Democratic Party

Which Way, Democrats?

Some newly elected Democrats are sounding a conciliatory note. Others are calling for immediate reprisals.

Christian Britschgi | 11.6.2026 9:30 AM

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Which way, Democrats? The last couple of cycles of American electoral politics have followed the same basic pattern: Voters, angry about high prices and exhausted by the incumbent party's culture war, opt to throw the bums out. The incoming party then overreads their victory as a mandate to find new ways to hike consumer prices and launch their own aggressive culture war (and sometimes an actual war). 

We saw this story with Democrats in 2020, who were elected to end the madness of the first Trump administration and the COVID-19 era, and instead hiked inflation with huge amounts of unnecessary fiscal stimulus and went "full woke" on a range of cultural issues. 

That set the stage for Donald Trump's historic political comeback in 2024. Once in office, the current president proceeded to raise the cost of living with tariffs against the entire globe, wage a war in Iran that's restricted the global supply of oil, and go all in on a range of right-wing social issues.

Two years after the much-ballyhooed "vibe shift," Democrats are now the ones staging the historic comeback. Will they now also overread this commanding victory and overreach too?

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The post-election comments from many of Tuesday's victors give some indication that they've learned the lessons of recent history. 

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