I'm on the left, and Democrats have a MAJOR PROBLEM

Good policy isn't enough when the messaging is this bad

Let me say upfront that this is no “why I left the left” declaration. I haven’t gone centrist. I haven’t been red-pilled. I’m not disillusioned with progressive values. I still believe they’re the best path forward. But after months of speaking directly with elected Democrats and their teams, I’m more convinced than ever that the party is in a deep, self-inflicted crisis. Not because their policies are wrong, but because their strategy — if you can call it that — is incoherent, cautious, and often completely disconnected from the moment we’re in.

Let me back up: After Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump, I was invited to the Biden White House in December of 2024, alongside a number of other progressive content creators. We met with Biden staff, as well as President Biden himself, and had the opportunity to speak our minds about what went wrong in the relationship between the White House/Democrats and independent content creators in the 2024 election cycle, while Trump and Republicans successfully made the independent media rounds in an effective and useful way. While the specific conversations were off the record, I said the same things I’ve been saying all along: Democrats seem not to understand the value of independent content creators, aren’t working well with us, and it’s hurting both the progressive media ecosystem and hurting Democrats, too.

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In the months that followed, I saw a change. More Democrats of all levels — Senators, House members, and Governors — were suddenly more eager to engage with us and appear on our shows. Briefly, I even thought that the entire approach was changing, for the better. But not all is well.

Over the last six months, I’ve interviewed dozens of elected Democrats on The David Pakman Show and I’ve walked away from those conversations more concerned than ever. My audience has mostly agreed with my alarm.

To put it simply, the Democratic Party has no coherent strategy and no unified theory of how to win in 2026 and 2028. There is no plan to actually persuade voters who aren’t already with them. They are, at best, improvising. At worst, they’re stumbling into further disaster.

There is much to criticize about Donald Trump, including essentially his entire policy portfolio, but one thing Trump knows well is how to strategically select scapegoats that put him at the center of solving people’s problems. His pitch is emotionally manipulative and built on fantasy, but it’s effective in convincing people that there is some vision. He gives people someone to blame and pretends to be the solution. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, can’t seem to agree on whether they’re even offering a solution at all, or what that solution is.

One of the most alarming patterns I’ve seen in these interviews is how resistant Democratic staffers are to scrutiny. Not Republican attacks — I’m talking about me, a left-wing interviewer, asking standard, good-faith questions, but following up when the answers don’t quite make sense. You’d think I was planting landmines and sandbagging guests, but it’s simple follow-up. Instead of welcoming the chance to explain and defend their positions, many interviews with Democratic elected officials have turned notably tense when I press them to defend their claims.

This isn’t about airing dirty laundry, and I won’t be naming names — what’s the point when it’s such a widespread problem, anyway? But when I’ve pursued lines of questioning about everything from “taxing the rich” with higher income tax rates, which the rich know how to avoid, or housing policy, or messaging, my concerns and attempts to press for more substance are rarely met with eagerness, and are often met with distaste.

The excessive risk aversion and coddling is still happening between electeds and their staff. Aides and communications staff want to know in advance every topic I plan to broach, sometimes even asking for the questions ahead of time (which my team never provides). There is a palpable vibe shift when substantive questions are asked and follow-up takes place, and before I know it, I can tell I’m being perceived as “difficult.”

Here’s the problem: if elected Democrats can’t handle fair but substantive questioning from someone on their general political side, how are they supposed to take on the right-wing media machine? How are they supposed to connect with skeptical voters who aren’t already on MSNBC every night?

Too many Democrats are surrounded by staffers who live in fear of anything unscripted. They want control. But politics is about persuasion. As we learned from President Joe Biden’s prematurely ended 2024 re-election campaign, when the voting public doesn’t have confidence that a candidate can fend for themselves and persuasively make the case for their election, elections rarely go well.

When I ask elected Democrats or their staff a simple, direct question, like “What is the coherent strategy beyond ‘we are better than Trump and Trump is bad’?” I almost never get a clear, compelling answer. Instead, I get a stream of technocratic talking points: statistics about job growth, vague references to “meeting voters where they are,” or worse, I get soft-focus, almost corporate vision statements about “moving forward together” or “investing in the future.” It’s all abstract and lacks any emotional clarity, or any real understanding of how to speak to voters who aren’t already locked in.

I want to be clear in that I’m not saying all hope is lost. I’ve interviewed Democrats who are sharp, principled, and who get it. In fact, at the individual level, just about everyone I’ve interviewed has many good ideas and has their heart in the right place. But the broader party infrastructure? It’s a mess.

Opposing Trump and whoever takes the MAGA mantle in future elections is necessary, but it’s not enough. “We’re not fascists” is not a strategy. It’s the bare minimum, and it’s necessary, but it won’t win elections.

If the Democratic Party wants to survive, let alone win, it needs to start doing the actual work of connecting with real people, in real language, with real urgency.

The broader danger here isn’t just that Democrats might lose. It’s that they don’t seem to understand why they might lose. If they can’t recognize the disconnect between their message and the reality voters are living in, the next loss won’t just be a setback, it’ll be an indictment of their refusal to change.

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