FreshObservation: Democrats need to get over their electoral trauma

The Democratic Party today, by and large, can be separated into 2 groups; the new democrats, led by people like AOC, and the Old Guard, led by people like Nancy Pelosi. The difference between these two is the environment they grew up in. The new dems are more willing to go on the attack. Give their opponents a bloody nose. The Old Guard of the party, by contrast, got their starts in the 70s and 80s.

What the old guard of the party saw going in was a party of failures. Seemingly every democratic candidate since Hubert Humphrey had a flaw that the media would latch onto and spread. Carter’s first election had the Playboy controversy, his second was being conducted at a time when one of his biggest failures was being broadcast every week by ABC, Mondale’s vice president had a scandal, etc. During the 70s and 80s, election season had basically become a humiliation ritual for the Democratic Party. During the 5 elections that took place between 1970 and 1990, 4 of them were Republican landslides.

This experience caused the Democrats to become exceedingly cautious. Going on the offense was increasingly frowned upon. The old guard of the party, traumatized by these constant failures, are so defensive now to the point where it’s actively a problem. And the new democrats are getting muzzled by the old guard too.

TL;DR, Democrats need to stop putting themselves on the back foot. The era of Nixon and Reagan is over, and Democrats should be more open to putting their foot down and fighting back.