Trump’s ideological flexibility and personality-based politics have allowed him to assemble a group that doesn’t agree on anything except loving Trump and hating Democrats, and . .                                      – David A. Graham in The Atlantic

I noticed this phenomenon in 2024. I do have a few – very few – friends and relatives who voted for Trump, and it’s bizarre how various their impulses. Even contradictory. One identifies as a biker, as in motorcycle clubs. Another is focused on the pro-life issue. Another, an extreme lefty, is not just pro-Palestine but virulently anti-American on foreign policy. I love these guys, I do.

It’s the “hating Democrats” part that is the big problem for America right now, even if, as Graham’s focus on MAGA concludes, “. . . that group is already starting to splinter, in part due to criticism of his handling of the war.” I don’t think most Trump voters would call themselves MAGA. But they instinctively dislike the Democratic Party and its “liberal” ways.

Viewed from abroad, where American politics is seen as a weird and dangerous puzzle, I am encouraged by what I see at the grass roots for the Democrats. Local and state Democratic and liberal organizations have been recruiting good candidates everywhere, even in many of the most conservative counties throughout Georgia. If they lose in the rural South this time, at least they show that local Democrats can talk sense, raise money, go to church, work, and be good neighbors. Liberal voters are rallying everywhere, organizing peaceful (and joyful) protests that get bigger all the time, making music, and getting out the vote. Finally!

But at the top, and in Congress, I see a Democratic Party that can’t figure out what to do about not being liked by normal people who vote Republican. It’s a vibe thing.

Ok, this is just my opinion. I don’t think the problem is that national Democratic leadership is too moderate – or too Progressive. Too lock-step with its Leadership, or too fractured. Those are contradictions that I would report if I were doing political reporting today, because that’s politics.

But the problem is deeper, like a Greek tragedy, based on protagonists who are virtuous but fall from pride – hubris – and Fate. It’s the Joe Biden problem all over again.

Biden accomplished a lot in his first two years as President. That could have been a good start to long-needed work on our fossil-fuel addiction, the struggles of working families, shabby public infrastructure, our physical and mental health. If only he had kept his promise to step aside in time for Democratic hopefuls to make their case in the most lively Primary ever from mid-2023 on.

But pride, or something like it, extended his stay way too long. We could see it coming, like a truck wobbling toward us down the road in the wrong lane. Tragedy. Trump Redux.

There’s a lot in the Democrats’ favor now, at the ground level. But at the national level, the Democratic Party and its Congressional leaders seem to be hoping that these favorable winds will be enough to keep them in power.

Step aside, please. Or better yet, along with being Not-Trump, show us a plan of change, a dramatic promise as big as Newt Gringrich’s Contract for America in 1994. Say what you’ll do to really help. Hear what we say we need right now, putting “Affordability” into clear proposals.

But also, promise restraints on yourself, as Gingrich’s “Contract” promised (but never fulfilled). Say how you’ll curb corruption not only on Trump (that’s easy), but also on yourself. How about limiting how much you, as congresspeople, can invest in stocks about which you have inside information? Or how much campaign financing you can enjoy, and from whom?

Democrats have a legitimate worry about gerrymandering that favors Republicans in the House. But Trump can’t gerrymander on the Senate side. A good Democratic senator like Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a new young type of Democrat, needs the support of a national party that doesn’t sound so old and stuck in the politics of identity groups.

And don’t worry too much about losing the Democratic gerrymandering in Virginia that was supported by voters, then thrown out by a partisan bloc on the Virginia Supreme Court. Voters might be angry enough at partisan judges – judicial activism! – to swing Virginia further to the Democrats with the congressional districts that remain.

When I get back to the United States, I plan to offer my help to campaign for a fellow journalist, Beth Macy, who is running as a Democrat against the most entrenched Republican congressman in Virginia, Ben Cline. Macy would’ve been sidelined by the proposed Democratic counter-gerrymandering.

Macy knows the real problems Americans face because she’s reported on them as a sensitive, fair-minded journalist. Her books tell the story. Factory Man explains the problem of economic globalization. Dopesick explains the Big Pharma rise, and hopeful therapies, of opioid addiction. And her most recent, Paper Girl, is a powerful memoir of her impoverished childhood in small-town Ohio. It’s like a liberal feminist version of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, but honest, and a much better read.

The New York Times’ news story on Virginia Democrats’ despair over the state court that trashed their re-districting victory added this, from Beth Macy’s perspective.

Ms. Macy, who is now running in a deep-red district Mr. Trump carried by 25 points, is not short on optimism. She predicted the backlash to Republican policies in Washington could lead to Virginia Democrats sweeping out G.O.P. incumbents across the state and perhaps reach the same end Democrats had hoped for with their maps.

“We have never been to where we are in this country,” she said. “It’s a national emergency.”