The Democrats’ woke problem

Though conventional wisdom currently favors Democrats in the fall, I don’t put much stock in it, as yet. Most pundits today expect Democrats to take the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives from Republicans come November. With various vacancies from deaths and resignations, Speaker Mike Johnson sits on a one-vote margin in the House of Representatives, which could easily evaporate with the slightest movement in a few key swing seats. Senate GOP leader John Thune has a more comfortable 53-47 majority, with both seats to defend (especially Maine and North Carolina) and seats where he can play offense (particularly Georgia and Michigan).

In politics, five months is a very long time, but that’s especially so in our unusually dynamic political environment. The president is in an active conflict with Iran, and the resulting disruption in energy markets (especially the Strait of Hormuz) has driven gas prices higher. If the United States concludes that conflict successfully and drivers get relief at the pump, that could change the mood of many voters. Also, America will celebrate its 250th birthday in July, and President Trump’s team has planned a tremendous patriotic party across the country that will highlight our nation’s past and the promise of her future. If the America 250 events go off as planned, they may help Republicans by renewing an appreciation for classic conservative virtues that defined our founding era.

While the Republicans’ problems are fixable and largely tied to current events, the Democratic Party faces deep problems that go to the foundations of its philosophy. And you don’t need to take my word for it—former Chicago Mayor, Obama chief of staff, and Democratic congressional campaign committee chairman Rahm Emanuel recognized as much recently.

In a podcast interview, Emanuel said: “We lost the plot. We as Democrats nationally, from ‘Latinx,’ to defunding the police, to ‘Police organizations are all racist,’ to bringing a set of cultural wars to our schools. We are on the losing side of those cultural wars. Full stop.” He continued with a rhetorical question: “You are worried about bathroom access and locker room access, why don’t you focus on classroom excellence? You have 50% of our kids not reading at grade level.”

Emanuel particularly highlighted the party’s problem defending transgender athletes in women’s sports: “The reason we are champions in women’s sports in the Olympics in soccer, hockey, is Title IX. Why would you undercut the premise of Title IX with the ability of trans men playing in women sports? To me, it’s insane.”

His comments came on the heels of those from another potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, California Gov. Gavin Newsom. In February, the Golden State governor made headlines saying Democrats need to figure out how to be “culturally normal.” While on his book tour, Newsom told CNN’s Dana Bash: “the Democratic Party needs to be, dare I say, more culturally normal. I believe that—less prone to spending a disproportionate amount of time on pronouns, identity, politics, more focused on tabletop issues, things that really matter, the stacking of stress in terms of electricity bills and childcare costs and healthcare and obviously housing costs.” At the same time, Newsom has spent much of his time in office leading from the left.

In saying this, Emanuel and Newsom echo one of the grand old men of the Democratic Party, Bill Clinton’s ragin’ cajun political guru James Carville. In November 2025, he urged Democrats to embrace economic issues and ditch their woke ideology: “The era of performative woke politics from 2020 to 2024 has left a lasting stain on our brand, particularly with rural voters and male voters. The term ‘Latinx’ was despised even by many Latino people. Calling folks ‘BIPOC’ should have never been a thing. ‘Defund the police’ was a terrible idea. Polling shows that nearly 70% of Americans think the Democratic Party is ‘out of touch’ and that it is more interested in social issues than economic ones.”

These are deep, existential issues for the Democratic Party. Their intellectual and activist base are hard-core committed to these topics. Their key power-player institutions, like the public-sector unions, are thoroughly committed on this stuff. Taking back the House in November may paper over the problems, but the 2028 presidential primary will bring them back to the fore. I doubt Democrats are ready to ditch wokeism—it is too deeply embedded in the superstructure of their party, as seen by the pushback against Newsome when he made a suggestion that the Democrats need to move away from unpopular leftist positions. Time will tell, and the midterm elections are coming quickly. Beyond that, all eyes are on 2028.