Democrats can’t borrow the Trump playbook

There’s no other option besides the Big Tent

Donald Trump is… a unique political figure. (Image source: Shutterstock)

It’s tempting to look at the last ten years of American politics and conclude that “nothing matters,” except, perhaps, “affordability.”

Donald Trump can cut taxes for the rich, reduce government programs for the poor, defile American democracy, and still return to the White House because inflation was too high and the border was too open.

It can also be tempting to look at Trump’s approach to politics and see a sort of master at work. After all, this is a twice-impeached, convicted felon who made it to the White House two times. He has dominated American politics since coming down that escalator eleven years ago.

Some Democrats are looking to adopt elements of Trump’s political project for their own purposes. Gavin Newsom is using Trump’s attack-dog pugilism. While other politicians, mostly on the Left, are arguing that the Trump administration’s smash-and-grab governing style is worth repurposing to advance progressive goals.

The idea is that Trump has proven that norms can be broken and nobody will call you out on it. There’s some truth to this, albeit he’s been aided by a relatively friendly Supreme Court and a Republican-controlled Congress. But I think Democrats can’t just borrow the Trump playbook for two key reasons.

1. Republicans can get by with appealing to a narrower segment of voters because they have a structural advantage in American politics.

2. Democrats actually want to build durable government programs that both work and can outlast a single presidential administration. Trump just wants to destroy as much as he can in office.

Democrats are in the wilderness. It’s understandable to look at Trump and think we’re in a political era where no rules apply. But this would be deeply misguided. The rules and expectations for the two parties are not the same. To beat Trump, Democrats can’t just copy the Republicans’ homework.

Democrats can’t be factionalists

Let’s begin with a simple, and for Democrats, unfortunate fact about American politics. Orthodox liberals, those who agree on progressive economics and cultural issues, are a rarity in America. They are not enough to win elections. In our hyper-polarized two-party political era, our presidential elections have continued to be close. But since Republicans have a structural advantage in the Senate, Trump and his allies can gain power with a political coalition that is simply more homogenous.

The esteemed Michelle Goldberg explains it best:

The rise of Limbaugh and his ilk worked out quite well for Republicans, helping them to wrench the country to the right. But it’s far from clear that Democrats either can or should follow the same template. The Republican Party is more homogeneous than the Democratic Party, so there’s less need to accommodate cultural difference within it. There are more conservatives than leftists in America, and in our system, conservative, rural areas of the country have more electoral power. Democrats will have a far harder time than Republicans building power with a stridently sectarian message.

I bolded that last sentence for a reason. There’s a strident sectarian movement rising to power in the Democratic Party. Some of their ideas, especially around health care, might be compelling to a majority of voters. But they’re fundamentally factionalist. If they ever want to grow into a majoritarian movement, they will have to appeal to more voters who voted for Trump because they agree with him on immigration and culture.

What’s happening in Michigan is an interesting case study in the Left’s growing pains to be a majority party. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a talented and compelling politician. He’s also a bit of a street brawler, not unlike the current president. His penchant for throwing elbows and being unapologetic in his beliefs endeared him to many primary voters. Throwing a big middle finger to the establishment, he campaigned with Hasan Piker the day before he beat their chosen candidate in the Senate primary.

For this decision and other maximalist rhetoric, a rift has now come between him and a critical voting bloc of Jewish Democrats in Michigan. His affiliation with Piker has also followed him on the campaign trail, distracting from more popular campaign messages on health care and Trump’s war in Iran.

The factionalist Left’s response to this is twofold: They either deploy a strategy that could be ripped from Trump’s early mentor Roy Cohn’s playbook, “never surrender” and “never admit defeat.” Or, they complain that the media is too obsessed with Piker and won’t equally cover Trump’s association with crazy right-wing influencers.

There’s some truth to that second point; Trump has stretched the bounds of acceptability, and he too often gets a pass for that.

But El-Sayed needs to remember the task at hand here. The median voter in Michigan is 58 years old and owns a house. While he has distanced himself, somewhat, from Piker in his pivot to the general election campaign, he must double down on winning voters who do not share many of the Left’s factionalist sentiments. There’s simply no electoral downside to slamming Piker’s outrageous views and past statements.

Republicans have paid a price

It’s also worth noting that Republicans have, in fact, paid a political price for their own devotion to factional politics.

College-educated suburbanites have fled the party, turning previous bellwethers like Philadelphia’s collar counties into increasingly blue strongholds. That dynamic has also played out in places like North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, making former Republican bastions increasingly competitive. Some of the most MAGA candidates like Herschel Walker and Blake Masters have underperformed in swing races; meanwhile, comparatively moderate Republicans like Susan Collins continue to overperform.

While Trump has made repeated inroads with the Democrats’ blue wall and built a comparatively diverse coalition of working-class GOP voters, he has also killed that same coalition. Polls now repeatedly show that the working-class is finally turning on Trump. The main driver is affordability, which Trump has turbocharged with his reckless tariffs. This is the real Trump effect. Why should Democrats want to replicate anything from the Trump playbook? Why are so many Democrats so afraid to directly criticize the exact tool that is increasing the price of consumer goods, especially when a strong majority of voters support free trade?

Extend this critique to Trump’s massive expansion of executive power. It can be appealing to see the dizzying speed at which the second Trump administration has set about implementing its agenda as a model for a future Democratic administration. Already there are efforts for a “Project 2029” that mimics the much maligned Project 2025 playbook. There’s nothing wrong with being prepared for a future administration. But recall why Trump consistently sought to distance himself from Project 2025; it included too many unpopular policy ideas.

Moreover, executive action is, by definition, incredibly easy to reverse. Likely the very first thing a future Democratic administration will do is undo as many of Trump’s executive orders as possible. This is similar to what happened to the Biden executive agenda, which was killed swiftly in the early months of Trump returning to the White House,

To be the party that enacts durable policy change, Democrats would do well to de-emphasize an overreliance on the administrative state, especially because the one they inherit in the future will be a shadow of its former self. Instead, Democrats should do the harder work of maximizing their appeal so they can obtain and maintain political power long enough to legislate meaningfully. The Affordable Care Act endures for a reason.

There’s no getting around a Big Tent

This is why Democrats must be ruthlessly obsessed with winning the Senate. There’s simply no path to implementing the sort of reforms we need to achieve universal health care or break up monopolies that don’t involve winning Senate seats in states like Iowa, Ohio, or Florida. Remember Michelle Goldberg’s point: “In our system, conservative, rural areas of the country have more electoral power.”

Until that reality changes, Democrats will need to be the party of the Big Tent. Republicans can get away with being factionalists — especially because they don’t even care much about governance anyway.

And Democrats must remember that Republicans struggle even with their structural electoral advantage. Trump is an albatross around the neck of congressional Republicans, and there will come a time when we move decisively beyond his influence in our politics, when his unique political charm fades away, and the party is just left with unpopular policies.

To dominate the next political era, Democrats must understand that a shared commitment to building a better world vastly outweighs the differences that exist in their current coalition. It should also mean not copying the bad behavior of the people across the aisle, because sooner or later, everyone’s bill always comes due.