A revived Democratic Leadership Council cannot save the Democratic Party

The Hill

13-02-2025

What has been clear to some of us for years is finally common knowledge: the Democratic Party is lost in the wilderness.
It is the most unpopular it has been since Quinnipiac began asking the question in 2008. The election saw it lose support among every voter group except White college-educated voters. Far from learning its lesson, the recent DNC meeting was a parade of progressive cliches, from land acknowledgements to handwringing over pronouns. Party leaders doubled down on the very priorities voters had just rejected.
Now, self-proclaimed Democratic centrists claim to have the solution: Simply revive the Democratic Leadership Council, the moderate movement that elevated Bill Clinton and rescued Democrats from obscurity in the 1990s.
Both of us worked at the DLC for more than a decade at founder Al From's side, and take it from us: Reviving the DLC today is a pipe dream.
For one, this is not the 1990s. When the DLC was formed, the far left was fringe. It had to be contended with, sure, but nobody thought Jesse Jackson controlled the ideology of the party.
Not so today. In the last decade, radical progressives took the party citadel while the very Democratic elites now calling for change welcomed them in, bargaining that they would bring power, popularity and money. For a while, it seemed to work. Only now do these establishment players want a do-over.
Their counter-coup against the progressives is destined to fail before it begins. Two major takeaways from the DLC reveal why.
One, the DLC emerged from outside the establishment, from those with the courage to take significant risks and the credibility to speak truth to power. No one in the Democratic establishment has that courage or credibility today. If they did, they would have stood up to the progressives back when they had power.
An ideal moment would have been the debate over 'Build Back Better' in 2021. These same supposedly centrist Democratic groups attacked members of their own party who questioned the far-left agenda around it, like Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and the group of nine House members led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.). Those brave leaders built the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill without any support from their party, and eventually it became clear that their solution was the only way forward. Now the Democratic establishment takes credit for their work.
Second, the DLC succeeded because it innovated to create a new politics. It didn't twist itself in knots trying to win over a progressive base. It built a new movement outside of the party to appeal to the common-sense majority, regardless of party affiliation.
Today, as then, that common-sense majority is not the property of the left or right. The new politics will emerge by combining together Republicans, Democrats and Independents who still care about sensible governance and problem solving.
This contrasts with the Democrats calling for a new DLC, who are solely concerned with repairing their own party. Theirs is a cynical effort. Real courage is to say 'Forget the party, let's build a new movement.' Remember: the DLC held its own convention, separate from the DNC. Democrats only claimed it and owned it when it was clear that it was winning.
Our organization, No Labels, is built around this very goal of innovating to create a new politics. We support the leaders in both parties who are bucking leadership to work together in the middle. Our focus is not to build a third party but rather a third force. We are also marshaling the citizen support for such a politics, which is the enduring success of our unity ticket effort — an effort attacked by the Democratic establishment even though the election proved our thesis true.
An old saying comes to mind: 'Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.'
The DLC was built four decades ago. It was of and for a different era. There is no repeating it now, no going back, especially not under the leadership of the very elites who let the cancer of progressivism consume their party.
Our experience at the DLC tells us that the way forward is to create an entirely new politics that is representative of the times — one that unites common-sense Democrats, Republicans, and Independents into a new movement for America.