Progressives Can’t Repeat the Mistakes of 2008
Updated at 10:36 a.m. ET on November 29, 2020.
Emotionally and politically, 2008 stands as a high-water mark for many American liberals—a year that brought both electoral triumph and national renewal as Barack Obama was swept into office and Democrats took the House and Senate. For those on the progressive left today, however, it should serve as a warning and case study in the way that popular energy and progressive agitation can dissipate when a Democratic administration takes power.
In purely electoral terms, 2020 is unlike 2008: The Democrats defeated Donald Trump but suffered unexpected losses down-ballot, failing to produce the highly anticipated blue wave. Political analogies are rarely exact. Notwithstanding their obvious points of contrast, however, 2020 and 2008 have several useful points of comparison, well beyond a shared context of
