Daniel Schlozman
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Articles by Daniel Schlozman
The DNC Against Itself
“Democracy is a very old institution,” explains the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy of the 2024 election, belatedly released in May. “And yet what keeps democracy going is the ability of those who seek to lead to look at the data and determine the source of success as well as setbacks.” The report that followed did no such thing.
The Last Thing Democrats Need Is More Policy Plans
Democrats “need a vision that’s not just anti-Trump,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said last year. As Democrats reflexively do, she then ticked off a list of policy markers, like “guaranteed health care for every American.” Democrats insist that policy agendas are what determine a party’s political success and failure. Recently, Senators Cory Booker and Chris Van Hollen promoted splashy, dueling plans to reduce the federal income tax burden for the lower and middle classes.
The Left Has a Hyperpolitics Problem
A photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans captures a moment in a nightclub in 1989, symbolizing the beginning of a new era. Historian Anton Jager's book "Hyperpolitics" explores the shift from post-politics to large-scale contentious politics in rich democracies. Jager argues that the left faces challenges in the era of hyperpolitics due to the lack of durable organization and institutionalization, calling for a return to mass politics.
The Left Has a Hyperpolitics Problem
The two major factors Jäger sees as shaping the political landscape are, then, the politicization of society and the institutionalization of politics. Our present era of hyperpolitics is simultaneously politicized but not institutionalized. The placid years after 1989 were low on both dimensions.
Mamdani’s Digital Machine
Mamdani’s Digital Machine The success of Zohran’s agenda will depend on an ambitious digital strategy that transcends social media performance. ▪ Winter 2026 Zohran Mamdani poses for a selfie with a supporter. (Jack Califano) The excitement generated by Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign for New York City mayor jolted political consultants and pollsters, especially those looking for quick ways to generate enthusiasm for Democratic candidates. Perhaps this could be a silver bullet?
Public Debilitation
Public Debilitation Rebuilding government decision-making power requires not just removing veto points, but also addressing the outsized corporate power that gives the wealthy the best access to policymakers. ▪ Fall 2025 A crowd attempts to board trains at Penn Station in New York City. (Adam Gray/Getty Images) Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back by Marc J. Dunkelman PublicAffairs, 2025, 416 pp.
Identity politics
After last year’s U.S. election defeats, the Democratic Party in America is out of power—way out of power. Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and Republican-appointed justices have a comfortable majority on the Supreme Court. What’s more, the Republicans control most governorships and state legislatures.
After last year’s U.S. election defeats, the Democratic Party in America is out of power—way out of power. Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and Republican-appointed justices have a comfortable majority on the Supreme Court. What’s more, the Republicans control most governorships and state legislatures.
Ennobling the Parties? – Philip A. Wallach
We live in a partisan age. But the party organizations themselves are floundering. Outsiders Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders crashed the gates with surprising ease in 2016, anti-establishment populist enthusiasms crop up across the spectrum, and one would be hard pressed to articulate an overarching vision for either party these days, beyond hating the other. More Americans now identify as political independents, a group that is now a clear plurality.
What’s the Matter With the Democrats?
What’s the Matter With the Democrats? Two new books reveal the shortcomings at the heart of the liberal critique of Trump voters. ▪ Fall 2024 Illiberal America: A History by Steven Hahn W.W. Norton & Company, 2024, 464 pp. Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart—Again by Robert Kagan Knopf, 2024, 256 pp. It’s been a hard year for the Democrats.
Power, Not Process
Drutman is a rarity in American politics: a process-oriented reformer who is also a cheerleader for political parties. Ever since the Gilded Age, reformers aiming to fiddle with rules, clean up politics, and make it less nasty have tended to be anti-party. In their eyes, parties and party politicians divide society and foment needless anger. Drutman deserves great credit for rejecting this outlook. Nevertheless, his vision of pro-party reform retains a distinctly limited character.
The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics
In This Review In This Review The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics The authors are passionate believers in the vital role that the major political parties should play in American democracy, one they fear both parties have relinquished over the past half century.
Late to the Party | Daniel Schlozman
Why did it take them so long? The warning signs were clear to see. Long before the debate on June 27, Joe Biden was unpopular. Since September 2021 his approval ratings had been negative, and since early 2023 they had trended downward. In most pre-debate polls he ran behind an also unpopular Republican nominee. Plenty of Democrats were queasy about running an octogenarian. Columnists sent public distress signals that echoed the private chatter.
