It’s easy to forget now, but Joe Biden took office with the intention of being FDR for the 21st century. His efforts to overthrow the dollar store economy and the McConnell Project were defeated by inflation, the lack of votes in the Senate, and an increasingly conservative judiciary. As a result, neither he nor Harris could run convincingly as a change candidate, and his record, rightly or not, did not impress the American people. The Trump victory was the inevitable result.
Trump is trying to destroy the McConnell Project from a completely different angle. That leaves the Democrats with a difficult choice in the event we have fair elections in 2028. Should they attempt to assemble the widest possible coalition–including business interests who hate the tariffs–in order to bring back the status quo ante, including McConnell’s limitations on legislation and the use of executive power? Or should they use the opening created by Trump to reach for more fundamental change? This would mean completely eliminating the filibuster and ignoring unfavorable rulings from the Supreme Court.
We have a long way to go between now and then, but that will be the fundamental issue during the primaries.