A group of moderate Democrats quietly gathered in Virginia last month — and hatched a comeback plan to try to distance the party from the far-left and win back the working class by embracing “patriotism.”
Third Way, a centrist-leaning Democratic think tank, put together the soul-searching retreat in Londoun County, a roughly hour drive from Washington, DC, and invited elected leaders, consultants, staffers and others to critically assess the party’s woes.
“Activist groups and progressive staffers push unpopular cultural positions, making it seem like Democrats are more extreme than they actually are,” said a summary paper from the retreat and seen by The Post.
“Operatives and campaigns must remember that activist groups exist to promote their single issue and raise money around it, not to make Democrats electable,” the document said.
The group argued that in addition to letting the far left define the party, “Democrats often let Republicans set the terms of cultural debates” and need to clearly “their own positions in a way that resonates with voters.”
The powwow summary listed about 20 key strategies to rebuild cultural and economic trust with the working class.
Here are a few highlights:
- “Democrats focus too much on America’s flaws (racism, sexism, inequality) without acknowledging the country’s progress and potential.”
- “Embrace patriotism, community, and traditional American imagery.”
- “Avoid overly moralistic or condescending messaging; speak plainly and directly.”
- “Own the failures of Democratic governance in large cities and commit to improving local government.”
Concerns about the left flank of the party damaging the party’s image and brand loomed large among the centrist Dems.
“In the wake of this election, where it became so evident that the things that the left was doing and saying deeply hurt [former Vice President Kamala] Harris and down-ballot Democrats, a lot of people are looking to us, not just Third Way, but the moderates in the party, and saying, ‘We got to do it your way, because the other way ain’t working,’ ” Third Way public-affairs exec Matt Bennett told Politico, which first reported the memo.
Organizers of the event made clear that not everyone who attended the retreat agreed on all of the takeaways in the memo.
Tension has long simmered between elements of the party’s progressive base who want Democrats to lurch further to the left and centrists who believe that push has given fodder to Republicans.
Broadly speaking, during the second Trump administration for example, some Democrats seem to prefer the party focusing heavily on kitchen-table issues such as inflation and carefully picking fights with the president, while others want to see a much more forceful repudiation of Republicans.
But one thing both factions appear to agree on is that the Democrats’ messaging strategy has generally been far less effective than the Republicans’ approach over recent years.
The summary paper called for a comprehensive study to figure out a better way of reaching voters and for pols to go into “unfriendly” media spaces.
A key glimmer of hope for Democrats in Congress has been some of the protests at GOP-run town hall events, mirroring similar clashes that took place before a midterm election wave, as was the case in the 2010 and 2018 election cycles.