OPINION EXCHANGE | Democrats don't have a nominee until delegates say so
Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here. ••• Democrats across the party are worried that they have failed to choose the candidate most likely to defeat Donald Trump, and that it's too late to do anything about it. But they need to grasp a critical point: Joe Biden is not yet the nominee of the Democratic Party.
Democrats Don't Have a Nominee Until Delegates Say So Original
Democrats across the party are worried that they have failed to choose the candidate most likely to defeat Donald Trump, and that it's too late to do anything about it. But they need to grasp a critical point: Joe Biden is not yet the nominee of the Democratic Party. The nominee is chosen at the national convention (this year, it's in Chicago in mid-August).
How Conservatives Changed the Meaning of Political Parties
The Republican Party of 2024 belongs to Donald Trump and to MAGA. But the populist right once viewed the GOP very differently. At the second annual Conservative Political Action Conference in 1975, attendees debated whether they should junk and replace the GOP.
Elder Statesmen - Dissent Magazine
Elder Statesmen The two old men worried to their very cores about Trump came to opposite decisions: Mitt Romney quit, and Joe Biden is running again. Both may have chosen wrong. ▪ Spring 2024 Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins Scribner, 2023, 416 pp. The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future by Franklin Foer Penguin Press, 2023, 432 pp. At Easter time in 2022, Craig Romney took his family to Washington, D.C., to see the sights.
R.I.P No Labels, the Renegade Faction of the Centrist Elite
“Most Americans are decent, caring, reasonable, and patriotic people. But we do not see those traits reflected in our politics today.
Renegade Faction of the Tassled-Loafer Class | Daniel Schlozman
Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld’s new book, The Hollow Parties, is just out from Princeton University Press and available now in the n+1 bookshop. They will be in conversation with n+1 coeditor Mark Krotov at the n+1 office on Wednesday, May 22. “Most Americans are decent, caring, reasonable, and patriotic people. But we do not see those traits reflected in our politics today.
The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics
Description A major history from the Founding to our embittered present that "explains the void" (Politico) at the center of America's political parties Featured on The Ezra Klein Show and America's political parties are hollow shells of what they could be, locked in a polarized struggle for power and unrooted as civic organizations. takes readers from the rise of mass party politics in the Jacksonian era through the years of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
The Republican Party Has Devolved Into a Racket
Sam Rosenfeld and This is the Republican Party today. In the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, trying to corral a fractious majority, has ordered an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over his son's financial entanglements, even as elements in his caucus push to shut down the government unless there are drastic cuts in spending.
Lessons for Courtiers
Lessons for Courtiers The results of the 2020 Democratic primaries suggest the limits of a left strategy for power starting at, rather than building toward, the presidency. Daniel Schlozman ▪ Fall 2021 Joe Biden campaigning at the Iowa State Fair in August 2019 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump by Edward-Isaac Dovere Viking, 2021, 528 pp.
Can Democrats Fix the Senate?
Democrats had their sixty votes for a mere 212 days. From July 7, 2009, when Al Franken of Minnesota was finally sworn into office after winning by 312 votes, until February 4, 2010, when Scott Brown of Massachusetts took his seat after a shock win in a special election, the party had a sufficient majority to invoke cloture under the US Senate’s Rule 22 and close debate on legislation without needing votes from the other side. The last time either party had held sixty seats was in 1979.
What happened to that 'blue wave'?
Updated November 11, 2020 2:00 PM As Biden voters celebrated in the streets this past weekend, Democratic politicians began to fight among themselves. Although they won the presidency, Democrats lost seats in the House and failed to flip a single state legislative chamber. What went wrong in down-ballot races? That was the subject when House Democrats held a three-hour post-mortem conference call last week.
What happened to that 'blue wave'? Original
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks to members of her staff and volunteers who helped get out the vote and with her campaign on Election Day outside her office in the Bronx. (Kathy Willens/AP) As Biden voters celebrated in the streets this past weekend, Democratic politicians began to fight among themselves. Although they won the presidency, Democrats lost seats in the House and failed to flip a single state legislative chamber. What went wrong in down-ballot races?
Getting Past 270
The shell-shocked Democratic Party failed to conduct any kind of autopsy after the 2016 elections. The wounds, from both the nomination and the colossal disappointment in November, were too raw; the state of emergency was too acute. Now, with some distance and with midterms looming, into the breach comes Jon Favreau. From 2005 to 2013, Favreau served as chief speechwriter for Barack Obama. His voice is now his own, as a podcasting superstar on Pod Save America.
