Rahm Emanuel has a habit of being right about things Democrats do not want to hear. As Bill Clinton‘s senior policy adviser, as Barack Obama‘s chief of staff, as mayor of Chicago, he operated with a bluntness that made him enemies in both parties. So when he sat down on the Reason podcast “The Fifth Column” recently and delivered a withering autopsy of his own party, it was worth taking seriously — even accounting for the fact that he is almost certainly laying groundwork for a 2028 presidential run and has every incentive to position himself as the adult in a room full of children.
Recommended Stories
Because the diagnosis, whatever its source, is correct.
The party, Emanuel argued, “lost the plot.” It traded economic populism for cultural advocacy, chased the faculty lounge while losing the kitchen table, and accomplished the remarkable feat of making Donald Trump, a twice-impeached, felony-convicted candidate who promised tariffs, retribution, and the systematic dismantling of federal institutions, the more credible champion of the American working class.
His explanation begins with what he calls four defining moments of the first quarter of the 21st century: the Iraq War, the financial meltdown, China‘s unchecked rise, and COVID-19. In each case, the well-connected were not held to account while everyone else paid the price. Trump, contrary to what people say, did not create the anger that followed. He capitalized on it. Democrats who treat him as the disease rather than the symptom have built their entire political strategy on a flawed premise, and that is that all ills lead to Trump.
“We have to prove we can fight for America,” Emanuel said, “not just fight Trump.”
The problem is that he may not be the one to carry that fight. Emanuel is a polarizing figure with real baggage and has made many enemies along the way. Skepticism about an Emanuel presidential campaign is not hard to find, even among Democrats who agree with him on substance. But whether he can win is separate from whether he is right. And the history he is drawing on is worth taking seriously.
Democrats have broken extended losing streaks before, and the formula has been remarkably consistent. They capitalized in 1976 by nominating Jimmy Carter, a Southern governor who could speak to voters the national party had alienated after nominating George McGovern in 1972. Then, following three significant GOP presidential victories, the party ended its losing ways entirely in 1992 by nominating Bill Clinton, another Southern governor, whose running mate was a Southern senator. Neither Carter nor Clinton won by moving the party leftward. Both won by anchoring it to something recognizable to people outside the coastal donor class.
The 2008 template is equally instructive and more directly relevant. Barack Obama ran against a war the country was exhausted by, an economy in freefall, and a Republican Party that had spent eight years in power. He won in part because he offered a tone and a message that felt grounded rather than ideological. “Hope and change” was a winning message at a time when people lacked much of the former and wanted the latter.
During his two terms, Obama governed primarily left of center. But on immigration, his administration operated in ways that would be unrecognizable to the progressive wing that now lionizes his legacy. Obama deported more than 3 million people over his two terms, earning the label “deporter in chief” from immigration advocates who were not using the phrase as a compliment. He did it without the performative ICE operations or the chaos that has characterized the Trump administration’s approach, but the enforcement was real and substantial. That is the version of the Democratic Party that wins national elections, and it bears almost no resemblance to the one that ran in 2024.
That was on vivid display at a convention hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in New York, where nearly a dozen Democrats eyeing 2028 gathered to audition before a largely black audience. The proceedings were instructive. Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, received a raucous standing ovation and chants of “Run again!” The crowd thinned noticeably after she left the stage. She told the audience she is “thinking about” another run. Pete Buttigieg, who is trying to reinvent himself from McKinsey-trained technocrat to bearded, diner-frequenting working man, was asked by Sharpton whether he should reserve a table at Sylvia’s restaurant in Harlem as he did during the 2020 campaign and replied: “You save me a seat. I’ll be there.” Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) said he would “be more involved than ever before in 2028.” The field is taking shape, and its center of gravity is not where Emanuel or the general electorate would place it.
Among those who offered something more substantive, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) stood apart. A Democrat who has won three statewide elections in a state Trump carried by 30 points in 2024, Beshear advised fellow Democrats to “talk like a normal human being” and keep the focus on everyday economic issues. He pushed back on calls for impeachment proceedings against Trump, dismissing them as a distraction.
“There aren’t the votes there,” Beshear told reporters. “They ought to be focusing on the terrible approach of this president to the war.” His broader pitch, refined over months of travel to early primary states, is blunt: “The Democratic Party needs to be a common-sense, common-ground, get things done type of party.” He does not carry his margins in Kentucky by talking about pronouns and protest movements. He wins by talking about jobs, healthcare, and infrastructure in language that does not require a progressive glossary. That is a skill set the party badly needs and has consistently failed to reward.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) is the other figure who fits the mold, and his situation illustrates the problem even more starkly. Heading into his 2026 reelection campaign, Shapiro has a job approval rating of 60% in recent polling, with independents strongly behind him and more than a quarter of Republicans viewing him favorably. In a hypothetical 2028 matchup against Vice President JD Vance in Pennsylvania, he leads by double digits. He is, by any conventional measure, exactly what a party coming off a devastating national loss should want: a proven winner in a critical swing state, with crossover appeal and a record of actual executive governance.
The progressive wing has made clear it has other priorities. Shapiro was widely reported to be the leading candidate for former Vice President Kamala Harris‘s 2024 running mate, but was passed over in favor of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN). A progressive social media campaign against him, which dubbed him “Genocide Josh,” made his strong support for Israel a liability with the activist base. The Harris campaign denied that those pressures drove the decision, with a post-election book later citing personal chemistry and the overlap between two former attorneys general with presidential ambitions. Whatever the precise weight of each factor, what is not in dispute is that a sustained campaign was waged against a moderate Democrat in a swing state, and that the party’s activist base treated him as a liability instead of an asset.
The unspoken dynamic underlying all of this is one that everyone knows will become an issue if Harris decides she wants to run again. The progressive wing will resist any effort by Shapiro, Beshear, Pritzker, or any other white male candidate to push her aside. Neither the merits nor electability will have anything to do with it. It will rest almost entirely on the symbolism of white men looking to displace a black woman who was already the nominee and served as vice president. The party that spent years elevating identity as a primary political value has now calcified around it in ways that make genuinely broadening the coalition difficult. It is a preference, held by a vocal portion of the base, for a candidate who checks the right boxes rather than the one with the best chance of winning.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), who did not attend Sharpton’s event, is trying to thread this needle differently, building a national profile through his podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” and positioning himself as a Democrat willing to engage across the aisle. His early guests included the late Charlie Kirk, conservative radio host Michael Savage, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist. In the first episode, Newsom told Kirk that allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports is “deeply unfair,” adding, “I completely agree with you on that.” The cultural repositioning is deliberate and at least partially effective as a media strategy.
The economic record is another matter entirely. California under Newsom is among the least affordable places to live in the United States, with a homelessness crisis visible from San Francisco to Los Angeles and a business climate that has driven companies and residents to Texas and Florida for years. Even his own party has noticed: His approval rating dropped after the podcast launched, and Kentucky’s Beshear, himself a potential Newsom rival, said of the Bannon appearance, “I don’t think we should give [Bannon] oxygen on any platform, ever, anywhere.”
RAHM EMANUEL’S CASE AGAINST HIS OWN PARTY
Beshear knows the history Emanuel is invoking. So does Shapiro. The question is whether a party that currently rewards Harris with standing ovations and Buttigieg with reserved tables at Sylvia’s can hear it.
Emanuel is not the likely answer. But he is asking the right questions, and in a party that has spent the better part of a decade punishing people who ask them, that is something entirely different than what people are used to hearing.
Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) is a writer living in West Virginia.
