In the wake of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat in the 2024 presidential election, Democrats throughout the country have been playing the blame game. With the party unable to develop a coherent message to oppose President Donald Trump’s policies, many prominent Democrats have developed varying strategies to help their prospects in future elections. While some Democrats are using Trump’s policies as fuel to rally their base, others are attempting to moderate their image. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., are holding joint rallies across the country to stand up against Elon Musk and the billionaire class. In contrast, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential candidate for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, has started his own podcast where he features many prominent right-wing figures such as Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk. While Newsom stated that he started this podcast to engage with more conservative voters, he has instead given the far right a free platform to speak with little pushback and even went so far as to agree with their attacks on transgender athletes. This podcast serves as a perfect metaphor for how Democrats are fumbling the hand they’ve been dealt, as Trump’s policies continue to increase prices and take away jobs. Instead of sitting back in the shadows and hoping voters will see them as more moderate than the Republicans currently in power, Democrats need to go on the offensive and prove that they do have a policy agenda that’s better than the status quo.
Newsom’s premise isn’t incorrect — the Democratic Party’s 2024 strategy did not work and they need to rethink how they portray themselves to voters. Harris has been criticized for failing to show her face on media popular with young voters, such as Joe Rogan’s podcast. While Newsom is taking this message literally by hosting right-wing guests, he is giving them a platform to speak freely instead of challenging them in front of his listeners. As a result, Bannon was able to spread misinformation about the 2020 election without any pushback. If Newsom wants to have conversations with far-right influencers and benefit the Democrats, he must challenge his guests’ stances. A good model that politicians should follow is that of Pete Buttigieg, who often goes on Fox News and challenges their anchors in front of millions of conservative viewers.
During Newsom’s interview with conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, he took the opportunity to speak out against transgender athletes, a trend that has begun to grow among Democrats. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., made similar comments earlier this year, even going as far as to suggest that his party’s support for transgender athletes cost them the 2024 presidential election. This rhetoric is beginning to translate to policy, exemplified by a group of Democrats in Michigan who broke with their party to vote for a bill banning transgender girls in high school from girls’ sports earlier this month.
While public opinion currently favors Newsom and Moulton’s comments, that doesn’t give Democrats a free pass to help Republicans spread harmful rhetoric about the transgender community. Democrats shouldn’t concede to Republicans on topics where the public doesn’t agree with them, especially when the well-being of over a million transgender people could be at stake. Instead, when engaging with conservative audiences, they should challenge the Republican-promoted narrative that the transgender community is a threat to the country. In reality, transgender women don’t have a significant competitive advantage over their cisgender counterparts, but the American public cannot hear these arguments unless politicians speak out. Even if it takes some time for the public to come around as it did for other issues like the legalization of gay marriage, supporting the transgender community won’t hurt Democrats much in the short term. Debates about civil rights issues such as transgender athletes participating in sports aren’t as important to voters as other pressing issues, such as the economy and immigration.
In reality, it is likely that there are fewer than ten college athletes who are transgender, yet this issue continues to garner significant amounts of media coverage. Republicans are attempting to turn the existence of transgender athletes and the rest of their community into something that the public should fear. Democrats have a moral and political obligation to both fight back against this rhetoric and turn voters’ attention to the harmful implications of Trump’s policies. If the party wants to be more successful in future elections, they are not going to achieve this by letting Republicans dictate the narrative.
