Peggy Noonan: What Democrats Ought to Do

(WSJ graphic)

WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan starts with the pandemic, segues to economics, and finishes (where else?) with politics. She imagines what an idealized Democratic politician would say (in other columns she role-plays Republicans):

in what really would have been the most consequential political statement of 2021—did anybody stand up and say,

“My friends, big ambition is admirable but we don’t have the margins. We don’t have FDR’s House and Senate, our control is razor thin. The path for us is easy does it, day by day, smaller bills and plenty of outreach to Republicans, whose increasingly populist base doesn’t mind spending as long as it doesn’t seem insane.

The progressives won’t like it, the Squad will hate it, but we can use them as a foil, as a useful illustration of what we’re not. We’ll use their criticism to underscore our centrism. We don’t need them. All we need to be popular is

a) not to be Donald Trump,

b) to provide steady leadership that delivers modest but regular improvements, and

c) to do this in a way that leaves people saying, ‘My God, someone made Washington work again.’ That’s the path.”

Did anyone inside say that?

Is there still time to change tack?

Peggy Noonan is asking if President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, or any grey eminences of the Democratic Party will admit their mistakes, moderate their rhetoric and policies, and possibly avoid losses in the mid-term elections. Such an admission would require strength of character, and based on what we have seen so far, I would not bet on a 2022 outcome different from what the prognosticators have stated.

Character is destiny.