In his recent op-ed in the New York Times, Democratic political strategist David Plouffe warned Democrats that they will lose the 2028 presidential election unless the party revamps its “broken brand” and “stale agenda.” He said that to succeed, the party will have to introduce “new faces and new leaders who promise to chart a course enough voters believe in.” Plouffe was campaign manager for Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential run so he knows a thing or two about what it takes to win the presidency.
Plough identified and listed a number of core issues that he thinks Democrats should focus on relentlessly over the next couple of years. They include affordability, job creation, regulation of artificial intelligence and the impact of the technology on employment, and holding political leaders accountable. Plouffe cautioned that because the catalogue of voter concerns is long, the Democrats should be disciplined in their messaging. He offered the following advice: “Make choices, make it short, and make it sing. If it can’t be communicated in an Instagram post or 10-second TikTok, go back to the drawing board.”
That suggestion caught my attention. One of the perennial complaints of voters is that political consultants have turned many office-seekers into humanoid robots who are incapable of answering basic questions. What people get upset about the most is candidates’ unwillingness to speak what is really on their minds. The reticence is driven by fear that what they say might not be what voters want to hear.
It is totally contradictory for Plouffe to say that the Democratic Party should be focusing on the long list of complex socio-economic issues he identified, while asking for the messaging to voters to be delivered in 10-second TikTok videos. That is quite an indictment. Plouff clearly doesn’t have much faith in voters’ attention spans.
The sad reality is that the overwhelming majority of us don’t take our responsibilities as voters seriously enough. Most political candidates actually put out detailed proposals on their websites nowadays, but few of us take the trouble to visit these sites and sufficiently familiarize ourselves with their contents. I am guilty of it. To evaluate candidates, we mostly rely on the types of short television, radio and online advertisements that Plouffe recommends. The problem is that there is rarely anything of substance in those ads. That is why we are so frequently surprised and disappointed by the people we ourselves elect.
It is always amusing to see leaders of Western democracies enter office with sky-high approval ratings, only to become extremely unpopular immediately thereafter.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is a good example. His Labor Party won the 2024 election in a landslide, taking 412 of the seats in parliament (with 33.7 percent of the votes) versus the Conservative Party’s 121 seats (representing 23.7 percent of the votes). At the time of his electoral victory in July 2024, Sir Starmer’s approval rating was 61 percent. By the end of December 2025, less than eighteen months after entering 10 Downing Street, his favorability score had plummeted to 18 percent. Only 17 percent of British voters now say they would choose the Labor Party if an election were held today.
The most likely reason for that sudden change in sentiment is that the majority of British voters probably weren’t paying enough attention during the election campaign in 2024. Buyer’s remorse set in pretty quickly.
Arguably, Plouffe is not wrong in his perception of voters. As a strategist, he is also apparently giving his best advice to his potential clients. But as someone with such an influential voice in American politics, I wish he had offered better counsel than he did in his op-ed. A bit more seriousness in our national political campaigns would be highly welcome. 10-second TikTok videos don’t offer much substance for anyone to chew on.