They're going to have to tack back to the center, hard.

Maybe, but that's not even the important ting

What Democrats have to have is a big important issue that most of the public agrees with them on. Not just the substance of the issue, but the importance of the issue.

The GOP successfully did that with a few big issues: immigration border enforcement, law and order/crime (always a favorite of theirs), and pushing back on the most unpopular versions of DEI. They found popular issues (the 80/20 issues) and elevated their saliency.

Yes, it helped that the GOP moved towards the center, hard, by Trump all-but-abandoning their abortion absolutism (he genuinely doesn't seem to care much, and neither does RFK Jr.) and the desire to obliterate the popular social safety net (Trump genuinely doesn't seem to care about shrinking the popular SS and Medicaid entitlement programs as a political objective). But what's brought them electoral success was being able to promote other things as being the most important thing.

That's part of Trump's political skill - setting the agenda to be on issues he wants it to be about, even if the press is negative, rather than the stuff he doesn't. All these headlines about the excesses of ICE, critical opinion pieces on the National Guard? They're awesome for him, because it hammers home over and over again that he's the guy that wants to fight illegal immigration and crime. And even if people don't like the way he's doing it, it means the conversation is on the ground he wants it to be on.