How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism:

Popularists argue that candidates who want to win elections need to focus relentlessly on what polls well and abandon what doesn’t. The claim is not that progressive policies are bad on the merits, though popularists do sometimes criticize them on this basis. The claim is that too many voters are turned off by progressive ideas and rhetoric, dooming Democrats’ chances to win office and pursue any agenda to the left of the GOP. Popularism’s strategic imperative is thus framed as a hardheaded corrective to progressive idealism.

This approach to politics is not new. The technical term is political pandering, and it is as old as democracy itself. Thucydides derided the Athenian demagogue Cleon as a leader guided not by wisdom but by whatever drew the assembly’s loudest applause. Political theorists have long treated Cleon as a warning: when leaders stop leading and instead mirror the crowd, democratic institutions decay. Popularism cloaks this same impulse in empiricism. The roar of the crowd has been replaced by polling data, but the emptiness remains. Worse, Cleon’s pandering at least stirred the crowd. The moderation that popularists recommend dampens enthusiasm, demobilizes or even alienates the base, and cedes the affective terrain to opponents who are happy to rile people up.

... the popularist fixation on polls undermines the movement energy required to confront authoritarian threats. Popularists see voters as fixed points—or at least extremely rigid ones—instead of as agents whose preferences can be mobilized and transformed. But in moments of democratic crisis, politics is a search for the right movement, not the right maneuver. Playing defense forfeits the moral clarity and collective purpose that have sustained successful anti-authoritarian movements worldwide.

Moderation used to help candidates in past decades, but in the Trump era, a candidate’s ideological moderation has no consistent, measurable effect on their vote share. Moderation as a strategy hit its ceiling in 2024. With moderates already dominating the battlefield in every competitive district, the potential gains from moving further to the center were exhausted.

The strategic question isn’t just how to appeal to the median voter, but how to build an electorate that generates a median voter favorable to your goals. So the popularist focus on persuading a small number of swing voters is misplaced: that focus may dampen turnout and shift the median voter to the right.

... our own research finds that progressive candidates are slightly more effective at mobilizing their base and increasing turnout among registered Democrats.

... voters who appear moderate often hold a mix of extreme positions rather than consistently centrist ones: confiscate billionaire wealth, for example, but also ban abortion. There is no coherent “center” to triangulate toward, and a candidate who tries may end up pleasing no one.

... the median voter theorem may underestimate the role of political leadership in the current environment. The Trump era is full of examples of voters seeking a leader who “tells it like it is.” These voters want authenticity and disruption, not careful ideological positioning. An appeal to moderation may completely miss the mark with voters who want a candidate who projects strength and a willingness to challenge the system.

... researchers have found, strategies that “accommodate” right-wing positions “lead to more voters defecting to the radical right.” Democrats who chase moderate Republicans by adopting their frames risk the same outcome.

The median voter theorem made sense in an era of stable coalitions, low polarization, and localized elections. That era is over. Democrats need strategies built for this new reality.

The most effective opposition in a polarized society doesn’t try to win a few converts on an entrenched battlefield; it redraws the map entirely. Successful anti-authoritarian movements do not win by softening their positions. They win by building unlikely coalitions around a broadly resonant grievance.

One promising possibility is to focus on corruption. Anti-corruption has been a powerful axis of political mobilization throughout history and across democracies. It is not a poll-tested “issue” like health care or immigration; it is a frame that reorganizes politics around a fundamental question of legitimacy.

The popularist strategy pours resources into chasing a dwindling number of swing voters while neglecting the millions of disengaged citizens who power its victories. A policy-based appeal that proposes incremental changes to a status quo that many see as fundamentally unfair and corrupt is not enough to overcome the deep-seated cynicism that keeps many voters home. More promising is to mobilize people who believe the system is rigged with a credible promise to un-rig it. A genuine anti-corruption fight provides the moral clarity and purpose needed to energize the base, young voters, and even disillusioned conservatives disgusted by a system they believe has been captured by special interests. It answers the fundamental strategic question not of how to appeal to the median voter, but of how to create a new, mobilized electorate by giving them a cause larger than any single candidate.