The Big Picture / December 17, 2024

The Dead Hand of the Democratic Consultant Class

Breaking the grip of grifters who refuse to learn or leave won’t be easy. But it is essential to effectively opposing the coming plutocracy.

D.D. Guttenplan
Democratic political consultant David Plouffe doesn’t think he did anything wrong.(John Lamparski / Getty)

Even if you’ve spent the past month hiding under the covers, it would still have been hard to miss the arguments—including some spirited entries by my Nation colleagues—about the size of Donald Trump’s election victory, and what it says (or doesn’t say) about the existence of a Republican mandate. We can all agree on the following: When the votes were finally counted, (a) Trump got more of them than Kamala Harris; (b) but still not enough to claim a majority, as opposed to a plurality; (c) though clearly sufficient for a victory in the Electoral College (which, sadly, is still how we decide the winner in this country). Republicans also won control of the House and the Senate.

It’s true that on election night, as Harris remained in her bunker, Trump claimed “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” But I was puzzled as to why so many pundits seemed to think that, of all the lies in all the speeches Trump has made, this one was so in need of rebuttal. And then I realized that this wasn’t really an argument about vote counts, or about whether Harris, who ended up about 6 million votes short of Joe Biden’s total in 2020, had run an effective campaign. (Though faithful readers will recall I believe she threw away a potentially winning economic message in pursuit of the chimera of Republican crossover votes.)

Despite appearances, this at times bruising argument isn’t really about the past at all. What it’s really about is the future, and whether the Democratic Party needs the kind of root-and-branch reform that would allow it to ignore the siren song of the consultant class, which has now led the party to two disastrous defeats. Or whether, to borrow a term from British politics, all that is required for victory is “one more heave”—running the same campaign, but with a bit more vigor than last time. That, in essence, was the message a shockingly unrepentant David Plouffe and his colleagues offered as guests on Pod Save America: Give us the chance to do it all over again in 2028 and we will. Anyone even tempted to credit these grifters should listen to Plouffe’s October episode, “Why You Shouldn’t Panic About the Polls.”

Dislodging the consultant class—and draining the cesspool of dark money that guarantees its continuing influence over Democratic politics—isn’t going to be easy. But it is essential if there is ever going to be an effective opposition to the plutocracy-disguised-as-populism on offer from the Republicans. At the same time, as Tarence Ray argues in this issue, it is just as important to resist the fatalist temptation to simply cede large portions of the electoral map to Republican reaction. Because it turns out that, much like communism, the “red-state voter” is more specter than substance—a scarecrow whose purported prejudices are used to rule commonsense solutions like Medicare for All and real debt relief for hard-pressed students (and their parents) out of bounds.

Trump contrives (or connives) to have it both ways: a detailed manifesto in Project 2025—which might indeed have given him some claim to a mandate if he hadn’t so vigorously disowned it during the campaign—and whatever electoral advantages accrued from his denunciations. The whole exercise turned out to be yet another charade, as Chris Lehmann makes clear in an article lavishly illustrated by Eli Valley.

While we’re on the topic of societal rot, take a look at Eric Orner’s stunning graphic memoir of the day murder came to his hometown of Highland Park, Illinois—and at Mara Kardas-Nelson’s exposé of the way colonial-era legal systems have packed some African countries’ prisons with petty offenders. Not to mention Charles Glass on Israel’s recidivist invasion of Lebanon, Abdelrahman ElGendy on literature after Gaza, and Jorge Cotte on Alfonso Cuarón’s TV thriller Disclaimer.

Current Issue

Cover of April 2025 Issue

On a more uplifting plane, Peter Kuper interviews—and pays artistic tribute to—the cartoonist Jules Feiffer; Joan Walsh reveals why she won’t be dancing at any of the inaugural balls; Chris Lehmann (doubling up) dives deep into the decay of our two-party system; and Kim Phillips-Fein limns a suitably heroic portrait of the great labor historian David Montgomery.

Plus some servings of pungent opinions from our columnists, dispatches from correspondents near and far, and—speaking of heroism—John Nichols’s annual Nation honor roll. So if you’re still hiding, it’s time to come out and join the fight. The causes we care about won’t wait another four years—and neither can we.

D.D. Guttenplan
Editor

D.D. Guttenplan

D.D. Guttenplan is editor of The Nation.

More from The Nation

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts clasps the arm of a smiling Rachel Robinson while dressed in the team's colors. Robinson stands in front of the golf cart she rode in with her son as part of Jackie Robinson Day festivities.

The Dodgers Are Planning to Visit the White House. It’s a Disgrace. The Dodgers Are Planning to Visit the White House. It’s a Disgrace.

Society / December 17, 2024 The Dead Hand of the Democratic Consultant Class To meet with Trump now is to defile the memory of Dodgers great Jackie Robinson and to humiliate ma…

Dave Zirin

A demonstrator holds a sign in front of the US Supreme Court as the Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic case is heard on Wednesday, April 2, 2025.

This Supreme Court Case Is About More Than “Defunding” Planned Parenthood This Supreme Court Case Is About More Than “Defunding” Planned Parenthood

If South Carolina succeeds, there will be almost no check on states that discriminate against healthcare providers for any reason.

Rachel Rebouché

Barney Oursler, director of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, is photographed at US Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pennsylvania, January 23, 2025.

The Unemployment System Is Failing Workers. Barney Oursler’s Here to Help. The Unemployment System Is Failing Workers. Barney Oursler’s Here to Help.

Oursler and his staff at the Mon Valley Unemployment Committee have shown over the past 40 years what it means to really care about workers—on the job and off.

Daniel Napsha

Two men in suits sitting down. One of them is holding several papers and addressing a microphone.

Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump

The target then was the nonexistent threat of Communist teachers; today, it’s the supposed radicalism of the academy and its alleged failure to fight antisemitism.

Ellen Schrecker

Representative Byron Donalds stands in the crowd as Donald Trump speaks in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, October 19, 2024.

Black MAGA Supporters Have Made Their Peace With Racists Black MAGA Supporters Have Made Their Peace With Racists

The silence of Black MAGA supporters in the face of Trump’s and Vance’s bigotry during the campaign has carried over to the second Trump era.

Clarence Lusane

Sophomore Kavya Racheetim looks through the first edition of The Retrograde.

Texas Student Journalists Are Being Censored, but That Won’t Stop the Presses Texas Student Journalists Are Being Censored, but That Won’t Stop the Presses

On University of Texas campuses, students have found other ways of newsmaking that free their publications from editorial control by their schools and state.

StudentNation / Aaron Boehmer