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By Dan Perry
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At first glance, there is something reassuring about the relentless cycle of political upheaval in America. Voters become dissatisfied with their leaders, throw the bums out, and give the other party a chance. Isn't that how democracy is supposed to work? Politicians are held accountable. But look a little closer, and the picture is considerably less encouraging.
What we are witnessing is not so much a healthy cycle of democratic accountability as an increasingly destructive cycle of chronic dissatisfaction. Americans were unhappy in 2020. They were not delighted in 2022 and downright livid in 2024, when they returned Donald Trump to the White House. They’re enraged today, thus the GOP shellacking, and there is every reason to believe they will be unhappy again in 2028 and 2030 too.
The problem is not that voters don't know what they want. On a surprising range of issues, they have been telling politicians what they want for years. They want health care that doesn't bankrupt them. They want the extraordinarily wealthy to pay their fair share. They want to see the end of mass killings. They want less corruption and less money in politics. They want politicians who cannot enrich themselves through public office. They want government services that actually work. They want to protect the border. And they want a political system that responds to their concerns.
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These are not obscure demands confined to the ideological fringes. Many enjoy substantial support across party lines. Yet, year after year, election after election, Washington fails to deliver. This has created a seemingly unbreakable cycle of grievance in politics that the Democrats could all too easily revert to.
Why? Part of the answer lies in the peculiar logic of contemporary American politics. Elections are so closely contested, and the electorate so polarized, that politicians have become obsessed with winning over the handful of voters who might tip the balance. The result is endless triangulation: avoiding bold proposals, softening commitments, and retreating from policies that might alienate some elusive swing voter.
Democrats, in particular, have repeatedly found themselves in this trap. Even when a policy enjoys considerable public support, Republican opposition can be enough to make Democratic leaders hesitate. Rather than championing the policy and making the case for it, they worry about appearing too radical, too partisan, or too far to the left. They try to attract Republican voters by avoiding positions that Republicans oppose, even when many ordinary Americans support those positions. Even when a clear majority does.
And the Republicans have their own reasons for resisting reforms that might be popular nationally but threaten powerful—and generous—constituencies within their coalition.
Of course, not every popular proposal is necessarily good policy, and public opinion is often more complicated than a single polling number suggests. But it is striking how many broadly supported reforms remain unimplemented, not because the country has decisively rejected them, but because the political system seems incapable of acting. Perhaps this election offers an opportunity to change that.
The Democrats have just won a sweeping victory. They should not mistake it for an unconditional endorsement of everything their party stands for—and, very definitely, they should not shower the nation with the kind of wokery that, tragically, help revive Trump two years ago. Much of the result reflects anger at Trump and the Republicans. But neither should they respond with the familiar timidity of a party terrified of offending anyone.
A decisive electoral victory ought to create room for political leadership. It ought to allow Democrats to start making a sustained case for policies that substantial majorities of Americans already support.
This presents a particular challenge with progressive activists and Democratic Socialists of America gaining renewed prominence. Their concerns about inequality and concentrated economic power overlap with some widely shared public grievances. But Democrats must distinguish between economic reforms capable of commanding broad support and cultural positions that many voters regard as extreme, alienating, and sometimes utterly absurd.
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The question, then, is whether Democrats can use this moment to break the cycle rather than merely benefit from it. And there is a substantial agenda of popular, practical reforms with which they could begin.
Consider health care. The United States spends vastly more on health care than other wealthy countries, yet millions of Americans remain uninsured or inadequately insured, and medical bills can still ruin families. Democrats should begin a serious national conversation about moving toward Medicare for All. That does not mean pretending that such a transformation can happen overnight, or that the details are simple. It means establishing universal, affordable health care as a national objective and explaining how the country might get there.
Or consider taxation. Democrats should make an unambiguous commitment to raising taxes on the superrich, closing loopholes and ensuring that extraordinary wealth carries corresponding obligations. At the same time, they should promise convincingly not to raise taxes on the middle class, including the upper middle class, much of which lives in unaffordable coastal cities.
Housing, childcare, groceries, utilities and other essentials have become crushing burdens for millions. Democrats need a comprehensive affordability initiative that goes beyond slogans and tackles the structural causes of high costs, including insufficient housing supply, inadequate competition and the growing concentration of economic power.
There are so many issues on which the Democrats could instigate major, meaningful reforms that would help break the cycle of voter grievance: tackling political corruption and campaign finance; ending gerrymandering and the Senate filibuster; reforming the tax system.
It is absolutely critical that Democrats remember to stick to policies that are popular, and there are plenty of them, while resisting every temptation to wander into the culture wars over woke politics. Those battles are an extraordinary gift to Republicans, allowing them to distract from their own record and mobilize voters around issues that are peripheral to most Americans’ daily concerns.
Democrats should also be clear-eyed about what their recent electoral gains actually represent: a backlash against Trump, not some sweeping endorsement of the party itself, and certainly not a mandate for its far-left wing. The party is not broadly popular, and it would be a serious mistake to interpret opposition to Trump as an embrace of the progressive left.
It won’t be easy. Some of the changes would require constitutional amendments, others substantial legislation, and all would encounter fierce resistance. But they would be broadly popular—especially if paired up with the biggest reform of all: never lie, ever. Trump is the champion by far, yes, but Dems have been guilty too. Joe Biden was not OK. China does not pay the tariffs. It was not a bigger crowd. The culture of mendacity must go.
Such an approach would send Americans the astonishing message that the country can be fixed. It would chip away at the cynicism that rots political life and ultimately break the cycle of grievance-based defenestration.
Dan Perry is the former London-based Europe-Africa Editor and Cairo-based Middle East Editor of The Associated Press, chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem and the author of two books.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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