Here in Trumpistan (nee America), there’s a debate roiling about the strategic future of the Democratic Party that has lately come into sharp relief at the polls in state and local elections throughout the country. Before a travelogue to read the political tea leaves, a note about the larger trend it all reveals.

In the past, I’ve defined the divide, both in Philly and, now, inside the Democratic Party, as Progressives versus Reformers. You can also call it the Activists versus the Nerds. Every time you see bestselling co-authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on TV arguing for their Abundance Agenda? Them’s Team Nerd. AOC and Bernie packing ’em in at middle American town squares? The Activists.

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The debate boils down to this, in the words of Liberal Patriot writer John Halpin: “Should the Democratic Party’s focus be directed at populist agitation against the ‘financial oligarchy’ and promote cross-ideological policies to tax the rich and take down big tech, big banks, and big health care as the anti-monopolists argue? Or should the party focus on the wholesale clean out of bad regulations and cumbersome bureaucracy that needlessly mucks up the building of new housing, energy infrastructure, transportation, and other important industrial policies as the abundance people desire?”

Of course, the reasonable response ought to be: A bit of both, actually. If Dems are smart, they’ll cleverly synthesize both strains of thought into a coherent electoral and governing strategy. (Hah! Good one, I know.) What the country needs, after all, is not more grievance-driven politics, as so many on the intersectional left practice, responding to Trump like Trump. That’s playing on Dear Leader’s home turf. Instead, what’s called for is a populism without racism and a liberalism without elitism. And, most of all, a practical progressivism that, as New York City frontrunner mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo said on Bari Weiss’ podcast this week, “delivers a product for the working people of New York.”

Recent election results, including this week, would suggest the momentum just might be with the Nerds, though Philly might still be an outlier. Elsewhere, there’s ample evidence that the performative progressive moment may be waning, as we’ll see. Turns out, voters just might be more interested in the type of outcomes Cuomo has based his campaign on, where his closest competitor is a 33-year-old socialist who wants a $30 minimum wage, government-owned and run grocery stores, and free public transit. Once again, a New York mayoral race may be a national bellwether, irrespective of how you feel about Cuomo: Do voters want utopian sloganeering when democracy is under assault? Or do they want the blocking and tackling of competent governance?

Philly as outlier?

Here, this week’s results might indicate we’re bucking the return of good government. First, there was Larry Krasner’s reelection. Yes, Krasner calls himself a reformer, but it’s a little hard to see how that is when he stands shoulder-to-shoulder on the podium with former Representative and convicted felon Movita Johnson-Harrell and Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, whose reign of ethical transgressions shock the conscience even for Philly. Krasner’s opponent, former Municipal Court Judge Pat Dugan, talked more about actual governmental reform — reviving Dawn’s Court and other diversion programs, embedding prosecutors into neighborhoods — yet media coverage often referred to him as the “law and order” candidate.

What’s called for is a populism without racism and a liberalism without elitism. And, most of all, a practical progressivism.

In the end, not even the Building Trades’ ground game or Mayor Parker’s neutrality — the Mayor’s ward did not endorse an incumbent of her same party — could get Dugan close. Perhaps that’s not surprising in such a low turnout election; seriously, Philly? 17 percent?

In retrospect, perhaps the prospect of low turnout paired with a movement candidate who has an excited, if politically anachronistic, base foreordained Krasner’s reelection. Despite Parker’s lack of enthusiasm for the DA, the success she and Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel have had in making Philly safer actually helped Krasner. If the murder and shooting rates hadn’t come down so precipitously on their watch, the DA might have suffered the same fate as so many other progressive prosecutors across the nation who have been turned out by voters fed up with crime, disorder and incompetence.

Our most troubling result

The most troubling result in this primary once again centered around how Philly elects its judges. While some truly qualified candidates ended up winning, the ballot consisted of far too many candidates deemed unqualified by both the State Bar Association and the Philadelphia Bar — two and four, respectively. Two of the latter — Sherrie Cohen and Cortez Patton — won the Democratic nominations for Municipal Court Judge. Bob Brady’s machine slate swept the Common Pleas Court elections, with all Bar-recommended candidates. But even Brady, shrugging off low turnout, admitted to The Inquirer: “They [voters] don’t get juiced up with the judges, half don’t know who they are.”

It’s not just that we have so many candidates not recommended by the Bar Association. We also have a self-proclaimed reformer DA actually endorsing judicial candidates. Krasner went so far as to endorse Taniesha Henry for Common Pleas Judge, a candidate not even endorsed by the machine or recommended by the Bar. She lost, but think of it: Only in Philly do you qualify as a reformer when you endorse judicial candidates before whom your office will be arguing cases.

You can never fully take politics out of judicial elections, but a survey conducted by The National Judicial College found that 63 percent of 1,000 judges polled felt that judicial integrity was better served by appointments to the bench, rather than standing for election. Maybe it’s time to consider something like the Missouri Plan, which was enacted in 1940 to quell the abuses of the Pendergast political machine. To be fair, Pendergast produced Harry Truman, so the machine wasn’t all bad.

