A conservative friend recently brought up John Kerry’s “flip-flopping” in 2004 as he was running for president. This is the incident where Kerry famously said, “I voted for it until I voted against it," referring to a bill for an $87 billion supplemental appropriation for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kerry voted against the bill the second time because circumstances had changed between those two votes. Instead of making that clear, he used a statement that was easily exploited by the George W. Bush campaign, painting him as indecisive.
Kerry lost the election, and we got a president with considerably less ability than Kerry. The Bush "forever wars" more than doubled our national debt.
The Republicans don’t have this problem. Kerry's single flip-flopping incident pales in comparison to Trump's almost daily flip-flopping, yet Democratic politicians seldom criticize Trump for it.
Democrats could improve their chances in a few ways:
1. They could hire Mehdi Hasan to train their presidential hopefuls on how to debate. This would allow them to bring their message to conservative audiences as Bernie Sanders has done numerous times.
2. They could embrace economic populist policies to appeal to many more voters. This requires turning away some donor money. The Nancy Pelosi wing of the party won't do this.
3. They could stop attacking their progressive wing, which has embraced economic populism for years. The recent New York City mayor’s race illustrates how Zohran Mamdani’s economic populism and progressive platform beat his establishment Democratic opponents.
4. They could stop using the political consultants who led them to defeat in 2000, 2004, 2016, and 2024.
You may have additional ideas.