By Lisa McCormick
The 2028 Democratic presidential election must be more than a referendum on Donald Trump’s malignant, neo-fascist MAGA agenda. Repudiating authoritarianism is necessary but not sufficient. America must do better — far better — than the field of likely contenders currently being assembled, or it will not only be our democracy that suffers. The whole world will endure devastating consequences.
The party’s emerging field of plausible presidential candidates is a tragedy of low ambition — and that disaster will not stay home. It will fester. It will travel. It will multiply. And the world will endure the consequences.
None of These Contenders Stopped Donald Trump
Let us be clear: not one of the dozens of prominent politicians and public figures currently described as potential candidates for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination has demonstrated the will or the capacity to confront the existential threat that Donald Trump represented.
Trump became president twice, the second time after he overtly committed serious crimes — from obstruction of justice to suborning treason in a failed coup attempt. In an extraordinary display of institutional ineptitude, Democrats in positions of power failed to administer justice. Not one of the often-named contenders prodded President Joe Biden or Attorney General Merrick Garland on this cataclysmic inadequacy.
The men and women now positioning themselves as the party’s future were present during this catastrophic failure. They did not stop it. There is no compelling progressive case for rewarding that record of failure with a nomination for the presidency.
None of Them Is Free from Corrupt Influence
Every serious contender in the current Democratic field is, to varying degrees, compromised by their associations with the malevolent economic forces that are destroying our democracy and threatening the habitability of our planet.
They take money from billionaires. They take money from corporations, from munitions dealers, from cryptocurrency scammers, from banksters, from insurance racketeers, and from the full spectrum of concentrated wealth that has systematically undermined the public interest for half a century.
They also support other establishment Democrats whose campaign finance reports look like a ledger of bribes and whose record in office is pleasing to plutocratic parasites.
A candidate cannot serve the people while being funded by those who profit from the people’s suffering. This is not cynicism — it is arithmetic—it is capitalism—it is common sense. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and all these candidates have been dancing around the fundamental issues that separate the predators from their prey.
None Has a Serious Economic Vision
Five decades of Trickle-Down Reaganomics have hollowed out the American middle class, concentrated wealth at the very top, and left tens of millions of working people struggling to survive in the wealthiest nation in human history.
Not one of the likely Democratic contenders has put forward a comprehensive economic agenda that would meaningfully reverse this tide.
Democrats must arrive in 2028 with an assertive, unambiguous plan to make the economy work for working people — to tax the rich, break up concentrated wealth, and provide for the common wealth.
During the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the top marginal income tax rate was 91%. This top rate applied to the highest income tax bracket for individuals earning over $400,000 annually, the 1953 equivalent to roughly $4.5 million today. Based on data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), about 50,000 Americans report an adjusted gross income of more than $5 million in any given year.
In 1953, the U.S. economy was thriving, with the Gross National Product rising by 5½%, unemployment at about 2½%, and the Federal Reserve setting the prime rate at 3.25%. Since 1986, the highest top federal individual income tax rate has been 39.6%, the U.S. prime rate has reached is 8½%, and unemployment hit an unprecedented 14.7%!
According to the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Reserve Economic Data, half of all American adults with reported income, or an estimated 70 million people, earned less than $45,000 in 2024. The top one-tenth of one percent of income earners make more than that each week.
Half-measures and centrist incrementalism are not answers to a structural crisis that leaves voters with less power than ever. They are a form of surrender.
The Doomsday Clock Is Not a Metaphor
Scientists have advanced the Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight — the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe. That number is not a political talking point. It is the considered judgment of some of the world’s most eminent scientists and security experts. It reflects the convergence of urgent existential threats: nuclear war, climate collapse, biological pandemics, and the unknown harm of emerging technologies. Timidity in the face of extinction is not a governing philosophy.
The Club of Rome stated, “In the 21st century, these risks are not only increasing in frequency and intensity, but are also interacting and reinforcing one another, creating complex and escalating nexuses that pose significant challenges to global security.”
2028 Must Be a Turning Point
As citizens, we have both the right and the responsibility to demand more.
The 2028 Democratic presidential election must be made into a genuine turning point for America — not a managed retreat, not a restoration of the pre-Trump status quo, and not a coronation of those who failed us before.
As one who received the support of almost 4 in 10 voters and still lost a challenge to a criminal in New Jersey’s 2018 Democratic primary for US Senate, I can attest that our freedom has been eroded at the same time our wealth has been stolen and our survival threatened, the Democratic Party requires much more than politics as usual.
We need candidates who are genuinely free from corporate capture, who support a bold and specific economic program for working people, who take the existential threats of our age seriously, and who can speak honestly about the scale of the transformation required to stop Trump, fix our economy, and save the world.
Anything less than a transformation that divorces politics from the plutocratic parasites, stops Trump, fixes our economy, and saves the world is not a Democratic victory. It is a borrowed breath; a stay of execution disguised as triumph. The world is watching as our time is running out, but so far, not one Democratic presidential contender measures up.
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