Democrats are still in shock from their second defeat in the hands of President Donald Trump in eight years. They fight against its policies while trying to assess where the party went badly and how to rejuvenate its hopes.
Fortunately for them, the history of the Democratic Party nearly 200 years offers a cause of hope. The Democrats have rebounded several times before, including fundamental victories in 1912, 1932, 1960, 1992 and 2008.
This story reveals that the Democrats win when they present their own clear vision for the country and a concrete platform articulation of what they will do so victorious – which connects to the interests, desires and the needs of the public.
No case, illustrates this paradigm better than the victory of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Democrats had checked the White House from 1933 to 1952, when the Republican Dwight Eisenhower, a leader of the Second World War who promised to end the Korean War and derogate from corruption in Washington, beat their purely candidate, Adlai Stevenson.
This led to a period when Democrats had a hard time understanding what the party represented. But the creation of the Democratic Advisory Council (DAC) in 1957 helped develop a new avant-garde program. And Kennedy provided a young charismatic spokesperson. This combination has catapulted democrats to the White House and led to major achievements in terms of domestic policy over the next eight years.
At the beginning of 1953, the economist and democratic strategist John K. Galbraith launched an appeal to action. He observed that his party understood that the opposition to Eisenhower and his program was not enough to bounce back. However, “it would be difficult at this moment to say what the Democratic Party is for.” Galbraith recognized that his party had general principles. Democrats have favored “storing the unfinished affairs of the New Deal” and wanting to extend the economy. But practically no one could explain what it could involve in “any detail”.
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Initially, party leaders ignored Galbraith’s plea. In 1956, Eisenhower beat Stevenson with an even greater margin than in 1952, despite the Democrats who adopted a slightly more progressive platform shaped by Galbraith and his reformist colleagues.
The second consecutive loss suggested that only more dramatic changes could produce a democratic return.
In 1957, the president of the National Democratic Committee, Paul Butler, created the DAC to implement questions that would support a positive platform in 1960. The Council identified five political positions which should anchor the party’s agenda: federal education aid, a national health insurance program (the precursor of health insurance), housing for the elderly, the urban renewal and a social position on civil rights.
He has selected some of these positions because of the concerns that are percolated from the base. For example, the public wanted a stronger education system. As the DAC has recognized, many states “cannot do everything that must be done and financial aid of the federal government has become imperative”. Likewise, the DAC “policy declaration” noted that families’ growth in the 1960s was to require “double the annual production rate of the house at a level of around 2,000,000 per year”. The country also faced “the need to quickly proceed with the clearance of slums and urban renovation”.
On other questions, the DAC simply sighed again the long -standing democratic priorities. Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman had proposed national health insurance, to see the opposition of the American Medical Association and the indifference of republican leaders killing him.
Many DAC positions have found their way in the 1960 democratic platform.
But a better program alone was not enough. Democrats needed a new messenger and Kennedy corresponded to the bill. The Massachusetts senator had young people and charisma and he was vigorous and dashing. He also met well on the new medium of the day – television. Kennedy projected an energetic America; He promised “to move this country” and he used the word “future” in campaign speeches.
Kennedy and the Democrats captured the public spirit of the time: a desire for change and a sense of the potential of America.
There was growing public agitation. The launch of Spoutnik in 1957 by the Soviet Union, the first Earth satellite, made sure that the Americans realized that they were delaying in science and education. The widespread perception, although incorrect, that the Soviets had more intercontinental ballistic missiles than the United States – the so -called missile gap – also fueled the feeling that the United States slipped.
This has removed the Americans from the post-war complacency and towards a more progressive and affirmed attitude on everything, from civil rights to scientific research.
Even Eisenhower knew that the public lost confidence in the status quo. In 1960, he explained a “national objectives committee”. His report, Objectives for Americanscalled for investments in education and the arts, while recommending progressive economic policies to maintain the economy in full expansion and low unemployment. The report also called for “equality of justice and opportunities, better government, better education, better medical care, a more productive economy”.
But the Americans were alienated for reasons that have been even deeper. As part of a series in Life Magazine and The New York Times On “the national objective”, the historian Clinton Rossiter explained that the nation had lost the “sense of the young mission” which had propelled him to greatness. We were once a people “on the brand”, but now the Americans looked more like a people who “did”, the content to tolerate mediocrity and does not want to face new challenges vigorously. Other writers have sounded the same theme: it was time to get America out of his humor of complacency and to move in the future.
Democrats capitalized on these feelings.
In his speech to open up to the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, Butler set the tone. “The day our Republic was young, the national ideals overwhelmed everything else,” he said. “Today, almost everything else seems to overwhelm the national ideals. If there is meaning to the American objective, it has become obscured in eight years of non -building. ”
Kennedy’s acceptance speech was built on this theme: America had to do better – and could with the right leadership. The candidate has promised an exciting future but which would require dating challenges:
“”[T]The American people expect more from us than the cries of indignation and attack. Times are too serious, the challenge too urgent and the too high issues allow the customary passions of the political debate…. Today, our concern must be with [the] future.”
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The nation was to face the threat of Soviet communism abroad. At home, “an explosion of the urban population overcrowded our schools, cluttered our suburbs and increased the misery of our slums.” In addition, the “peaceful revolution” for civil rights requiring the end of racial discrimination “has set out on the leashes imposed by timid executive leadership”.
Like tests Life And The New York TimesThe candidate acknowledged that the country needed more than political prescriptions. “Too many Americans have lost their way, their will and their sense of the historical objective. It’s a moment, in short, for a new generation of leadership – new men to face new problems and new opportunities. ”
Kennedy called for the nation to advance a “new border”, a term which “sums up not what I intend to offer to the American people, but what I intend to ask them”.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s opponent, vice -president Richard Nixon, seemed to embody what the voters tired – expired complacency and the 1950s status quo. Kennedy said this way in one of his last country gatherings, November 1: “M. Nixon and the Republicans represent the past. We defend the future. ” Some may say that it was excessive simplification, but it has connected to the public.
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was advisor Kennedy, explained that he had won by stressing “the danger, uncertainty, sacrifice and goal”.
These new ideas resonated with voters. Kennedy narrowly beat Nixon, inaugurating eight years of democratic control and fundamental achievements: the civil rights law, the law on voting rights, the promulgation of Medicare and Medicaid, and more.
Today, Democrats are again in the slump. But they can bounce back by following the prescription which raised John F. Kennedy in the White House. They must provide new answers that approach the problems that afflict the United States once it will have a program, the party will also need a young and charismatic candidate to communicate this program. This combination will convince voters that Democrats are the party of the future, while the Republicans are the Party of the Statu quo.
Bruce W. Dearstyne is a historian in Albany, New York. His most recent book is Progressive New York: Change and reform in the State Empire, 1900-1920 – A reader (2024). His next book, Revolutionary New York: 250 years of social changewill be published in early 2026.
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