By Randy Myers
American politics is running on emotion and momentum more than consensus, and the disappearing middle is forcing both parties to define themselves by how they fight, says Amie Parnes, senior White House correspondent at The Hill and co-author of several political bestsellers. Speaking at the 2025 SVIA Fall Forum to an audience that thinks about volatility every day, Parnes argued that politics now feels similarly “roller-coaster”—a system that rewards taking sides and punishes moderation. As one source told her, “there’s a hunger for moderation but we live in an environment that forces you to take a side.”
Parnes set the stage by contrasting how the Republican and Democratic parties responded to the 2024 election and its aftermath. Among Democrats, doubts about the viability of their presidential nominee simmered privately until a debate performance brought them public. She described the immediate, near-panic response among lawmakers, donors, and strategists who flooded her phone with messages the same night, and the deeper frustration that few had raised those concerns sooner. The episode, she said, made visible an internal rift that had been developing for years—what former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo later labeled a “civil war” inside the party.
Republicans, by contrast, consolidated around a single leader and message. Parnes’ view, based on interviews across the GOP, is that the party’s campaign operation has become clearer and more disciplined about the economy, connecting everyday price pressures to a simple narrative.
“This was an election about the economy and nothing else,” she said, emphasizing that the GOP’s advantage came less from detailed policy and more from acknowledging what voters felt in their wallets. That stark messaging edge, she added, has often left Democrats “running a very old playbook” while Republicans use newer channels to amplify their case.
Parnes linked that messaging gap to the budget standoff that shut down the federal government beginning October 1. Democrats, she said, believe they finally have a tangible, voter-facing argument in refusing to vote for a budget until Republicans agree to help hold down health-care premiums, and want to be seen “fighting with purpose,” not merely resisting. Democratic operatives view standing firm as an effort to rebuild credibility with disillusioned voters. Republicans, meanwhile, are leaning into a unified counter-message and using every available media lever to frame the stalemate to their advantage. For both parties, the shutdown is as much a narrative contest as it is a policy dispute.
The discussion repeatedly returned to the electorate’s appetite for steadier leadership. Parnes said she hears broad frustration with Congress and a perception that power has migrated to the executive branch and to statehouses. This dynamic, she suggested, elevates governors who can point to concrete results. She cited California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois’s J.B. Pritzker as examples of Democrats using gubernatorial platforms to define their brand—moves that could matter in a wide-open 2028 Democratic primary should they choose to run for president. She said disenchantment among Democratic donors is starting to thaw as they see the Trump administration moving, in their view, “too far, too fast,” spurring renewed giving despite lingering anger over 2024.
In the question-and-answer portion of Parnes’ talk, attendees pressed her on what today’s party coalitions might look like two years from now. Among Democrats, she described a genuine split over direction and messenger—whether the future runs through a progressive standard-bearer such as U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York or through moderates who can recapture blue-collar voters who once backed Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Some strategists tell her, bluntly, that the party must go back to the center to win nationally; others argue the energy and fundraising strength lie on the left. That unresolved debate, she said, is why figures such as Newsom or Maryland Governor Wes Moore draw interest: each claims a theory of how to speak beyond the base.
On the Republican side, questions focused on how a second Trump term could shape the next political cycle. Parnes said even loyal Republicans acknowledge potential risks if the White House “overplays its hand,” especially on domestic deployments of the military and aggressive executive action. Early polling around the shutdown suggests voters tend to hold the party in power responsible, she noted, though she cautioned against firm predictions. She also flagged “palace-intrigue” storylines to watch, including how Trump’s relationships evolve with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as signals of where influence is moving inside the GOP.
Trade and tariffs drew sustained interest. Parnes said many in both parties now assume higher effective tariff rates are here to stay, though she hears concerns—on the right and the left—that recent moves may have gone too far. She avoided predictions but underscored that tariff politics now cut across traditional party lines, with figures like former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio poised to champion tariffs even as others in the party remain cautious.
Attendees also asked whether an outside candidate could emerge on the Democratic side. Parnes has explored that possibility in her reporting and has spoken with figures like businessman and television personality Mark Cuban, but she currently sees the party gravitating toward a more conventional profile in the near term. If anything, she anticipates a large primary field rather than a single disruptor, reflecting both the ideological split and the absence of a universally accepted leader in the post-2024 landscape.
If there was a single conviction Parnes offered, it was that most Americans—regardless of party—still want government to function and leaders to listen. She encouraged audiences to read and watch across the spectrum, noting that the country’s inability to listen to one another is part of why moderation struggles to take root. The assassination of prominent conservative media figure Charlie Kirk, she said, should have been an inflection point for both sides to “take a beat and touch grass,” in the words of Republican Gov. Spencer J. Cox of Utah, but the moment passed quickly and “you’re just seeing the fists on both sides rise higher.”
Ultimately, Parnes said, voters want clarity, leadership, and—often—moderation, yet the current system rewards sharper edges and louder voices. Whether that tension resolves, and which coalition learns to speak beyond its base first, will frame the political backdrop for the next several years.
The current big battle in Washington, Parnes concluded, “isn’t about a shutdown, which is what we’re seeing play out right now, or a primary calendar, or a set of poll numbers. It’s about what kind of country voters want to live in, and who can credibly fight for that version of America. The 2024 election is obviously behind us, but the fight for message, for meaning, for power is just beginning. And in politics, I’ve learned, the fight never really ends. It just moves to the next round.”