Semi-better deal

Democratic Party leaders call their new plan “A Better Deal,” which sounds like something our deal-maker-in-chief might offer. The party’s loss to Donald Trump, the most unpopular and least qualified candidate to have ascended to the presidency, remains a deeply defining failure. Perhaps the Democrats, unable to beat Trump, have decided to join him by adopting his simplistic brand of rhetoric and promises.

Because Hillary Clinton fixated on her rival at the expense of presenting a compelling competing vision, Democrats should take pains to avoid repeating the mistake in the agenda unveiled this week by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. While Trump was a political blank slate last year, making a referendum on him all but impossible, he now has a record that Democrats would be foolish not to run against in the 2018 midterm.

“A Better Deal” also strives to unite the leftist and centrist factions represented by Clinton’s bruising primary contest with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, oscillating between Bernieesque frustration with a “rigged” system and Clintonian jargon such as “build an economy that gives every American the tools to succeed in the 21st century.” Populist vows to create 10 million jobs, spend $1 trillion on infrastructure and break up corporate monopolies mix with incremental policy prescriptions such as boosting apprenticeships and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

The party’s efforts to curb internecine warfare and speak to voters’ concerns are fine, as far as they go, but much of Clinton’s difficulty stemmed from her embodiment of a disdained establishment. One lesson of 2016 was that Democrats could not defeat Trump simply by accentuating his deficiencies. The challenge for the Democrats is to show a clear path that goes beyond sloganeering and convinces stressed Americans that they have a transformative, not incremental, agenda. “A Better Deal” needs significantly more definition if it is to succeed.