Democrats are clearly in trouble. But the path forward may be less steep than they think.

What if electorally damaging headwinds fade and tailwinds emerge?

In a lifetime of following and participating in federal politics, these are the darkest times I’ve seen. And they are made darker by the absence of institutional resistance to the lawless, destructive forces that are upon the land. Republicans, as Ezra Klein recently argued, are “non-player characters,” ignoring or applauding the destruction.

Democrats are in the minority, with little power to block or even slow the juggernaut. Moreover, as per an important series of articles by Shane Goldmacher, they are lost in the wilderness, divided, flailing, and missing the moment.

I am neither looking for silver linings nor trying to force any optimism into this dire moment. But I have been unable to shake the simple logic of what follows. The argument starts with a diagnosis of why Harris lost and the state of those conditions, which have all improved. It then maintains that Democrats need to quickly and forcefully add competition back into the process of choosing a candidate. Finally, it argues that the Trump administration is already making own goal kicks, and what looks bold to many people now could, in the context of self-induced economic shocks, look reckless.

Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election due to the three i’s: immigration, inflation, and incumbency, along with a fourth factor which Republicans labeled “paychecks over pronouns,” a stand-in for Democrats’ difficulty effectively communicating with working-class voters.

The three i’s are fading or over. Obviously, incumbency is no longer the problem; in fact, it’s the other team’s problem.

Inflation is proving to be stickier than I’d like as far as the last mile back down to its target of around 2%, but as Fed Chair Powell likes to say, that’s the direction of travel. Of course, when even the conservative Wall St. Journal editorial board warns that Trump risks stoking further inflation (“Does he want even higher prices?”), we should worry that the trip back to target could be thwarted. But that unwelcomed possibility just strengthens this argument.

As shown in this figure, unauthorized immigration swelled when President Biden (and his staff, including myself; no passive voice here) took office, but was coming down sharply before we left office.

Of course, the future trajectory of these two i’s is unknowable, though what is knowable is that if they do go badly, the Trump administration will blame Biden. That will appease MAGA voters, but it’s not likely to reach the rest.

Thus, it is not unduly optimistic to stipulate that in future campaigns, the three i’s will no longer be the powerful headwinds that battered the Harris campaign.

What about the Democrats’ alleged inability to effectively communicate with working-class voters whose votes they need? This is a real problem, but there are numerous reasons to believe it is neither fatal nor etched in stone.

First, there’s an intersection between the three i’s, especially inflation and immigration, and the Ds problem with working-class voters. This comes out clearly re inflation from Greg Sargent’s deep dive into the swing toward Trump in a solid D stronghold of Reading, PA, and even more so re immigration in a similarly deep dive in Queens, NY from New York Magazine. No one knows how much of such electoral swings in Democratic base voters can be blamed on inflation and immigration, but it’s definitely not zero.

Second, there are many examples of Ds who outperformed Harris and won in districts that Trump carried, so we shouldn’t paint this critique with too broad a brush.

Which brings us to the next thing that has to happen if Ds are to rise again, an absolutely essential part of the solution: a big primary, with a double-digit number candidates, wherein competition can deliver a strong winner. In this regard, I’ve got unsolicited advice for Ken Martin, the new chair of the DNC: forget the arguments in which you’re already trapped about new versus old messaging, policies, blah-blah, etc. Instead spend every waking, working hour on setting up the necessary competition that is the only way the party can reliably identify a candidate who can reach voters who have tuned us out. The broader that competition is, the better.

The final part of this argument is that the Trump administration is likely to make—is already in the process of making—own goal kicks. Economist Dean Baker, who has a strong track record of identifying future economic shocks, has done us the favor of listing the ways the new administration could tank the economy, from a stock market crash to inflationary tariffs and deportations, to lack of preparation for the next pandemic, and more.

I don’t want any of these to occur, but if you’re in a car with an incredibly reckless driver with no regard for the speed limit and the law, you’d be kidding yourself if you don’t raise the probability of crashing.

Speaking of breaking the law, one way none of the above materializes is if the system fails to hold, if we are faced with a level of authoritarianism that triggers a constitutional crisis, seriously damaging, as both Biden and Harris warned, the democratic process. That probability is also elevated.

But if the center holds, and the Democrats engage in the necessary competition to identify a strong candidate to lead them out of the wilderness, there’s a good chance that today’s headwinds become tomorrow’s tailwinds.