Donald Trump is flailing. Despite early battlefield gains, the Iran war is becoming a quagmire: the regime hasn’t fallen, threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz are pushing gasoline prices up, and inflation risks are returning. That compounds Trump’s existing unpopularity over the cost of living and the violent lawlessness of ICE. Voter sentiment is moving toward Democrats, and unless Trump cancels the midterms, Republicans look likely to suffer heavy losses.
But winning in November won’t by itself secure long-term Democratic control. The party’s favorability remains very low: recent polls put Democrats behind the GOP and even behind Trump on net favorability. Some progressives attribute this to Democrats not fighting Trump hard enough, but that overlooks the deeper problem: the party’s positions on core issues are unpopular with many voters.
Polling shows voters prefer Republican approaches on immigration, crime, and several other issues even when they plan to vote Democratic. Democratic voters themselves increasingly favor moderation, particularly on social questions like crime and transgender issues. In national perception, Democrats are seen as much farther left than they view themselves—evidence that many progressives live in a bubble of elite institutions and blue cities, insulated from mainstream opinion.
Independents matter most. They are a growing plurality, and their views often diverge sharply from progressive orthodoxy. On gender identity, for example, a majority of independents say gender is determined at birth, while a smaller share of Democrats accept gender change as real. Support for many transgender movement demands has declined recently, even among Democrats.
Historically, Democrats have often moderated to hold broad coalitions. After public opinion shifted on abortion in the 1980s, Democrats adopted “safe, legal, and rare.” Before same-sex marriage became mainstream, many Democrats—including Barack Obama—favored civil unions as an intermediate step. Today’s progressives, however, are more likely to treat compromise as betrayal. They invoke a “long arc” of history—echoing MLK’s maxim that the moral universe bends toward justice—to justify unwavering positions, betting that society will eventually catch up.
That faith in history’s inevitability sometimes pays off: gay marriage and key civil-rights advances eventually prevailed. But treating the arc as automatic is risky. History is contingent and requires strategic action. Movements that assumed inevitability—most famously many communist projects—failed when they stopped adapting. Liberal victories were often the product of shrewd strategizing, targeted compromise, and focus, not mere moral certainty.
Moreover, the idea that contemporary progressive goals are the unavoidable moral endpoint is empirically false. Many progressive aims have not become permanent rights. Abortion opinion has not meaningfully shifted since 1990, and Roe’s 2022 overturn produced limited nationwide backlash and a political stalemate. Immigration policy has long swung between openness and restriction; today’s regime is far more restrictive than in the 19th century. Affirmative action in college admissions—a major civil-rights era objective—was curtailed by the Supreme Court in 2023 with little public uproar. Mandatory busing for school integration, once central to civil-rights enforcement, was largely abandoned decades ago.
These examples show selection bias: when we remember history, we highlight the wins and forget the losses. Rights and policies are contested; tolerance, liberty, and equality do not always line up with current progressive positions. Female athletes may reasonably insist on sex-segregated sports and locker rooms; other voters may see racial preferences as unfair. Societies can also choose greater order over permissiveness. There is no automatic march toward progressive positions.
If Democrats embrace uncompromising “long arc” thinking, they risk repeated backlash cycles that could return an increasingly radicalized GOP to power in 2028 or 2032. That would leave the country oscillating between an unpopular Democratic coalition and a populist right-wing alternative every few years.
This is not a call for abandoning principles. Progressive activists who view racial preferences, leniency on petty crime and immigration, or full transgender inclusion in all contexts as moral imperatives should follow their conscience. But if the goal is to build durable majorities and govern effectively, strategic compromise matters. Sometimes winning requires recalibrating priorities, picking battles, and presenting policies that resonate with independents and moderate voters.
There are areas where moving closer to the center could pay electorally: policing and public order, immigration policy, and approaches to racial preferences have been identified in recent research as zones where Democrats might broaden appeal without abandoning core liberal commitments to fairness and opportunity.
In short: Democrats have a chance to capitalize on Trump’s vulnerabilities, but to hold power beyond the next cycle they must reckon honestly with public opinion and be willing—where possible—to make strategic adjustments. Relying on the inevitability of a moral arc risks substituting faith for strategy and handing future victories to opponents who are more willing to adapt.
This article was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion Substack and is republished with kind permission.
