On a recent panel of progressive activists analyzing what went wrong in the 2024 election, the author, activist, and failed political candidate Qasim Rashid spoke with confidence about the way forward for the Democratic Party. The problem, he insisted, was not that Democrats had strayed too far from public opinion but that the party had grown too solicitous of it. “Saying the right thing timidly,” he proclaimed, “is less effective than saying the wrong thing loudly.”
Rashid’s argument was anything but timid, and it certainly played well in the Washington, D.C., room where the progressive donor network Way to Win was holding a confab called Persuasion 2025. Yet Rashid meant for this event to be more than just a pep talk among allies. His call for a confident, undiluted progressive platform is “how you see people flip red seats to blue,” he said.
Rashid’s track record as a candidate does not quite bear out this confident assessment. He has run for office three times, falling short every time. In 2020, he lost his race for Congress by 16 points in a district Joe Biden lost by four.
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