The Democrats’ Brand Problem Isn’t Their Brand

By Abe Greenwald

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

 

On the New York Times’ website today, Ezra Klein talks with Democratic strategist David Shor about why Donald Trump won the 2024 election. It’s a rich and fascinating conversation chock-full of data and ideas about what went wrong (from their perspective) and what to do about it. What becomes clear is that they know what went wrong for Democrats, but they don’t really know what to do about it.

 

The situation boils down to this, from Shor: “If you look at the top issues that voters care the most about—cost of living, the economy, taxes, government spending, the deficit, foreign policy and health care—other than health care, where Democrats have a narrow lead, Republicans have massive trust advantages of about 15 points on all of the issues that voters care the most about.”

 

The race wasn’t determined by the likeability of a particular candidate or abstract ideas such as fighting off the “threat to democracy.” It was about concrete issues. Voters don’t trust Democrats on the economy, taxes, government spending, the deficit, and foreign policy because they’ve seen how Democrats approach these issues—with ineffective, out-of-touch liberal policies. Shor noted of Joe Biden: “Over the course of 2021, as his approval ratings dipped, the perception that he was too liberal also went up.”

 

That’s because Biden, like the rest of his party, has become too liberal. Not only did he fail on the issues that Americans care about, but he also followed his left flank on tertiary social or environmental causes that, at best, don’t matter to the average American. Biden’s celebrating Transgender Visibility Day and phasing out plastic straws might have pleased some activists but it did his party no favors. 

 

So how can Democrats deal with this? Toward the end of the conversation, Klein asks Shor: “What do you do about the reality of the Democratic brand? It’s toxic in most of the land area in the country.” Shor responds: “Realistically, at least until 2026, it’s mostly going to depend on what Republicans do.”

 

There’s more to his answer, but none of it is about Democrats actually, you know, changing. The idea is for them to sit back and wait for Trump to make an enormous mistake and then hammer away at the Republicans.

 

One can understand Shor’s position. After all, the brand is toxic because the product is toxic. The only way to fix that is to alter the product. Changing what the Democratic Party believes in—as opposed to what it messages—is up to Democratic politicians, not election strategists. There’s no cosmetic solution. We know that political candidates aren’t allergic to lying about their beliefs and embellishing their records, but messaging and ideas need to align at least to the extent that the contrast between them isn’t absurd. If you try to sell anchovies in a honey jar, you’re not going to corner the honey market.

 

What’s more, if the Democratic Party shows any interest in changing, it’s in change that would bring it further away from popular positions and closer to irrelevant or unpopular ones. Democrats are currently up in arms about the pending deportation of a terrorist-supporting non-citizen and the actual deportation of hundreds of members of a dangerous international criminal organization.

 

Shor’s right. With a party like that, the strategist’s best bet is to wait for the other side to make a mess of things—then attack. But this might be a bigger challenge than he realizes. Because if Democrats are outraged by the deportation of our enemies, they might not be able to recognize a genuine Republican mess if they see one.