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After the election the Review wrote to Joseph O’Neill, who over the last several years has proven to be a perceptive analyst of the Democrats’ sometimes inexplicable failures, to ask where the party had gone wrong and what to expect from a Donald Trump presidency. In the ensuing interview he was incisive about the vote—“nihilistic consumerism, as much as authoritarianism, prevailed”—and prescient about the new administration—“we can expect Elon Musk to be horribly prominent.”

Now, thirty-three days into the second Trump administration, seemed like a good time to follow up. “It’s been a shocking few weeks—an unprecedented spectacle of democratic implosion,” writes O’Neill today in the NYR Online. “No mature democracy, anywhere, has given up the rule of law for a ruler—until now…. The Democrats’ most urgent political goals must be to stop the Republican Party’s ongoing authoritarian takeover, vigorously organize for victory in next year’s midterm elections, and preserve and strengthen the party’s most formidable electoral weapon—its battle-hardened grassroots.”

Below, alongside O’Neill’s new interview, we have collected from our archives five of his essays about the Democrats.

Joseph O’Neill, interviewed by Daniel Drake
Authoritarian Blitz

The Republican Party’s attempts to suspend the rule of law can only be stopped if Democratic leaders show the moral clarity and political courage of a normal party of opposition.

Joseph O’Neill, interviewed by Daniel Drake
All Bets Are Off

“If one thing will guarantee excess years of dictatorship, it would be fracturing the antifascist opposition into squabbling factions. Republicans and their allies in social media will do everything they can to divide the left. The responsibility is on all of us, and the Democratic Party in particular, to ensure that this doesn’t happen. In practice this will mean listening and deferring to the concerns and values of the base, whose grassroots efforts prevented the Democrats from suffering a collapse in the Senate and House.”

—November 9, 2024

Joseph O’Neill
Embracing Defeat

Faced with a coordinated right-wing legal assault, the Democratic Party has responded with a passivity that borders on surrender.

—April 23, 2023

Joseph O’Neill
Save the Party, Save the World

Somewhat unexpectedly, ensuring the success of the Democratic Party has become the most important political project in the world.

—August 20, 2020

Joseph O’Neill
Brand New Dems?

Democrats are terrible at “messaging.” It’s time to fix that.

—May 28, 2020

Joseph O’Neill
No More Nice Dems

We live in a two-party system in which one party poses existential threats to our democracy and the habitability of the planet.

—December 19, 2019

For everything else we’ve been publishing, visit the Review’s website. And let us know what you think: send your comments to editor@nybooks.com; we do write back.

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