That starts with offering a fresh agenda that voters believe can make a difference in their lives, not the same stuff they have heard from Democratic candidates in recent years.
Each candidate is different. That said, the ideas below should find a home most anywhere.
A plan to bring down costs. Just running against those who have caused prices to skyrocket gets you a lot of the way there, but not far enough. Democrats should promise to investigate and stop price-gouging. Get rid of Mr. Trump’s inflation-inducing tariffs. Build millions more apartments and homes. Establish universal child care. Expand Medicare to cover home health costs for family caregivers. The list of ideas that would save voters real money is long. Make choices, make it short and make it sing. If it can’t be communicated in an Instagram post or 10-second TikTok, go back to the drawing board. Make it about tangibly cutting the cost of living for people, not an ideological wish list.
A plan to create the jobs America needs. A candidate could be honest about their district’s shortage of nurses, police officers, teachers, auto mechanics and plumbers. Through tax incentives, training, tuition assistance and a relentless focus on what’s needed, candidates should call for specific numbers of people to be hired over the next four years. A specific job is more credible than a generic job. This is a national economic security urgency. Auto insurance rates are skyrocketing in part because repair costs are surging, because there aren’t enough mechanics. Many of these jobs won’t be displaced by artificial intelligence, at least not immediately. Candidates must make voters believe that every day they will wake up and work on adding these kinds of opportunities.
A plan for A.I. It will play a much bigger role in the 2026 elections than many people thought just a few months ago, and it could be the dominant issue of the 2028 campaign. A.I.’s role in our lives, society and economy is likely to only grow, especially since we are in a battle for supremacy with China. But we have to ask questions, create some guardrails and force tech giants to be more transparent about their data and algorithms, how they identify deepfakes and about their plans to mitigate the downstream negative effects of their products. Elon Musk has said A.I and robots will kill all jobs. That’s a pretty negative downstream effect.
Start with A.I.’s toxic stew of higher energy costs, job losses, chatbot mental health misuse and misinformation. Then, consider how the revenue from these activities will go to the wealthiest people on the planet. The Trump administration and its allies in Congress want to give tech companies a full green light and tell the country you’re on your own. Democrats should exploit that political opening. I asked ChatGPT to spit out an ad that captured the argument.
Visuals: Empty factory floors. A family sitting in the dark as power bills pile up. A young man staring blankly at a computer screen. A rocket launches, symbolizing billionaire wealth soaring.
Narrator (serious, urgent tone):
“Politicians told us A.I. would make life better. But what did it really bring? Lost jobs. Sky-high energy bills. Mental health in crisis. And the billionaires? They got richer — while we got left behind.
Every time they side with Big Tech, they’re choosing profits over people.
It’s time to ask: Whose future are they building? Because it sure isn’t ours.”
Tagline: “Hold them accountable. Say no to A.I. greed.”
Not bad. Add political consultants to the endangered occupation list.
