What now? A discussion on the way forward for the Democrats.

• Position: Democratic party - Panel Discussion

In the aftermath--and there's no better word for it--of the election, Democrats all over the country fell into despair-ridden support-group-like conversations with their friends about what had happened and what to do next. We gathered some of ours last month in a conference room at the Kaiser Family Foundation. They were: E.J. Dionne, columnist for The Washington Post; Ed Kilgore, policy director of the Democratic Leadership Council; James Pinkerton, fellow at the New America Foundation, Newsday columnist, and FOX News contributor; Walter Shapiro, USA Today political columnist and Washington Monthly contributing editor; Michael Tomasky; executive editor of The American Prospect; and the Monthly's own editor in chief, Paul Glastris, and editor, Amy Sullivan.

What do Democrats want?

GLASTRIS: What do Democrats want? Aside from universal health care, it seems the only thing Democrats publicly talk about is an agenda for not losing the things they already have--the right to choose, Medicare, Social Security, regulations already on the books. The New Deal, which built up the modern government we have now, stopped working for Democrats politically and arguably stopped advancing things for the country in many ways. I believe that under Bill Clinton, we saw the makings of something new. I haven't seen it since.

We know, I think the public knows, what the Republicans would do when they have the power. I don't think we know what the Democrats want to do next other than defend what they already have. Am I wrong?

KILGORE: Democratic members of Congress who are treated like serfs right now--even before this election--think of themselves as a shadow government that is waiting to get back in and return to business as usual. That's why Paul's question is so important. If we can't make it clear what we would do, and we're not really willing to challenge government itself, then what does it mean to be a progressive anymore?

DIONNE: If you go back to the progressive tradition, broadly speaking, the GI Bill was as nearly perfect an idea as progressives have come up with because it combined responsibility with help for Americans to rise up in our society. It encouraged service and also said that people who are at the bottom of our society can rise up with a little bit of help, notably to go to college, to buy homes. It seems the GI Bill model, which Clinton talked about at times, is still the best model to unite values with affirmative government on behalf of the people who are trying to rise up.

GLASTRIS: What the Democrats would never say, but I think the smarter ones believe is: We want to more the country somewhat closer to the social safety net you have in Canada and Europe, but to do it in American fashion. Which means being more focused and more market-oriented, but where these extra added programs and benefits don't suppress innovation, don't suppress the urge to take risks, don't suppress the work ethic. Public policy over the last 30 years has gotten very good at crafting these policies that don't have these negative effects. Europe socialized too early. In America, we've always had a reactionary, conservative drag on our progressivism, so we didn't go that far. And God bless us, because we first had to figure out how to create a social safety net that is also consonant with American values--things like welfare reform, which offered a lot of incentives to get off welfare. I think that's what Democrats ought to talk about.

SHAPIRO: Perhaps the Democrats' problem is that there are multiple Democratic parties, and they don't really cohere: There is the party of cultural tolerance, the party of gay marriage, the party of protecting a woman's right to choose. There is the anti-war party. There is the party of economic justice that wants to bring better health care to all Americans and enact a more progressive tax system. And there is the status quo Democratic Party that Paul alluded to. The problem right now is that the Democrats stand for a lot, but those values may be somewhat in contradiction to one another.

GLASTRIS: Why shouldn't the Democrats become the party of federalism and smoke out the truth about how federal tax dollars flow from blue to red states? We could say, "Look, for years Washington has pushed mandates on states without paying for those mandates; the president did that with No Child Left Behind. We don't mind federal leadership, but states are underfunded. We're going to deliver back to the states half of all federal tax revenues that are not for Social Security and defense." Or we could run as the party that opposes political gerrymandering. Can one think of 10 or 20 of those things and even if we...