SUPERMAJORITY

To win a supermajority, Democrats must learn to respect the variousness of the American people.

Casting himself as a pragmatic centrist, Jentleson (Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy, 2021), the former chief of staff of Senator John Fetterman, has much advice to give on how Democrats might again obtain a supermajority of electoral votes (the magic number is 370). The last Democratic president to win by such a landslide was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. When campaigning for public office, today’s Democrats should, argues Jentleson, rethink their advocacy for progressive causes (especially identity politics) and stop listening to interest groups, such as the ACLU. In chapters laced with personal anecdotes, he insists that most American voters are “heterodox” and, unlike the college-educated minority, care about multiple issues rather than ideological purity. “To build a supermajority,” he writes, “Democrats must embrace the variousness of the American people.” The author offers surprising praise for President Trump, whose hyperbolic campaign style he endorses as a form of deliberate “telling it like it is.” (Note: Trump did not win a supermajority in 2016 or 2024.) The book’s second part unfolds a detailed history of past presidents who were proudly heterodox, especially Franklin D. Roosevelt and Johnson. Whatever reforms these two presidents were able to advance—in LBJ’s case, the list is particularly impressive, ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to voting rights—happened because they didn’t shy away from embracing conservative positions, such as tax cuts. Much of Jentleson’s argument is familiar, though some readers might enjoy the history lessons in the book’s second part. But the political landscape—thanks also to rampant misinformation during presidential campaigns—has changed since the days of LBJ’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering. It is unclear to whom Jentleson addresses himself, other than precisely the college-educated voters he recommends the Democrats should forsake.

A pragmatist’s plea for the importance of ideological heterodoxy in Democratic politics.