Between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, the Democrats lost approximately 13 million voters. Donald Trump, however, performed nearly the same in both elections. That, along with Trump's initial victory in 2016, was a bitter, troubling development for the Dems. One might think it would prompt some new ideas, but gazing inwards critically isn't the Democrat way. When they examine themselves, they see only their own goodness.
But if the Democrats, who’re fixated on being on the “right side of history,” ever figure out the obvious—that they're supposed to learn from their mistakes—there are plenty of historical lessons. A good place to start would be to study Palmiro Togliatti, who led the Italian Communist Party for nearly 40 years, from 1927 until his death. During World War II, while in exile in the Soviet Union, Togliatti broadcast messages of resistance to Italy in which he tried to appeal to the fascist rank and file in an attempt to convert them into allies in the fight against fascism.
Think back to Trump's first victory. In the aftermath, can anyone remember the party’s top leaders trying to convert even one Trump voter? No, because the deplorables are unsalvageable. After Hillary Clinton lost, all we heard about was FBI Director James Comey's email investigation, unsubstantiated “Russiagate” conspiracy theories, voter suppression, and biased media coverage, as if the MSM isn't a Democratic Party mouthpiece. As the Democrats believed they were fighting what they call “fascism” after their loss, it's odd that they didn't put much effort into devising an anti-fascism strategy like Togliatti did.
After fleeing Mussolini for Moscow, Togliatti gave a series of lectures in the 1930s on the rise of fascism. He started these talks with the message that the biggest task at that point was to figure out what the anti-fascists had done wrong. What had caused Italian voters to flock to Mussolini instead of the Communist Party? Togliatti’s Left saw their failure as being on themselves. The Democratic Party blamed their losing battle against “fascism” on the voters.
When Togliatti returned to Italy in 1944, the Italian Communist Party looked like a weakling burdened with the stigma of Soviet totalitarianism. Yet within a few years, Togliatti transformed his party into a force in Western Europe. But not via insurrection or ideological fanaticism. He used flexibility, moderation, and an understanding of democratic psychology that's lost on the clueless Democrats, who are more interested in calling MAGA people racists than delving into their motivations.
Togliatti understood that political comebacks are often cultural before electoral. His goal was to make communists seem normal, patriotic, and woven into the national fabric—the entire national fabric, not just the east and west coasts. The Democrats followed no such plan either after their 2016 loss or their 2020 win. They chose to portray the opposition as morally illegitimate and dangerous to the American way.
Joe Biden repeatedly called Trump an “existential threat.” Adam Schiff referred to Trump's “dictator playbook.” Elizabeth Warren said that Trump was making the U.S. look like a fascist state.
Instead of going back to bread and butter issues after their first loss to Trump, the Democrats remained in high dudgeon while clinging to woke fringe issues like open borders, defunding the police, and race-exclusive business loan programs. They were catering to their hard-Left base, while Togliatti understood the need to expand his party’s coalition. At this point, given the mindset of the Democratic Party, their only option for expanding their coalition is to find a new identity group to appeal to. If there is one, it’ll have a tiny fraction of the voting power of the white working class they’ve already renounced as gun-toting, Jesus-loving white nationalists.
In contrast, Togliatti reached beyond the industrial working class to include peasants, artisans, sharecroppers and small merchants. It was as if his top priority was increasing the Communist Party’s power and influence rather than straining to appear virtuous by repeating the DEI-based nostrums that’ve turned off more potential Democratic voters than they've turned on.
Togliatti succeeded in transforming his party from a marginalized sect into a massive, organized force that sought participation in all important aspects of Italian society. As the Democratic Party is an informal coalition of diverse interests, they struggle to find a unifying, research-based program.
It's ironic that the lesson Togliatti took from one of the bloodiest ideological conflicts in modern European history was the need for coexistence. The modern Democratic Party has experienced no comparable trauma, yet it operates on the assumption that coexistence is off the table. This isn't to say the GOP’s any less polarizing, but the topic at hand is the psychology of defeat as it pertains to the Democrats, who are locked into a permanent state of moral emergency that limits their options.
One losing aspect of the Democrats’ psychology of defeat is the misplaced belief that to accept any responsibility for their two losses to Trump could be construed as an endorsement of the MAGA agenda. This implies an overemphasis on their own image at the expense of winning elections. Right now, one has to wonder just how much value that party puts on electoral victories. It appears that moral victories are what they're really after. They take the losses as vindications of their conviction that the working class is just a bunch of unreformable bigots rather than a failure on their part to reach voters within their grasp.
The Democrats have acquired the dismal mentality that they're way ahead of the masses, so it's the masses who have to catch up with them. When losing means “winning,” why would they ever think it might be wise to entertain the possibility that they need to change their program?