Diversity and the Democrats
Diversity and the Democrats The diversity of the initial roster of Democratic presidential candidates pushed all of them to speak about their commitments to battle racism and gender inequity. But it wasn’t enough to transform the political landscape in which they competed. ▪ Summer 2020 By the summer of 2019, the Democratic Party’s line up of presidential hopefuls resembled the images in a college recruitment pamphlet filled with racially and ethnically diverse students and faculty members.
Up-Island
The loyal customers of Larsen’s Fish Market, a barebones place that buys straight from the docks out the back door, awoke early on August 19, 2019, the Monday morning after the Ag Fair. Some had gotten word from an email to everyone with a house charge account, others via Instagram. We gathered at Menemsha Texaco at 6:45 AM, more than a hundred strong, arranged ourselves by how many decades we’d gotten fish from Larsen’s and marched down to the store. The bell buoy in the harbor clanged behind us.
Up from Polarization
Up from Polarization In his new book, Ezra Klein builds a persuasive account of the rise of polarization. But the master explainer can offer no explanation for where we go from here. Daniel Schlozman ▪ Spring 2020 Mike Pence claps as Nancy Pelosi rips a copy of President Trump's State of the Union address, February 4, 2020. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein Simon and Schuster, 2020, 336 pp.
The Obamanauts - Dissent Magazine
The Obamanauts What is the defining achievement of Barack Obama? ▪ Fall 2019 Obama: An Oral History 2009–2017 by Brian Abrams Little A, 2018, 526 pp. West Winging It: An Un-presidential Memoir by Pat Cunnane Gallery Books, 2018, 320 pp. Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward by Valerie Jarrett Viking, 2019, 320 pp. Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?
Old Donkeys, New Tricks
Ryan Grim. We’ve Got People: From Jesse Jackson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement. Strong Arm Press, 2019. It’s March 2009, and conservative Democrats want to go slow.
The dilemmas for Democrats in 3 past visions for the party
To recognize a distinctly Democratic tendency in American politics, one need only contemplate this fact: The major American party that didn’tnominate Donald Trump for president in 2016 was the one that subsequently rewrote its rules for nomination.
Analysis | How SPLC’s co-founder Morris Dees and the conservative Richard Viguerie changed American politics
Last month, Morris Dees, the co-founder and longtime public face of the Southern Poverty Law Center, was abruptly fired. The SPLC has launched a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and racial and sexual discrimination in its organization. While many of its nonprofit peers finance themselves via big checks from foundations, the SPLC still relies, as it has for decades, on over-the-top appeals from mass direct-mail and email solicitations.
Opinion | Why Steve King’s Punishment Took So Long (Published 2019)
The Iowa Republican has been objectionable for years, but his party has historically been unwilling to do anything about its extremists. By Sam Rosenfeld and Daniel Schlozman Mr. Rosenfeld is the author of “The Polarizers.” Mr. Schlozman is the author of “When Movements Anchor Parties.” Jan. 15, 2019 Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, at the Capitol on Monday after he was stripped of his committee positions.
Getting Past 270
The shell-shocked Democratic Party failed to conduct any kind of autopsy after the 2016 elections. The wounds, from both the nomination and the colossal disappointment in November, were too raw; the state of emergency was too acute. Now, with some distance and with midterms looming, into the breach comes Jon Favreau. From 2005 to 2013, Favreau served as chief speechwriter for Barack Obama. His voice is now his own, as a podcasting superstar on Pod Save America.
Beltway Blues - Dissent Magazine
Beltway Blues The Democratic Party in the second year of the Trump presidency is both remarkably united and notably amorphous. But this era of fifty-fifty politics will not go on forever. A left turn is long overdue. ▪ Summer 2018 The Democratic Party in the second year of the Trump presidency is simultaneously remarkably united and notably amorphous.
Beltway Blues | Dissent Magazine
The Democratic Party in the second year of the Trump presidency is simultaneously remarkably united and notably amorphous. At its best, exemplified in the tenacious fight to save the Affordable Care Act (ACA), airy pronouncements have given way to determined organizing. Radicals and moderates are playing the inside-outside game in the service of a common goal: to limit the damage from Trumpism and unified Republican control, and to claw back a majority.
Summer 2018 | Dissent Magazine
The Kurds, who share ethnic and cultural similarities with Iranians and are mostly Muslim by religion (largely Sunni but with many minorities), have long struggled for self-determination. After World War I, their lands were divided up between Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.
