By Donnie Johnston, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
I have said this before, but it bears repeating, especially now that time is slipping away.
Democrats are unprepared. As happened two years ago, they are heading into the 2028 presidential election with no candidate and no plan.
This country is in a mess, and Democrats have only themselves to blame for the fact that Donald Trump is tearing America apart.
The American people did not want Trump in 2024, but the Democrats were unorganized and had not cultivated a strong candidate. Trump seemed the better of two bad options.
Now the Democrats seem to be intent on allowing the same thing to happen in 2028, handing the Republicans four more years to laugh at the Constitution and thumb their noses at the rule of law.
Let’s go back to 2024. Although Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee, no one—not even high-ranking members of his own party—believed that he was physically capable of guiding this country for four more years.
The man was frail, and age and infirmities were catching up with him in a big way. But Democrats went by the old adage that the incumbent makes the strongest candidate and gave Biden the nomination. After the first presidential debate, however, it became obvious that he—and the—were in big trouble.
So, in mid-stream, they convinced Biden to drop out of the race and to endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, whose credentials were suspect and her experience lacking.
Donald Trump, who already had a strong base, ate her alive, just as he would have devoured Biden. It quickly became not a question of whether he would win, but how big the margin of victory would be.
In the first place, Harris was a woman. This country has never had a woman president, and in a nation where some evangelical Christians believe a woman has neither the credentials nor the God-given right to even teach Sunday School, Harris was behind the eight-ball from the beginning.
But it goes even deeper than that. In 2020, Biden assured Americans that he would find the most qualified “woman” to serve as his vice-president. Not the most qualified candidate, mind you, but the most qualified woman.
That turned off many voters, and they still held it against Biden—and Harris—in 2024.
What the Democrats never understood is that people must get used to change. If it is forced on them, they resent it. It is like law and order. You must talk yourself into the idea before you accept it.
In 2024, Americans did not have time to digest the idea that a woman might be elected president. The notion was thrust on them too suddenly.
Barack Obama became this country’s first Black president in 2008 primarily because the Democratic Party pushed his background and his credibility for months before his nomination. Americans had time to digest the possibility that a Black man might lead the country. They had time to talk themselves into the idea.
The Democrats need to get moving. It is difficult to get an unknown elected to the highest office in the land. The party must cultivate a candidate, and they must start long before the election year.
We are a little more than two years away from the 2028 presidential election, and the National Democratic Party has no candidate on the radar, no one with a prominent name or a storied career, someone who can bring instant credibility to the campaign.
To make matters worse, Democrats are splintered into a dozen different factions. They have nothing to unite around except their dislike for Trump. That may not be enough.
Did the Democrats learn nothing from 2024? Don’t they understand that preparation is everything?
Hate is not a campaign strategy. You need substance, unification, and a qualified candidate to carry the message.
Maybe a strong candidate will emerge in this year’s mid-term elections. If not, the Democratic Party—and maybe America—is doomed.
Ya gotta have a plan, folks, and a candidate!
And organization!
I agree with your larger point about the Democratic Party being unprepared, but I disagree with some of your assessment of Barack Obama and 2008.
Obama did not win simply because Democrats gave Americans enough time to “get used to” the idea of a Black president. I was an adult watching that election unfold, and his candidacy was far more complicated than that. He built an extraordinary coalition, generated enthusiasm, organized effectively, and gave people something they believed they were voting for. Reducing his success to Americans having enough time to digest a Black candidate misses an important part of what actually made his campaign work.
Where I think you are absolutely onto something is preparation.
Republicans entered this administration with Project 2025—a detailed governing agenda developed well before Election Day. People can agree or disagree with that agenda, but it was a plan. Democrats seemed to enter the same period without even the equivalent of cobbled-together notes explaining what they intended to do differently for ordinary Americans.
And I think that is still the problem.
Being against Donald Trump is not a governing philosophy. Telling voters how dangerous the other side is cannot substitute indefinitely for telling people what you are going to do about housing, healthcare, wages, jobs, education, infrastructure, affordability and the other things affecting their daily lives.
I’m an independent voter. I don’t need either party to tell me why I should hate the other one. I need them to tell me what they intend to do for the American people—and then show me a credible plan for doing it.
If Democrats want to win again, maybe the first question shouldn’t be “Who can beat the Republicans?”
Maybe it should be: “What exactly are we asking Americans to vote for?”
What uniting principles could Americans accept? I suggest a simple “Superman” vision of “Truth, justice and the American way”.
If democrats can not distinguish themselves from republicans who have set their path toward ignoring a spiritual
meaning of that phrase then maybe we will become the harsh, mean spirited , autocratic and oligarchic country that republicans appear to define as being “Great”.