Yesterday's DNC Meeting Proves Democrats Still Don't Get It

Democrats aren’t setting the stage for a movement. They’re letting Trump set the terms of the debate — again.

Yesterday, DNC chair Ken Martin stood before the party faithful this week and declared: "In this big tent party of ours, we are unified towards a single goal, to stop Donald Trump and put this country back on track."

First off, that's two goals, not one. But more importantly, buried in that statement is the assumption that's killing the Democratic Party: that America was "on track" before Trump arrived. That misreading of reality explains why Democrats keep losing elections they should be winning and bleeding voters they should keeping.

According to the BLS, as a group, the bottom 80% of American households spend 105% of their income on basic necessities—housing, healthcare, education, transportation, childcare, food. Not luxuries. Not entertainment. Just staying alive. That missing 5% gets made up with credit cards, payday loans, or going without. This is the "track" Democrats want to get back to?

The country hasn't been on track for decades. People are drowning in debt, rationing insulin, watching their communities crumble. Trump didn't create these conditions—he exploited them. Democrats helped create them, then acted shocked when voters rejected the system.

Trump won because he acknowledged this reality. He told voters the system was rigged, their lives were getting harder, and someone was to blame. His solutions were cruel and wrong, but at least he admitted there was a problem. Democrats keep insisting everything was fine until Trump came along. Voters know better.

Martin went on to say Democrats need to "stop bringing a pencil to a knife fight" and start bringing bazookas. He's right about needing bigger weapons, but misunderstands the battlefield entirely. Americans want their failing systems torn down and rebuilt. Trump brought a bazooka promising destruction. Democrats keep defending the very system that's crushing people, offering better management of what we already have rather than something new and better. One side promises to destroy what's broken, the other to preserve it. Voters keep begging for massive change.

The DNC strategy seems to boil down to: Stop Trump, then figure out what comes next. But movements aren’t built that way. They require vision. What you are for not just against. Even during World War II, we didn't just fight against fascism—we fought for democracy, for Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, for a vision of the world we wanted to build. The Contract for America didn't just say "Stop Clinton." The Tea Party didn't just oppose Obama. Believe it or not, MAGA isn't just about hating Democrats.

These movements offered a vision of what they wanted to create. Democrats offer nothing except a return to the "normal" that drove people to Trump in the first place.

Look at immigration. When Trump actually implements his harsh deportation agenda, support for immigration hits record highs—79% now say it's good for America. Republican support jumped from 39% to 64% in a single year. People recoil from cruelty when offered no alternative vision. But imagine if Democrats articulated how immigration builds prosperity, with actual plans for integration and growth. Instead they just benefit from Trump's overreach without building anything lasting.

The DNC meeting again proved the point. Martin talks about bringing a bazooka to a knife fight, but when 92% of Democrats and 77% of independents want action on Gaza—the most unified Americans have ever been on any foreign policy issue—he forms a task force. A task force! On genocide. Where's the bazooka when voters across the spectrum are screaming in near-unanimity? If you can't show leadership when 92% of your party and 77% of independents agree, when exactly do the bazookas come out? He brought a committee to a genocide.

For ten years, I've watched the progressive movement build everything it needs to transform the party—except the will to use it. Bernie Sanders polls at 69% approval, controls hundreds of millions in fundraising, yet won't endorse Saikat Chakrabarti against Pelosi. AOC commands massive audiences but won't primary the Democrats blocking progress. When asked how to get corporate Democrats out, Bernie tells supporters: "You run. You organize." He abdicated leadership, pushing responsibility onto individuals while sitting on the resources that could make change happen.

Democrats keep waiting for the next presidential primary to define the party's direction. But modern party transformations happen in midterms: Gingrich's Contract for America in 1994, the Tea Party in 2010, Trump's takeover before winning anything. These movements defined the party first, then nominated presidents to represent it. By 2028, it'll be too late. The battle for the party's soul happens in 2026.

The insurgents exist, but they're running isolated campaigns without coordinated support:

Saikat Chakrabarti taking on Nancy Pelosi in California. Built a tech fortune, co-founded Justice Democrats, worked as AOC's chief of staff. Now he's running to replace the queen of insider trading.

Graham Planter running against Susan Collins in Maine. The most useless "moderate" in America—votes with Democrats when it doesn't matter, Republicans when it does.

Abdul El-Sayed competing for Senate in Michigan. Former health department director who actually understands how to fix healthcare.

These aren't protest candidates. They understand systems and how to fix them. But they're running alone, underfunded, without the backing of the infrastructure that claims to want change. Where are the ads funded by Bernie's email list and AOC's record breaking fundraising machine? Where's the coordinated message that could unite these campaigns into a movement?

The solutions already poll with massive majorities: public option healthcare, paid family leave, infrastructure investment, higher minimum wages. But Democrats won't connect these popular policies into a governing vision because that would require admitting the current system has failed.

Remember that 105% figure? When basic survival costs more than most Americans earn, the system needs rebuilding from the foundation up. We don't need socialism. We need competition—public competition that forces private monopolies to serve people. When America faces nursing and physician shortages, train them ourselves instead of pouring billions into a system that refuses to produce them. When private developers won't build affordable housing, create public development corporations. When utilities gouge customers, establish municipal alternatives. Big Pharma, Big Banks, Big Everything only have us by the throat because we've forgotten government can build and compete. We've done it before—TVA, highways, NASA. We just forgot we could.

MAGA is a movement transforming America. Democrats aren't countering with a different transformative movement. They're trying to restore the system that created the conditions for Trump's rise. Democrats at the DNC talked about unity, but unity around what? Not Trump? That's not a vision. That's not a movement. That's a holding action while democracy crumbles.

Either current progressive leaders stop giving speeches and start backing primary challengers, or the movement builds around candidates who will. The infrastructure exists—money, volunteers, public support. Many of the candidates are already running. The policies are already popular. What's missing is leadership willing to fight the Democratic establishment with the same ferocity they claim to oppose Republicans.

When 80% of Americans need more money than they make just to survive, "getting back on track" sounds more like a threat than hope. The track we were on leads nowhere good. Democrats who defend a system that's failing 80% of Americans will keep losing to anyone who promises to tear it down and start over. The tragedy is we already have everything they need to win save the courage to use it.

Corbin