Trump is Already Failing. That’s the Key to a Big Democratic Rebound.

The Democrats are a party controlled by elites, liberals and special interest groups. They are out of touch with America’s middle class. They are personified by a president who let inflation get the better of him and world events spin out of his control. As a result, the Democrats lost the White House as well as control of the Senate.

I’m talking about the 1980 election and its aftermath. But if politics back then has a familiar ring, it also has lessons for Democrats today, as they are in dire need of fresh vision and leadership. The election of a new party chair on Saturday is just the beginning of their reinvention process.

The Democratic Party is now in worse shape than at any other time since 1980. Joe Biden’s policy mistakes — making inflation worse and making the border less secure — and the lack of trust in Democrats who circled the wagons around him in 2024 have done damage that the party does not yet seem to fully grasp. The party is paying the price for failing to develop and allow generational change in leadership; the Clintons and the Obama-Biden administrations have dominated for more than 30 years. At the same time, Democrats have too often been focused on whom they are against rather than what they are for. Especially for the past 10 years, the Democrats’ primary mission was defeating Donald Trump rather than articulating a coherent and appealing vision for the future.

“Coherent and appealing” are difficult goals, of course, when you are a federation of special interests — such as abortion rights, the environment, social justice, gun control, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and a pro-labor agenda — more than an inspiring and forward-looking political party.

In 2020, Democrats’ fears about Bernie Sanders pushed these groups to coalesce around Mr. Biden’s candidacy, which was made all the more palatable because he positioned himself as a transition candidate. But Mr. Biden proved to be a challenging figure in electoral politics: He had no political base of his own, and he governed by trying to placate those various special interest groups — and yet their priorities were not aligned with what was most important to many voters. I cannot remember a single instance when President Biden took on any element of the Democratic Party in the interest of the greater good. This was not a presidency that reflected the mood and needs of the country; the sum of his presidency was less than its parts.

To regain power, Democrats would do well by first grappling with the best strategies for a minority party. As was the case when Ronald Reagan took office after 1980, the Democrats do not control their own destiny. At any given time, there are really only 1.5 political parties in America. Whoever holds the White House is the governing party, with the opposition essentially, at best, only able to affect policymaking at the margins.