Journalist and historian George Packer, known for his work with The New Yorker, expressed his belief that the Democratic Party is facing inevitable decline. During a discussion with Washington Week host Jeffrey Goldberg, Packer shared his outlook on the next election, stating his belief that the party is unlikely to defeat the next Republican candidate in 2028.
“So, I was standing in a giant crowd outside Madison Square Garden right before the election, trying to get in to hear the final Trump, yes, the big New York rally where all kinds of crazy things were being said. I couldn’t get in. There were too many people. But I had a maybe more interesting experience was I standing in a group of three guys who were Trinidadian immigrants who lived in Flatbush, which is a very black and Latino part of Brooklyn, immigrant part of Brooklyn. They were wearing full MAGA regalia,” Packer said.
“And I said, why are you here? Why are you for him? The price of eggs, we’re not respected around the world, and that stuff he says, we just don’t listen to it. We don’t take it that seriously. And, by the way, there are a lot of people like us in Flatbush. They just don’t wear the MAGA hats, but they’re there. They were right. And they have to be listened to and taken seriously and not told you have false consciousness, you’re voting against your interests, all the things that Democrats have said about people like that. How about hearing what they say and then thinking, how can we appeal to them without betraying our values?” he added.
“Do you think the Democrats are going to reform in order to beat the next Republican?” Goldberg asked. “I don’t think so,” Packer responded before going on to explain.
“I think it’ll take longer than that, because, first of all, I don’t see the immediate aftermath of the election moving in that direction. I don’t see a kind of party-wide sense we have to do something different, which is what happened after ’88, when, for the third straight time, a Republican wiped out a Democrat for president, and because these are entrenched ways of thinking and ways of organizing the party. And they can’t be uprooted quickly,” Packer explained.
“There are interest groups whose entire purpose, not just financial but idealistic, is to push the party in the direction that I think has cornered it in a way that makes it less and less popular with the broad American public. And they’re not going to go away either,” the journalist continued. “The donors, who are the financial backbone, may not feel the economic pressures that ordinary people do and may be more concerned with the cultural issues,” he added.
