Since President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance earlier this month prompted frantic whispering among concerned Democratic Party leaders in Washington, some Democrats have also quietly reached out to the leaders of a group that just months ago they viewed as an enemy and a threat to democracy. 

The centrist advocacy organization No Labels earned the ire of Democrats for coming close to fielding a third-party candidate in this year’s presidential election, which the group pursued  while arguing that Americans aren’t happy with their choices in Biden and former President Donald Trump. 

While they didn’t follow through on the effort, No Labels’ leaders feel vindicated by what they’re seeing now, as they hear from some Democrats who are telling them they were right, and that maybe another option would’ve been useful right about now. No Labels’ top strategists even feel a touch of schadenfreude. Mostly, though, what they feel is fury.

“There are people on the Democratic side who have convinced themselves that Trump is so bad, that anything they do, in their mind, to stop him, the means always justify the ends, except here’s the problem: The things they’re doing are gonna put him back in the White House,” No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy told Jewish Insider in an impassioned interview last week, a day before the assassination attempt on Trump’s life at a rally in western Pennsylvania. 

“These are the pro-democracy people, or that’s what they say publicly. It’s a joke. They’re not pro-democracy. In a lot of ways I think they own this moment. I really think they do, because they thought they knew better,” Clancy, a former Democratic speechwriter and strategist, explained. “They didn’t trust voters to decide. Look, if they would’ve let the process unfold, maybe at the end of the process, Joe Biden would’ve emerged at the top. If they did, then it would have been legitimate.”

No Labels was created in 2010 by Nancy Jacobson, a former Democratic Party fundraiser, to promote bipartisanship in Congress. The group spent upwards of $70 million over the past two years exploring the possibility of mounting a third-party candidate in the presidential race, a “unity ticket” that No Labels’ backers said would appeal to voters that said in polling they are tired of both Trump and Biden. 

But after unsuccessfully approaching 30 potential candidates — and after facing a concerted opposition campaign that included the likes of former President Bill Clinton and former Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain — the organization announced in April that it would give up on its goal. Most of the opposition came from Democrats who feared that a moderate third-party candidate would hurt Biden and help Trump. 

Reflecting on all of this last week, Jacobson said she feels “sad for the country.”

“There’s a great sadness that we knew this two and a half years ago, that the public wanted different choices,” she said. Had No Labels put forward a candidate, “I think that person would have been on that stage that night at the debate, and I think that would have been a galvanizing and unifying moment for the country.”

Jacobson said the group will now double down on its congressional work, “focused on the courageous leaders that want to govern responsibly going forward,” she said. “The one thing we won’t do is stop trying to figure out how to bring the leaders together and solve problems, and we may just have to try another strategy.”

But the group’s brand has been diluted among Democrats, many of whom were fiercely opposed to No Labels’ third-party bid. Jacobson called those opponents “thugs.” 

“They made it so that it would be toxic to your life if you did anything to affiliate here,” he said. “I think this will be an opening. I mean, I’m sorry that this idea had to collapse because of it. But  there’s going to be new awareness. It’s time for reform, and you cannot have thugs intimidating and harassing people in this country.”

Clancy, who was briefly a speechwriter for Biden, then the vice president, during the 2010 midterm elections, hammered the left, accusing Democrats of a turn toward illiberalism that he said they deny — while Trump supporters, he said, are at least open about it.

“The ultra-MAGA people, they’re just really out front about it. They’re just over the top and beyond the pale and they wear it with pride. But a lot of people on the left do the same thing,” Clancy argued. “But the difference is publicly it’s high-minded talk about democracy, and then secretly behind the scenes, they’re doing exactly the same stuff.”

Since Biden’s debate performance led Democrats to question whether they should try to replace him in the weeks before the party’s convention next month, No Labels has “gotten tons of correspondence from people who said, ‘I finally understood what you were trying to do,’” Jacobson told JI. “What was interesting is [that] the most progressive people from across the country are in communication with us. So it’s stunning.”