Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
For years, we’ve been told the Democratic Party is split between its left and center factions. The idealists and the pragmatists. The progressives and the moderates. But that framework no longer captures the moment we’re in—if it ever did.
The more urgent—and more defining—divide is between those who still believe our system basically works, and those who see plainly that it doesn’t.
Some Democrats think our institutions just need better management. That with the right leadership, our democracy will hold. But many Americans—especially younger voters, working-class families and people whose communities have been left behind—aren’t feeling like the system works for them. And they’re right. It doesn’t.
For decades, places like Indianapolis have been left behind. The rich get richer, and the working class gets smaller and smaller slices of the pie. And every year, government is less effective at doing its basic job of making people’s lives better. Now, Trump’s and Musk’s gutting of our institutions has made things far worse, but it’s plain to see that things weren’t working well before they marched in.
That means Democrats face a choice: Do we keep chasing a playbook that assumes the system still works? Or do we confront the reality that we’re now fighting to build something that works at all?
We need a party that’s willing to fight for the future, not manage the decline. That starts with leaders who understand what we’re up against—and who are ready to build a government that’s capable, honest and felt in people’s daily lives.
That doesn’t mean tearing everything down. But it does mean getting serious about what’s broken. It means creating new systems—not just restoring old ones—that give people agency, safety and the tools to shape their own future. That’s not radical. That’s the only path forward.
This fight is already underway. It’s in cities and towns experimenting with how to deliver public goods better. It’s in communities organizing where government has fallen short. It’s in a generation of Americans who believe in public service but aren’t interested in inheriting someone else’s broken blueprint.
They’re not waiting for permission. They’re stepping in.
The Democratic Party has a choice to make: Does it belong to those clinging to institutions that are falling apart? Or to those rolling up their sleeves to build something stronger, fairer and more durable than what came before?
The institutions we relied on are not going to fix themselves. The people who broke them are not going to fix them. If we want democracy to survive, we have to fight for it. And not just to protect what was—but to deliver what’s possible.
Because if we don’t, others will keep tearing it down.
And they’re not slowing down.•
Editor’s note: Hornedo’s Forefront column will be suspended while he’s a candidate in the Democratic primary for Indiana’s 7th Congressional District.
__________
Hornedo is an attorney, national political strategist and the founder of Next Gen Hoosiers. Send comments to [email protected].
Click here for more Forefront columns.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
This column brought to you by AI. This candidate brought to you by AIPAC.