Why Democrats can't just be Obama restorationists

Trump might already be unpopular, but promising a return to the Obama years will be a recipe for disaster

Democrats need to look toward the future, not the past.
(Image credit: PEDRO SANTANA/AFP/Getty Images)

Saturday's massive protests were an important reminder of the breadth and depth of apprehension toward the new regime in Washington. Donald Trump comes into office as the least popular new president in memory, and the approval rating of the Republican Congress continues to fall to uncharted depths. If Barack Obama could be stopped in his tracks by a Tea Party rebellion almost immediately after a massive popular vote and Electoral College victory, surely the far more extensive and rapid mobilization against President Trump presages an even swifter and more massive repudiation?

It certainly could happen that way. But if the Democrats want to repeat or exceed the Republican resurgence, it behooves them to understand how it developed — so they can see what they would have to do to emulate it, and, if they can't, where they must take another path back to power.

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Noah Millman

Noah Millman is a screenwriter and filmmaker, a political columnist and a critic. From 2012 through 2017 he was a senior editor and featured blogger at The American Conservative. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Politico, USA Today, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Modern Age, First Things, and the Jewish Review of Books, among other publications. Noah lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.