Former CNN host and failed Democrat congressional candidate John Avlon says Democrats have nobody to blame for a series of 2024 losses but themselves.
Avlon, who lost to incumbent Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) in New York’s First Congressional District race on Election Day, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday the party was weak on issues most important to Americans.
“They can’t be the default party of the status quo. I think that’s the most dangerous place to be. And I think right now they are seen that way,” Avlon told co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
“I kept thinking of one of my favorite quotes from Bill Clinton,” he began. “He said, ‘People will vote for strong and wrong every time.’ And I think the Democratic Party has a strength problem on the issues that matter most – personal safety and economic security. I think those are the fundamentals.”
Avlon suggested that Democrats were too focused on defense compared to aggressive GOP messaging and then were seen as the status quo. “Democrats got to get off defense and play offense,” he said, elsewhere noting that Republicans were able to appear more appealing.
Avlon also suggested that his party did not do enough to address the “civic decline” that Americans have been feeling. “But if people feel that that civic decline is going on, Democrats have to be taking that on and being the leaders of that reform, otherwise they’re gonna get caught up in a wave,” he said.
Later on in the segment, Scarborough pushed back, saying that the Democratic Party had to address other serious issues, like the “authoritarian” threat of the Republican Party and President-elect Donald Trump’s so-called “threats of retribution” to his political enemies.
Avlon, who repeatedly hammered Trump on such topics during his media tenure, admitted that those issues simply weren’t as “urgent” as the economy and border security.
“Look, I think life is a struggle between the urgent and the important. And I think for a lot of people the urgent issues they face are about affordability, right… and about feelings of personal safety.”
He continued, “And here’s where Democrats gotta get the big things right. If people don’t feel safe, if they don’t feel economically secure, everything else is secondary.”
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