President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s policy pursuits are unpopular if approached piece by piece, but they’re ingested more willfully together because it fits a narrative. Almost no Americans support executive orders repealing price caps on medication, enabling the White House employees to become lobbyists or speed permitting dangerous oil drilling expansion to the detriment of Alaska. The toxicity of these and other orders is made palatable by a narrative that he and his team has crafted: SAFE. SECURITY. STRENGTH. REEMERGENCE. It’s understandable. Regardless of accuracy, that is the narrative.

The problem with the “opposition” is an absence of a clear narrative. The most popular office-holding politicians in the country are those who confidently support measures antithetical, such as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. Bernier Sanders.

Walz and Sanders are notable for their influence and focus most on actual financial gains for their constituents. But they are few. Other people with similar beliefs are not allowed into positions of leadership to enforce these more modern stances and are often financially bulldozed out of Congress due to contradictions with Bill Clinton–era holdovers of the democratic party, which occupies positions of leadership both formal and informal, such as Congressman Steny Hoyer (elected 1980), Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (1986), Sen. Patty Murray (1992) and Sen. Ron Wyden (U.S. Senate in 1996, first elected to the U.S. House in 1980)(7)(8). They believe their continued reelection is reflective of their depth and understanding. In reality, it’s simply an incumbency bias. My ageist, incumbency critique isn’t exclusive to Democrats (Mitch McConnell, R, U.S. Senate 1984; Chuck Grassley, R, U.S. Senate 1980). However, “Make America Great Again” is inherently a cry to the past, to the elderly. It’s relevant because despite the actual execution of this strategy endangering senior benefits, it still works. It’s a narrative. People will always pick a narrative they understand, over a narrative they don’t.

If the goal is to win, seek strategy and advice from people first elected more recently, as opposed to those whose starts in office predate DNA fingerprinting (1984), the “world wide web” (1989) and texting (1992).

To be consistent, Sen. Sanders (U.S. House 1990, U.S. Senate 2006) is also too old. However, he IS most popular of all mentioned, who are also too old. Sanders was the first non-Republican senator elected in Vermont since 1850. This was done without Super PACs, mega donors or being a registered Democrat. This was due to some name recognition and his constituents believing in him.

It is incorrect to believe there’s a need for non-Trump figures to become TrumpZero or Diet Trumps, office holders who provide a version of fatalistic deregulation and unmitigated harm but with more virtual signaling and hashtags. The biggest mistake of Congressman Jared Golden is he believes his reelection is vindication of posturing beside Trump. If anything, he should get his act together: He was barely reelected despite spending $7,600,000 against Austin Theriault’s $3,600,000. There was $11,000,000 spent by outside groups opposing Theriault. Despite this and Golden’s career in the public sector (military included, thank you for your service) being over seven times the years of Theriault, Golden won by less than 2,800 votes, failing to get enough votes in the first round. He has plenty of work to do if he wants to shore up support for any future ambitions, gubernatorial or otherwise.

If the other option for Americans wants to be a genuine “other option,” they need to be united behind a narrative. A way that the mechanism known as the Democratic Party could achieve this is banning PAC spending in party primary elections. This would ensure that figures and ideas with genuine grassroots popularity would have a chance to win, ensuring best outcomes. After all, the narrative that everyone wants most is a narrative with a happy ending.

Noah Robidoux, 27, grew up in Maine and is an alumnus of the University of Southern Maine and the University of Aberdeen. He has worked on political campaigns across multiple states since 2018. He currently lives in New York.