Following the 2024 election, one thing has become clear. The Democratic Party has decoupled from its coalition and was incinerated on the national stage. As of this moment, the Republican Party is set to have a trifecta with the presidency, Senate, and the House of Representatives. While the infighting begins and the fingers start to get pointed, I’d like to offer another, simpler take: centrism and moderation.
In the wake of rising political polarization in our country, the coalition for both parties has become more definite, but in this past election, cracks have formed in the Democratic base. Republicans made inroads with minority voters across the board and tightened their grasp on rural, blue collar workers. While vast swaths of the nation had margins in the double digits for the GOP, Democrats have relied on the same playbook since Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign: run up the count in urban and suburban areas and pray the minority vote comes through.
It wasn’t always this way. In fact, it was as recently as 2008 that Democrats controlled Idaho’s first congressional district and maintained delegation majorities in states like Arkansas and Tennessee, states that are now distinctly red. Leaders like Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Kansas Governor Laura Kelly are proof that Democrats can still win in unorthodox environments. For just over a decade, the Democratic party leader was a moderate from the high plains of South Dakota, a state that president-elect Donald Trump won by 22 points. Former Democratic presidents were able to win rural counties by the boatload —a task that now seems far too ambitious.
So why has this success at the state level failed to translate to national elections? Why have Democrats struggled in recent cycles, ceding ground to a GOP willing to pivot further right? It’s simple: the current Democratic platform focuses too heavily on divisive cultural issues and fails to prioritize the immediate, practical needs of many Americans.
In fact, the modern day party embodies more of a corporate HR department rather than its moderate past by emphasizing splitting procedural norms, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and language policing — all of which has alienated voters who prioritize tangible economic concerns over cultural debates.
As important as it is, most farmers in Iowa don’t believe DEI policy is a pressing issue. Likewise, you’d be hard pressed to find a steel worker in Erie, Pennsylvania who has transgender rights at the top of their wishlist in a candidate. What Democrats and supporters have strayed away from are kitchen-table issues that impact the average American. Kentucky is a state that has voted for Trump by more than 25 points consistently but has elected a Democratic governor in Beshear two times. Beshear has repeatedly advocated for rural development, focusing on healthcare, teachers’ pensions and natural disaster response, thoroughly working with the Republican supermajorities in the legislature in order to cut through heightened partisan rhetoric. We see him sidestepping divisive cultural problems, instead opting to hone in on issues such as rural broadband access and presenting himself as a pragmatic, moderate leader rather than a rigid Democrat.
We see a similar example in Kelly in Kansas working with similar barriers in a deep red state. Yet, Kelly refuses to shy away from working with ideologically different politicians and constituents — a trait we should embody in our daily political discourse. Democrats of the past have consistently won in states believed nowadays to be too far gone.
Historically, Democrats have won in conservative areas when they prioritized economic issues over cultural debates. Former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign brought states like Indiana, Montana, Missouri, and even the Dakotas into play by focusing on broad economic recovery and healthcare reform. It’s a model that demonstrates the power of uniting around issues of shared concern rather than divisive ideological debates.
This isn’t to say that Democrats should abandon progressive issues altogether, but rather that they must shift their focus. It’s hard to win elections when you forget the everyday American and push views that seem detached from daily struggles. Vapid political discourse and adopting new cultural monikers like “Latinx” only further push the electorate away.
True centrism means grounding politics in the real concerns of the people, tackling economic challenges, healthcare reform and job creation without getting bogged down in polarizing debates. There is room for cultural issues, but they shouldn’t dominate the conversation. Moderates know that these issues can be introduced gradually, with respect for varied beliefs across the country. Nowadays, the party’s positions have become one for the highly-educated, ones who can dig deep and perform true analysis and deduce why they should care about niche social issues. By focusing too heavily on social divisiveness, the party has dug itself into a deep hole. We must understand that elections are really hard to win when you forget about the everyday person and adopt progressive views that are neither realistic or appealing to Americans.
The pharmacist in Cape Girardeau, Mo. cares not about how many genders there are but how his city will expand education and invest in public schools for his kids. The jobless factory worker in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho just wants to know how American manufacturing will be brought back to his city and whether or not he’ll get subsidies in order to be retrained.
This centrist approach is what made the Democratic party so successful in years past in hard to win states like Mississippi, Alabama, and West Virginia. We need to meet voters where they are rather than framing them as outliers if they aren’t aligned with every aspect of a progressive agenda. Building a great coalition requires recognizing that not every voter shares the same priorities and that compromising on cultural issues isn’t the same as abandoning values. It has been this same pragmatic and moderate blueprint that we have seen time and time again throughout our history reject partisanship and bring back normalcy to our nation. In 1954, at the height of McCarthyism, Joseph Welch, counsel for the US Army, famously asked Senator Joe McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” His words signaled an end to extremism and McCarthyism and appealed to a shared sense of honor and common ground. Today, extreme Democrats and Republicans could use a similar reminder of decency—not as a moral high ground, but as a call to focus on common concerns and shared goals rather than divisive rhetoric.
Centrism and moderation won’t eliminate extremism overnight, nor will it solve every cultural disagreement in our heterogeneous nation. But it can help us get things done, addressing the issues that most Americans care about and providing real solutions that work for everyone. In the end, moderation and pragmatism are the only ways to build a lasting and fortified Democratic majority, one that serves the diverse needs of a diverse nation in a positive way.
