Rahm Emanuel has a message for Democrats. But are they ready to listen?

Rahm Emanuel has a habit of being right about things Democrats do not want to hear. As Bill Clinton‘s senior policy adviser, as Barack Obama‘s chief of staff, as mayor of Chicago, he operated with a bluntness that made him enemies in both parties. So when he sat down on the Reason podcast “The Fifth Column” recently and delivered a withering autopsy of his own party, it was worth taking seriously — even accounting for the fact that he is almost certainly laying groundwork for a 2028 presidential run and has every incentive to position himself as the adult in a room full of children.

Because the diagnosis, whatever its source, is correct.

The party, Emanuel argued, “lost the plot.” It traded economic populism for cultural advocacy, chased the faculty lounge while losing the kitchen table, and accomplished the remarkable feat of making Donald Trump, a twice-impeached, felony-convicted candidate who promised tariffs,