that calls itself democratic socialists will be quick to act accordingly.  Buckle in.