It’s time for Democrats to move past Trump | Samuel Moyn

As long as the Democrats wage war on Trump, they avoid the more important work of building a New Deal-style majority

America's midterm elections proved that the era of Donald Trump is passing. But it returns the Democrats and Republicans to the struggle for a working majority after decades of failed policies. It is a struggle that Trump's ascendancy kicked off - but also postponed with rounds of distraction by his high jinks and obsession with his persona, even after Joe Biden's 2020 victory.

The result that shocked so many in the fall of 2016 was a popular rejection of ruling elites who shared a great deal across partisan lines. Backlash at the economic neoliberalism and endless wars of the age of Ronald Reagan - which later presidents including Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama comfortably inhabited - allowed Trump a victory against mainstream Republicans and then against Hillary Clinton. It nearly allowed Bernie Sanders to break through as presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020; if Sanders failed while Trump succeeded, it was more because of Republican disorganization than because their complaints against both parties were different (though their solutions were).