Democrats engaged in ‘politics of evasion’ that could cost them 2024, analysts say

About 30 years ago, Democrat policy analysts William A. Galston and Elaine Kamarck published a harsh critique of their party, warning against a “politics of evasion” that they said ignored electoral reality and hindered changes needed to reverse the results of three losing presidential races in which the party had won a combined total of just 173 electoral votes.

Galson and Kamarck have now launched a fresh attach on the Democrat Party. “A Democratic loss in the 2024 presidential election may well have catastrophic consequences for the country,” they write, arguing that the Trump-led Republican Party presents the most serious threat to American democracy in modern times.

The Democrats’ first duty, they argue, should be to protect democracy by winning in 2024; everything else should be subordinated to that objective.

But they argue that the Democrats are not positioned to achieve that objective, that, instead, the party is “in the grip of myths that block progress toward victory” and that too many Democrats are engaged in a “new politics of evasion, the refusal to confront the unyielding arithmetic of electoral success.”

“Too many Democrats have evaded this truth and its implications for the party’s agenda and strategy,” the authors add. “They have been led astray by three persistent myths: that ‘people of color’ think and act in the same way; that economics always trumps culture; and that a progressive majority is emerging.”