What the Democratic Party should do

I’m just an interested amateur, but I said this in an exchange with some people with rather different politics who found it clarifying, so it seems worth capturing. Assuming that we have elections in 2026 and 2028, the Democrats should …

1. … make a persuasively sharp break from their current voice, to get inattentive voters to engage and re-evaluate them. Figures like Sanders, AOC, Walz, and Fetterman are models here, not for their policy agendas but for not sounding like Politicians.
2. … articulate a clear, coherent vision of the better America they want to build, not a preservation or restoration of the status quo ante Trump.
3. … fight hard for that vision, both practically and theatrically. Showing up hard is more important than tactical victory, as conservatives have demonstrated for decades.

What vision?

I believe that mainstream Dems underestimate Americans’ appetite for big change; Trump’s success demonstrates that hunger.

I believe that mainstream Dems underestimate the appeal of much of the wild-eyed leftist stuff I would include in the vision, if they presented it properly.

I believe that if we get to build a better America, we should swing for the fences to make it a lot better.

But.

Having the break-envision-fight formula displace the vague, tepid practices of the Democratic Party is more important than almost any policy particulars.