Everyone is Wrong About Why Democrats Lose

Bland centrism doesn't work. Left-wing populism doesn't work either. Luckily, Democrats have a blueprint on what does.

by Ben Cohen

I’ve long argued that Democrats must hold the political center if they are to have any chance of winning power in America for a sustained period of time. Samuel Earle, author of Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World’s Most Successful Political Party, makes a powerful counterargument in a recent New York Times essay about the collapse of Keir Starmer’s government in Britain.

Earle argues that Starmer’s great weakness was actually baked into his initial victory. He won a huge Labour majority by presenting himself as the sober, respectable alternative to a hated Conservative government. But he did so without much enthusiasm, no real base, and no vision beyond competence and decency.

Once in power, Starmer found himself completely isolated. He had no ideological underpinning, no popular movement behind him, and no clear answer to the country’s underlying crises. As Earle writes, a leader without a base eventually discovers that the floor can fall out from beneath him.

This …