“Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.” — Harry Truman
Pondering the wreckage of the 2024 election, Trump had about the same number of votes he had in 2020 – no growth in support. But our side lost millions of voters relative to 2020.
Why is that? Is it racism and/or misogyny? The war in Gaza? While those things are likely a factor, something more important has been overlooked.
After the 2020 primaries, Joe Biden’s people huddled with Bernie Sanders’ people to identify areas of agreement. Those were the issues Biden campaigned on and won.
In 2024, Kamala Harris shared the stage with Liz Cheney. She wasted her time groveling for Republican votes that never materialized, demoralizing Progressives into staying home in droves.
Why has the Party of FDR lost its way?
When I was young, my father described the two major parties as Republicans standing for big business and rich people, and Democrats working for everyone else.
This was a time when a high school education was enough to get a good union job in a local factory, where the wages would be enough to own a home, pay the bills, send kids to college, and have enough left over to occasionally buy nice things and do something fun. And the owner of the factory was usually a member of the community who sponsored Little League teams and sent their kids to the local public schools.
But starting with Reagan, a wave of union-busting and corporate consolidation redirected America’s prosperity to the very top. With unions decimated, Democrats turned to Big Money to fund their campaigns.
We thought we elected Clinton to slam the brakes on Reaganism. But as a product of Big Money, all he did was to slightly ease off on the accelerator. We ended up with a series of trade deals that destroyed our industrial base and impoverished working people for decades.
Voters remember how things used to be. They recognize that they’re working harder than their parents did. But instead of getting ahead, they find themselves falling behind.
These should be our voters, and it should be easy to win them over. But we seem to be so careful not to offend billionaires and the mythical moderate Republicans that we’ve forgotten how to win over our natural allies.
Meanwhile, an authoritarian narcissist and convicted felon just won the election by talking about working class grievances. Of course, he’s not serious. It’s all empty words to con and grift his impoverished voters. Ironically, they will be among the first victims of his regime.
What is supposed to be the party of working people has been abandoned by working people. To get those voters back, we need to stand up and fight for their interests. We must reclaim our party’s position as champions of the working class.
It’s time to articulate an aggressive, inspiring and unapologetic vision of an America that shares its prosperity with all of us, includes a strong safety net and enables all people to grow to their full potential.
By realigning our party with Democratic values as articulated in FDR’s Second Bill of Rights and in Bernie Sanders’ platform (the two overlap a lot), we will not only win elections up and down the ballot nationwide, but we can also win the broad popular support to bring our vision to reality.