“What the Democrats are not saying is how they propose to fix what was wrong with the system Trump is destroying. I won’t repeat the numbers here. But the richest country on Earth is also one of the most unequal, unhealthy, and unhappy countries on Earth—probably half the nation is again ‘ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed,’ to quote FDR. Is it any wonder many people are fed up? Is it any wonder they grasp at straws? The most radical proposal I have heard from the establishment Democrats is to shut the government down. In other words, the best they can come up with is what the Republicans have been demanding for years. Shoot me now!” —Professor Mike Merrill, Rutgers University, February 2025
Democrats and the Left are terrified of the threat to democracy posed by the Trump administration and by his assault on needed government programs. But so far, the public doesn’t seem to care all that much.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval rating is at 49%, three points higher than his disapproval rating, (according to fivethirtyeight.com). Former President Joe Biden’s end of term approval rating was only 37%.
Build a worker political movement outside the Democratic Party—a movement, an association, an organization by and for working people.
Flailing away at every perceived Trump transgression isn’t working any better now than it did during the Harris campaign. The Center for Working Class Politics demonstrated that focusing on Trump and the threat to democracy was the least effective message for Pennsylvania voters, while a bold populist message was the strongest. Which supports Merrill’s point—voters, especially working-class voters, want proposals “to fix what was wrong with the system Trump is destroying.”
But aren’t working people the problem? Aren’t they getting what they really want? A dictator to own the libs? An enforcer to put America first? An attacker of DEI, transgender people, and criminal immigrants who bedevil the country? Don’t they really crave a sexist, racist leader willing to play footsie with authoritarians the world over? Isn’t this just another populist uprising, like others which have historically been threats to democracy and liberty?
That’s not what we’ve found in the hundreds of day-long Reversing Runaway Inequality workshops we’ve conducted for working-class union members. (See curriculum here.) We ask, during these sessions, rather than tell, and we listen to what the participants say.
After spending much of the workshop day reviewing materials on the economy and having small group discussions about the causes of rising inequality, the participants are asked:
“What would the world look like if we were able to reverse runaway inequality? How is your vision different from the world we live in today?”
The trainers then give each small group a piece of easel paper and some markers and ask them to create a map or drawing of what a community would look like in a world without runaway inequality. After they finish the drawings each group in turn goes to the front of the room and describes their vision.
In workshop after workshop, workers all along the blue-red political spectrum come up with joyful expressions of the world they want. When shared with the class, applause always breaks out, eyes water, there’s hope bursting out all over the room. (Full disclosure: At first, I thought this exercise would be hokey. But my colleagues, thankfully, ignored me. I was wrong.)
While every picture is different, the common elements are predictable. The groups want job security, better pay, vacation time, responsive institutions, reliable and affordable healthcare, and a safe environment. The drawings represent a party platform of ideas supported by the working class across party lines.
Here’s my version of what a working-class agenda would include:
- Increasing the minimum wage to a livable wage, providing paid family leave, and giving four weeks paid vacation for all workers.
- Protecting jobs by prohibiting large corporations that receive taxpayer money and tax breaks from laying off taxpayers involuntarily or without adequate compensation.
- Guaranteeing the right to a job at a living wage, which if the private sector doesn’t provide the public sector must.
- Stopping drug company price-gouging and ending health insurance company rip-offs by replacing them with Medicare for All.
Why isn’t the Democratic Party vigorously supporting these kinds of policies? They certainly fall within the Roosevelt and Truman agendas and are akin to the Freedom Budget developed by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin in 1966. Full employment legislation was once a cause celeb for the Democrats. Not any longer. Why is that?
Today, far too many Democrats are no longer interested in radically changing the institutions that are reproducing rising inequality and job insecurity. They support a system that has served them well. Change would require more than messaging and branding. It would require going after Wall Street and large corporations through much tougher regulations, higher taxes on the wealthy, price controls on price gougers, ending stock buybacks, and more.
Many Democrats also believe that the pendulum will swing their way without major changes. The inevitable rise of the knowledge economy, pushed forward by AI, means that more and more educated workers will replace those without degrees, they think. As those more educated voters flock to the Democrats, the party will gain an electoral advantage. So best to stay the course and not panic!
That’s not exactly an inspirational call to working people. As educated voters turn to the Dems, workers and business owners without degrees have turned to the Republicans. At some point progressive Democrats and the Left need to face up to reality. Trump winning twice is not an accident. It’s the result of the abject failure of a left political strategy that ignores financial reform and attempts to nudge the Democratic Party forward based more on identity than class.
What should we do?
We should do what working-class activists have done for the last 150 years. Build a worker political movement outside the Democratic Party—a movement, an association, an organization by and for working people.
That’s a tall order and will require a great deal of debate, discussion, and planning. It will require dozens of pilot programs to find a model that can scale up. It will require most of all a belief and commitment to the idea that something new needs to be built. Working people are desperate for a political voice independent from the two major parties.
The alternative is more of the same: resist, resist, resist, while, in effect, defending the elite establishment that so many voters detest.
If that’s all we do, don’t be surprised if Trump’s wrecking ball makes him even more popular.
If we do have the courage to face up to our strategic failures, we may become as hopeful as the workers who share their depictions of a fair and just society.
