Today I read the first of what will likely be a number of Democratic post-election analyses, in an effort to identify what went wrong for the party in 2024 and what should be done to fix it going forward. And I've certainly thought about the subject myself in the past few months, so I thought I'd offer up a rather different take.

The analysis in question does not come from the Democratic Party itself, but from two senior fellows from the Brookings Institution who published their paper on the website of Third Way, which is a so-called "centrist" organization. That's how many describe it, but it's really more of a "corporatist" organization devoted to making sure the Democrats stay in lockstep with big business and Wall Street more than anything else. If Bernie Sanders-style socialism is at one end of an ideological spectrum of Democrats, Third Way would be at the opposite end. Here's one line from their conclusion, in case you have any doubts:

Party reformers should begin discussions designed to produce a declaration of the party's fundamental beliefs and aims, along the lines of -- but differing in content from -- the Democratic Leadership Council's 1991 New Orleans Declaration.

They don't specify in any way what "differing in content from" means, and the fact that they're encouraging party leaders to go back to the old D.L.C. days is pretty striking. In any case, they wrote out their analysis and a few suggestions for change, which you can read in full, or read a shorter overview of in the Washington Post if you prefer.

I'm not writing today to quibble with their conclusions, or argue specifics with Third Way. They've always been corporate-friendly, and they're not going to change any time soon. Their prescription for Democrats is always some flavor of: "Hey, whoa... let's not get all crazy raising taxes on businesses, folks!" or perhaps: "Those progressives are going to make your life a living Hell!" So it'd be pretty pointless to argue with them, since my own ideological views are substantially different.

Instead, I'd like to head off in a completely different direction than a grand policy debate. Because the more I think about it, the more I conclude that there's an element to Democrats' 2024 loss that has long haunted the party. To be fair, it has occasionally haunted the Republican Party as well, but more so for Democrats.

One quote from the Bill Clinton era (since we're talking about the D.L.C. and all...) was repeated a lot during the 2024 election (and afterward): "It's the economy, stupid." But there's a different Clintonian quote that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves, especially in the age of Donald Trump: "When people are feeling insecure, they'd rather have someone who is strong and wrong than somebody who is weak and right." Or a shortened version of it: "Strong and wrong beats weak and right every time."

Like it or not, Americans want their presidents to be strong. Now, what each person means by the concept of "strong" differs, of course, but this somewhat-ineffable question can be the core to who wins. After all, who was stronger: Mike Dukakis or Ronald Reagan? George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton? Al Gore or George W. Bush? Mitt Romney or Barack Obama?

Of course, sometimes there are differing strengths to each candidate, and it's not quite as obvious. John McCain was seen as a pretty strong guy, but Obama managed to project both strength and competence and enthusiasm in a way that McCain didn't. Joe Biden is not the strongest-seeming guy around, but when he won Trump had been weakened in the eyes of the public with his disastrous COVID response and the collapse of the economy, while Biden had a strong message of competence and saving democracy to run on.

Being strong doesn't equate to being macho, either. If it did, then McCain might have won. Being strong can mean just having the strength of your convictions and defending them strongly when challenged (Bill Clinton excelled at this). It's the quality of not backing down in the face of political attacks, and having a good response to them that is relatable and understandable to most people. The opposite of being strong is being wishy-washy, to put this another way. Being weak means floundering while trying to explain your own position. Being weak means not pushing back when attacked, or getting so far into the weeds that people stop listening. That is different than measuring candidates on a scale of just how macho they are (or pretend to be). It's not a male/female thing either -- Hillary Clinton was a very strong candidate, by just about any measure. Her loss can't really be chalked up to Democratic weakness.

Just being strong doesn't always equate to victory, of course, especially in Democratic primaries. Joe Biden simply wasn't the strongest candidate in the 2020 primaries, and yet he won. This was a reaction by the party establishment to the prospect of seeing Bernie Sanders win the nomination, which would have produced a very strong candidate in regards to having a political vision and defending it to the hilt -- but one who supported ideas that the party leaders considered too extreme. Perhaps this is my own personal bias speaking, because in both 2016 and 2020 I really wanted to see Sanders take on Trump -- mostly because it would have been a fascinating showdown between Trump's fake populism of the right and Bernie's authentic economic populism from the left. But it was not to be, alas.

Trump, of course, is the ultimate "strong man" in American politics. He's convinced he's right about everything, and he will never concede either defeat or that he was wrong on anything. He is not actually a macho guy, but he plays one on television. And his fans eat it up. Those looking to understand why Democrats lost a whole lot of male voters this time around (young men, Black men, Hispanic men, etc.) need look no further than this. Democrats, in this new political environment, have to either put up someone with the personal strength to compete in such an arena or they might as well just pack it up and go home.

Kamala Harris did show a decent amount of strength during her short 2024 campaign. She wiped the floor with Trump at their one debate. But she showed a lot of weakness too, in the issues she chose to champion -- and she also (to be fair) had to deal with the headwinds of inherent misogyny/sexism in a country that has yet to elect a woman president. Harris was strong on abortion rights, strong on protecting democracy... but rather weak on the economy. What was her one center-ring economic issue or proposal? Your guess is as good as mine. To be fair, she did actually have a number of them -- but a lot of them were just as vague as the "opportunity economy" label she tried to package them all together under. Was she out there telling working-class voters: "Vote for me and I will make child care affordable for all of you!"? Not that I noticed, and that's choosing just one issue she could have highlighted (there were plenty of others that could have worked too). Harris wasn't as weak as some previous Democratic presidential candidates have been, but she also wasn't as strong as some of the ones who won, either. So the party would probably do best to select someone else next time around.

So who would that be, considering the emerging field of Democratic presidential hopefuls? It's tough to say, this far out. Bill Clinton wasn't on anyone's radar this early, and some similar dark horse candidate might emerge before the 2028 contest really gets rolling. But from the pack so far, four possible candidates stand out: Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, and Gretchen Whitmer. That isn't a comprehensive list, I should mention (there are likely many others who deserve to be on it), but it was just the names that came immediately to my own mind. All four of these Democrats have shown the ability to strongly defend the party's priorities while pushing back hard on Trump and Trumpism on the other side of the aisle. All four have their own built-in flaws as well, but standing up to Trump isn't one of them.

Of course, I'd love to see Bernie run again, but the reality is that he'll be too old. I'd also love to see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez eventually run, but she'll likely still be seen as too young in 2028. There are other considerations than just being strong, in other words.

But make no mistake about it, a Democrat who is seen as strong is what is going to be necessary. Donald Trump is already a lame-duck president, since he cannot run again. But Democrats are still going to have to run against some flavor of Trumpism, since Trump is obviously going to dominate the Republican Party for the rest of his life (unless at some point he screws up to such a degree that he loses the support of his base -- which doesn't seem likely so far). The Republicans are going to be trying to bottle that Trump magic in some other candidate in 2028, so Democrats are going to have to put up someone strong enough to take that on or they don't stand a chance. Rather than the Clintonian quote, Democrats need to have a contest between "strong and wrong" and "strong and right" to have a decent shot at winning the White House back in 2028.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant