For Democrats, Opportunities Abound

Has the American public taken a hard right turn? Does the election of U.S. President Donald Trump mean most Americans now oppose abortion rights, want their neighbors deported, and think climate change is a hoax? The answers are no, no, no, and no.

Yes, in 2024 Trump squeaked into the presidency by 1.5% of those who voted but he’s no more popular now than he was in 2020, when he lost to Joe Biden. Trump only won this time because 19 million Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 didn’t vote in 2024.

As Michael Podhorzer explained recently in his Weekend Reading Substack, the 2024 election was not a strong endorsement of Trump or MAGA; instead, it was a vote of no confidence in Democrats. Podhorzer is a well-known American political-data analyst and former political director of the AFL-CIO, the largest labor coalition in the U.S.

It seems obvious that, if Democrats actually improve the lives and livelihoods of the people who do all the work, they can once again become the majority party for decades into the future.

“The popular vote result was almost entirely a collapse in support for Harris and Democrats, not an increase in support for Trump and MAGA,” Podhorzer writes.

He continues, “A collapse in support for Democrats does not mean that most Americans, especially those in Blue America, are suddenly eager to live in an illiberal theocracy.” It’s that “Americans are fed up. This election wasn’t just a vote of no confidence in Democrats; it was yet another vote of no confidence in our entire political system,” Podhorzer writes.

Why Are Americans Fed up With Their Political System?

The political system is not delivering what Americans want most, which is economic stability: being able to afford a home, groceries, gas, car payments, healthcare, give the kids a decent start (daycare, education), save something for a rainy day, and maybe even take a short vacation every year or so. Instead, what they’re getting is mediocre wages and sky-high prices. Nearly three-quarters of workers feel their paycheck is too small for the quality or amount of work they do.

Measured against wages paid in past decades, today’s paychecks are pitifully small. During the three decades after World War II (1945-1975), as national wealth-per-person increased each year (measured as gross domestic product, or GDP, divided by total population), wages rose in lockstep. However, after 1978, wages grew more slowly than national wealth-per-person because big corporations and super-wealthy individuals started keeping a bigger share of the nation’s wealth for themselves, stiffing their workers. Economic inequality began to rise.

In 2020, a study by the Rand Corporation calculated all this in detail. In their study, Carter Price and Kathryn Edwards showed that, during the last 40 years (1978 to 2018), if workers’ wages had risen in lockstep with wealth-per-person (as they did during 1945-1975), each worker in the bottom 90% of wages would have earned an extra $1,144 per month, month after month, year after year, for a total of $13,728 additional wages each year for 40 years, or $549,120 total additional wages for each worker over the 40 years. For each worker. In all, over the past 40 years, the richest 1% of Americans have stolen $50 trillion dollars from the bottom 90%.

On top of that, for decades Democrats have championed education and job skills as their main solution for economic inequality instead of labor rights, union strength, minimum-wage laws, affordable housing, universal healthcare, taxing the super-rich, and, when all else fails, price controls.

Now half of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and 37% say they can’t pay their bills, which means they’re relying on credit, or they’re skipping meals, or they’re homeless. Meanwhile the people who dominate the Democratic Party—affluent, well-educated professionals and their wealthy backers—insist that the economy is doing great. They boast about job creation without mentioning the quality of the jobs. Republicans, on the other hand, say the economy is a disaster, which resonates with millions of people because prices are sky high and so are interest rates on credit cards, home loans, and car loans.

Rising prices hit low-income people hardest. Renters struggle with rising rents and scarce housing while many homeowners continue to enjoy a low interest rate that they locked in years ago. If you own a house and inflation drives up the price of houses, your net worth increases. In short, inflation worsens existing inequalities because those with the fewest resources get hit hardest.

If you usually buy artisan bread, you can downgrade to supermarket bread. But if you’re already buying supermarket bread, you have no choice but to pay more. Then, as more people buy the cheaper brands, those prices tend to rise.

If you’re in the professional class and you’re saving 15 or 20% of your income, you have a big hedge against inflation—a high-yield savings account or perhaps shares of an index fund that grows in lockstep with a basket of high-yield stocks. But if you’re a worker whose paycheck doesn’t keep pace with inflation, you’re probably going into debt to stay afloat.

Americans have a mountain of credit card debt—$1.2 trillion—and that total debt has risen 51% during the Biden presidency. The U.S. Supreme Court effectively deregulated credit cards in 1978, and interest rates have surged upward since then. The average annual interest rate on credit cards today is 21.5%. For new credit card offers, the average is 24.3%, which is what many young people are facing.

In sum, people with moderate or low incomes—especially young people—who rely on credit card debt are paying 20 to 25% more to meet basic needs, compared to wealthier people.

Republicans Benefit From Economic Stagnation and Decline

As New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall recently observed, “Electorally speaking,… Republicans profit from economic stagnation and decline.” Therefore, in a perverse way, it makes sense for Donald Trump and his billionaire supporters to oppose everything that actually improves people’s lives: collective bargaining rights; union strength; unemployment insurance; Social Security; Medicare; Medicaid; the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”); food stamps; cost-free public education (pre-k through trade school and college); access to broadband internet; decent, safe affordable housing; reproductive rights; anti-discrimination laws; limits on interest-rates for debt; affirmative action for the disadvantaged; environmental initiatives to restore the climate and protect the natural world; community policing and a fair justice system; strong civil rights protections; affordable medicines; anti-price-gouging laws; rent controls; a rock-solid right to vote; and more.

It seems obvious that, if Democrats actually improve the lives and livelihoods of the people who do all the work, they can once again become the majority party for decades into the future.

If history is any guide, by 2026 the public will become disillusioned with the MAGA billionaires and their followers, handing Democrats a huge opportunity.

For Democrats to win again, a good place to start might be an economic bill of rights—a modern version of President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 proposal: Everyone has a right to a job; an income adequate for food, shelter, and recreation; freedom from unfair competition and monopolies; decent housing; adequate medical care; social security; and education.

Solid Democrat control in Washington in 2028 could set the stage for expanding the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster in the Senate, eliminating the Electoral College, and getting “dark money” out of elections, to establish permanent majority rule for law and policy. This, then, could set the stage for the Mission for America, a massively ambitious program to end the climate emergency and, at the same time, create huge new wealth for the general public.

Because we face two major crises (the climate emergency and an economy that has failed so many people, which is empowering authoritarians) and because Republicans generally rely on economic decline to win elections, the path is open for Democrats to stand up for real economic reforms and win big in 2026 and 2028, and then to mold a decent future for the U.S. and the world. Of course, it will require new, young leaders to make it happen—and they are getting ready now.