Announcing Issue 30
Behind every brave outing I saw a legal liability. I suppose that’s what happens when you know enough men with money. Such men are minor kings among us, men with lawyer-soldiers at their employ who can curtail certain kinds of talk. While I do believe in false allegations, and I do believe that women can be bullies, it’s hard, sometimes, not to be cynical about the defense. Some men love free speech almost as much as they love libel lawyers.
Three Days in Tahrir Square
January 25th was warm and sunny, the omnipresent Cairo traffic eerily absent. A few friends and I walked outside and counted the ordered lines of police stationed around Tahrir Square. We had read reports of the prior protests in Cairo: smaller numbers than expected, haphazardly formed, quickly shut down.
The Plutocratic Id
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a horrifying but also politically curious document. Above all, it is a gift to the corporations, who get rewarded with a massive permanent tax cut. It attacks the fiscal capacities of Democratic states, and, for good measure, extracts the first real legislative pound of flesh from Obamacare. It comes into the world red in tooth and claw. Politicians typically showcase the goodies and hide the dirty laundry.
In Search of the ‘Vital Center’
The predominant passion of all men in power,” wrote John Adams in 1787, “whether kings, nobles, or plebeians, is the same; that tyranny will be the effect, whoever are the governors…if uncontrolled by equal laws, made by common consent, and supported, protected, and enforced by three different orders of men in equilibrio.” Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, From the Founding to Today David S.
Irregular Order | Online Only | n+1
“Let’s return to regular order,” John McCain implored his colleagues as he returned to the Senate chamber on Tuesday. And then, early on Friday morning, he joined the united Democratic caucus, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, to vote down the Health Care Freedom Act and to show he meant it.
Against Moral Austerity: On the Need for a Christian Left
Against Moral Austerity: On the Need for a Christian Left Secular and religious progressives should work together to reach beyond blue strongholds and forcefully show that moral concerns are not limited to the religious right. ▪ Summer 2017 Despair and defeat can drive many of us to our knees in prayer. In moments of crisis, we cry out to the heavens for mercy or justice; God, so easy to forget in times of abundance, suddenly returns as a presence in our lives.
No One Fought Back Then
We had a different attitude back then. Decency, friendship, family. Now—fuck—everybody’s fallen into the money trap. Kang He is from Zhejiang province, the son of a farmer and an itinerant laborer. He moved to Beijing in 1993, later bringing his wife over from his hometown. He has tried many professions: home tutor, Chinese teacher, columnist for a fashion magazine, editor of a university website, events coordinator for a theater company, and theater director. His novels include Sparta and A Cavalier.
The Lists Told Us Otherwise
The Republicans have victory and all its spoils: the presidency, fifty-two seats in the Senate, 241 seats in the House, a renewed conservative majority on the Supreme Court in short order and a hard-right majority after one more departure, thirty-four governorships, sixty-eight state legislative chambers, and unified government in twenty-five states. The institutional biases in a 50-50 country all work against the Democratic Party.
Primal Forces | Online Only | n+1
There’s a great photo of Jane Jacobs at a demonstration in Toronto, taken as she sidles up to the fencing surrounding a stretch of condemned row houses. The diminutive Jacobs, scarf wrapped close, cigarette dangling from her mouth, is moving in to grab hold of a fence panel and heft it out of the way. She’s one among a cluster of protestors gathered to turn back the bulldozers on that cold spring morning in 1973.
Why Hack? | Online Only | n+1
The most common refrain on the left about the DNC hacks is that there is not enough evidence to attribute them to Russia. This peculiar epistemology applies to Russia, and only to Russia. In recent years critics of the mainstream liberal line have expressed skepticism about the Russian government’s role in everything from the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 to the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine last year.
Is the American Party System About to Crack Up?
Scarcely a day goes by without political seismologists offering new evidence to suggest that the tectonic plates of American politics are on the verge of a profound and unsettling shift. Too much stress has built up along too many ideological and demographic fault lines for things to remain as they are. Will 2016 be the year of “the big one”—long feared by some, eagerly anticipated by others? Are we witnessing a fundamental realignment of political coalitions, perhaps even the birth of new parties?
Trump and the Republicans
In the 1950s, a more sedate time in American party politics, a piece of folk wisdom held that Republicans washed their laundry indoors while Democrats hung it all out on the line. No longer. Donald Trump’s Republican opponents deem him, nearly in the same breath, an avatar of dark forces—as if a party playing on racial fears for fifty years were some kind of innocent—and an apostate against true conservatism.
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