Pittsburgh’s Corey O’Connor pledged to “deliver a police force that is large enough to support our residents … enough housing so that anyone can afford to live here and support businesses of all sizes so that we can grow and create wealth all over our city.”

But judges were hand-picked by Boss Pendergast, not the people. The Missouri Plan reform features a nonpartisan commission to review candidates and provide the governor a list of those it deems qualified. The governor chooses from that list and after the completion of one year on the bench, the judge stands in a retention election at the next general election. It’s merit-based, nonpartisan, and citizen-engaged. Pennsylvania is one of the few remaining states still electing judges, who seek campaign contributions from lawyers who will later come before them. That’s why Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts agitates for a merit selection system, called “Merit Not Money.”

Ain’t nothing but a nerd party

Meantime, elsewhere, the story this week and in other recent elections is the revenge of the Nerds. Good government, abundance-minded reformers won office in droves. In Scranton, Mayor Paige Cognetti, a frequent guest of our How To Really Run a City podcast, coasted to a primary win. It’s no surprise that Cognetti counts our former Mayor Michael Nutter as a mentor. She has governed from the pro-growth, fiscally responsible center as a reformer in a long corrupt town. Her “Paige Against the Machine” campaign has now won three elections in six years.

In Pittsburgh, incumbent progressive Mayor Ed Gainey was turned out by Corey O’Connor, the son of a beloved former mayor who died in office in 2006 after just months on the job. Gainey just couldn’t seem to make government work; in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette piece, Ruth Ann Dailey devastatingly details his administration’s “corruption, incompetence, folly.” Moreover, there were disturbing reports that Gainey had essentially turned his office over to the SEIU Healthcare union, which, according to CBS News, “chaired his election campaign, gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions and have taken key positions on his staff. SEIU has enlisted the mayor in its campaign to unionize UPMC.”

O’Connor had been Allegheny County Controller and served on Council, and his message was, by contrast, decidedly pro-growth and abundance-minded. He pledged to “deliver a police force that is large enough to support our residents … enough housing so that anyone can afford to live here and support businesses of all sizes so that we can grow and create wealth all over our city.”

In cities, at least, nonpartisan practical problem-solvers are still in vogue, as in Fort Worth, Texas, where Republican Mattie Parker cruised to reelection earlier this month. Hear Parker on How To Really Run a City walk Mayors Nutter and Reed through how she turned Fort Worth into the nation’s fastest-growing city. Parker proves that what I like to call Outcomes Progressivism need not know a particular party, especially at the local level.

The same holds for her Texas colleague, African American Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, who ran for reelection two years ago, won with 98 percent of the vote, and promptly switched his party affiliation to Republican. Yet his “Back to Basics” agenda still has bipartisan appeal: He has lowered property taxes and crime, created an economic development corporation, lured companies to relocate to his city, redone the convention center, resurfaced streets and streamlined permitting.

Good government, abundance-minded reformers won office in droves.

Or how about Cincinnati, where charismatic incumbent Mayor Aftab Pureval will face J.D. Vance’s MAGA half-brother Cory Bowman in the November election? Pureval is the city’s first Asian American mayor and the first person of Tibetan heritage to be elected to high political office in the nation. He’s all about growth, having publicly led a push to poach the Sundance Film Festival from Park City, Utah. Cincinnati is now one of three finalists to land the $1.2 billion in economic impact over 10 years.

Finally, if you’re looking for a roadmap for how to take on Trumpism, look no further than Omaha, Nebraska, where last week Democrat John Ewing, Jr., an African American former deputy police chief, upset 12-year Republican incumbent Mayor Jean Stothert. While her ads labeled the former cop a “radical” and claimed he supports “men in girls’ bathrooms and sports,” Ewing talked about hiring more cops, creating more jobs, and filling potholes.

All these cases are green shoots of encouragement, as is what we’re seeing on the gubernatorial front, where the popularity of candidates like New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill and Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger — both military vets, both bipartisan rising stars — shows that when voters think you’re on their side, they just might cut through all the noise.

So many of these candidates — Rs as well as Ds — prove that the politics of grievance and scarcity can be taken on if you actually Make Government Work Again. This is particularly appropriate right now, when Trump and his lackeys are purposely trying to strangle government in its bathtub, or whatever that old disturbing Grover Norquist quote was.

Might there be something happening? Philly may still be an outlier — much will depend on what Mayor Parker can get done around an abundant housing policy and on economic growth — but cities are often the canary in the polity coal mine. Yes, the news out of D.C. is chaotic, unsettling, and even threatening to the Rule of Law. But maybe, just maybe, the catchphrase of our late founding chairman, Jeremy Nowak, can still make a comeback: The future belongs to the problem-solvers.

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