Looking Beyond the 2026 Midterms: Slogans Are Not a Strategy

The current buzzword is affordability. “‘Affordability’ mantra helps Democrats turn tide” the New York Times headlined. “Democrats used ‘affordability’ to harness worries about the cost of living and sweep to victory in this November’s [2025] election. And once that happened, references to ‘affordability’ as a stand-alone term skyrocketed,” Lisa Lerer and Jonah Smith wrote on December 20, 2025. Beyond the 2026 midterms, what about long-term planning? If Democrats dominate the 2026 midterms, are they ready to present a sustainable alternative to MAGA besides the slogan affordability? After all, long-term planning is exactly what the Right constructed, and that’s exactly why we are where we are today.

The Right succeeded in building a durable political project over decades. It built an entire ecosystem through courts, think tanks, media, state legislatures, and donor networks. MAGA has deep roots from the John Birch Society (1958) to the Tea Party (2009), from the Heritage Foundation (1973) to the Federalist Society (1982). There was an agenda, there was a strategy, there were institutions deliberately created to advance a coherent ideology.

By contrast, the Left’s major programs have emerged as reactions to crises rather than building enduring strategies. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was a response to the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Port Huron Statement and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) emerged in 1962 amid the turmoil of the Vietnam War and civil rights movement. (SDS’s last national convention was in 1969.) Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society (1964) followed in the wake of the civil rights protests.

What significant progressive agenda has come forth since? What institutions have been created to sustain it? The Institute for Policy Studies (1973)? The Center for American Progress (2003)? In the last decades, Republicans and conservatives have created a coherent, political machine with a unified agenda, while Democrats and progressives have struggled to find any coherence in ideas and institutions.

This asymmetry raises questions about political capacity and intent. Why is the Left – and the Democratic Party – incapable of developing a long-term strategy similar to the Right? Where is a progressive answer to the Heritage’s “Project 2025” agenda? Several possibilities exist.

One obvious answer is that the Democratic Party is a party of coalition. The big tent is inclusive from progressives – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani – to moderate descendants of Henry “Scoop” Jackson, such as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Coalition politics does not fully explain the contrast. Doesn’t the Republican Party also have a big tent? From Rockefeller Republicans such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, the George Bushes and the Romneys all the way to the extreme right of the party that Trump is leading and dominating, the spectrum exists. Yet, while the coalition Democrats continue to be divided with no clear agenda or strategy, the Republicans have coalesced around Trump. Murkowski and Collins are outliers. For the moment, the Republican big tent has effectively folded, with very few exceptions. (Is the MAGA “traitor” Marjorie Taylor Greene’s defection from MAGA a sign of the tent unfolding?)

Is discipline the key difference between the two parties? Are the Republicans more disciplined than Democrats? The consequence of discipline – or lack of it – are most visible in moments that shape politics for generations such as with Supreme Court appointments. The case of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an outstanding example. The beloved Supreme Court Justice was 75 to 83 years old during Barack Obama’s presidency. She could have resigned to allow Obama to appoint a younger liberal Justice. She didn’t, allowing Trump to appoint conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the bench.

Individual progressives can have discipline. The great Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said he would not resign as long as Richard Nixon was president. Despite declining health issues, including multiple heart attacks, cancer and hypertension, he held on. Keeping his promise, Douglas retired from the Supreme Court in 1975 exactly one year, three months and three days after Nixon resigned.

Douglas had influence through liberal jurisprudence, defense of civil liberties and environmental advocacy over his 36 years on the Court. But little remains of his advocacy. In contrast, Justice Antonin Scalia and today’s Originalists have exerted larger influence through a coherent, structured, disciplined judicial philosophy creating a long-term impact on the Supreme Court and American law. Douglas was an outstanding, disciplined individual; Scalia combined discipline and ideology with an institutional strategy.

Is democracy another reason for the Democrats failure? The Democrats emphasis on inclusiveness is truly democratic, but it also makes it harder for them to act with strategic, institutional discipline. Historically, FDR was certainly able to promote a clear agenda; he had a program, although the Supreme Court did not always follow. Lyndon Johnson also had a program. He was able to get his Great Society legislation passed because of his political savvy, personal persuasion, and a Democratic majority in Congress.

But where is the New Deal today? Where is the Great Society? With some exceptions, neither Roosevelt nor Johnson, with all their political skills and anti-democratic maneuvering, were able to create sustainable projects able to withstand Trump’s/MAGA’s assaults. And whatever exceptions remain are being attacked and eroded.

“Our message has to be focused on the questions that are closest to the hearts of the voters,” Pete Buttigieg said in the Times article. “What you’re seeing with successful candidates on the Democratic side in these races is whatever their exact prescription is, they have been very, very focused on costs of living.”

Too focused? Too narrow? Progressives and the Democratic Party face a clear challenge beyond the 2026 midterms: how to match the Right’s long-term discipline without losing the inclusiveness that defines a coalition. Progressives have plenty of ideas and initiatives, but without a coherent strategy of ideas and enduring institutions they risk reacting instead of leading. The Democratic Party may have a landslide victory in 2026, but affordability as a slogan and anti-Trump denunciations will not be enough in the long-term.

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