Former Democratic Congressman Calls for ‘Rebranding’ of ‘Toxic’ Party

Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday, former Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan called for a “rebranding” of his party, which he said is “toxic in so many places.”

After Vice President Kamala Harris lost this year’s election to President-elect Donald Trump, Democrats found themselves in a period of reflection, with some questioning what has become of the party and how it led to the Democratic presidential nominee’s loss.

In a statement after the election, Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, wrote: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party that has failed the working class would find that the working class has failed them has let us down.” “

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed Sanders’ comments, saying that President Joe Biden “has been called the most pro-union president when it comes to the working class.”

Ryan, who represented Ohio’s 17th District from 2003 to 2013 and then its 13th District from 2013 to 2023, told the MSNBC hosts The weekend On Saturday morning, Democrats claimed they had failed to engage working-class Americans by bragging about how the Biden-Harris administration had supported them with legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, which cost nearly $53 billion US dollars invested in semiconductor manufacturing and research in the USA. He then called for a “complete reboot” of the party and called for a return to President Bill Clinton’s era of Democratic politics.

“They start with a complete restart. We need a rebrand. I think you and I have been talking about this since 2016,” said Ryan, who left his House seat to run a failed Senate campaign against now-Vice President-elect JD Vance in 2022 to host Michael Steele, the former Republican National chairman Committee (RNC).

In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, former U.S. secretary of state and wife of Bill Clinton, lost to Trump, a Republican real estate entrepreneur from New York who had just entered the political scene.

Ryan continued, “Our brand is toxic in so many places and people say, ‘You’re a Democrat?’ This is the stuff we get in Ohio. We need a complete reboot with the DNC.

“People want to trust us. They don’t want to go to Donald Trump. I’m telling you, the middle class people, they’re holding their noses to vote for him, but we haven’t given in.” Enough, we’re talking about American competitiveness. We are moderate on things like natural gas in Western Pennsylvania, which ended up being a big issue that we can’t represent as natural gas replaces coal Big fight with the crypto industry “Why are we fighting with crypto right now? We need to go back to bread-and-butter politics,” the former congressman said.

There have been disagreements among Democrats over how to handle the cryptocurrency industry. Some consider them innovative, others a source of fraud.

Newsweek The Democratic National Committee (DNC) requested comment via email and We The People, a group founded by Ryan that advocates for American unity, requested comment from Ryan via email on Saturday afternoon.

Ryan talked about how the Democratic Party has reverted to the idea that it is the party of the middle class. “White, black, brown, gay, straight, men, women, north, south. If you’re working class, the Democratic Party is for you,” he said.

“We have to take a pioneering role with the economy. We have to lead the way as we grow… It’s about getting back to the Bill Clinton campaign,” Ryan said.

Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 1992 focused on domestic policy, particularly increasing job growth. Democratic political strategist James Carville, who rose to national prominence during the 1992 Clinton campaign, famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

In a recent episode of his podcast Politics war roomCarville also criticized the Democratic Party, telling his co-host Al Hunt, a renowned journalist, “The damage that the 2024 campaign has done – the damage that this decade has done to a Democratic brand is almost incomprehensible.”

Update 11/30/24 5:28 PM ET: This article has been updated with additional information.