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Stand With Working People and They Will Stand With You
Let's be very clear: the Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of working class America and became the defenders of a rigged economic and political system.
Nov 12, 2024
The results of the 2024 election have confirmed a reality that is too frequently denied by Democratic Party leaders and strategists: The American working class is angry — and for good reason.
They want to know why the very rich are getting much richer, and the CEOs of major corporations make almost 300 times more than their average employees, while weekly wages remain stagnant and 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
They want to know why corporate profits soar while companies shut down factories in America and move to low-wage countries.
They want to know why the food industry enjoys record breaking profits, while they can’t afford their grocery bills.
They want to know why they can’t afford to go to a doctor or pay for their prescription drugs, and worry about going bankrupt if they end up in a hospital.
Donald Trump won this election because he tapped into that anger.
In the past few years we have made some positive changes. We must acknowledge, however, that what we’ve done is nowhere near enough.
Did he address any of these serious issues in a thoughtful or meaningful way? Absolutely not.
What he did do was divert the festering anger in our country at a greedy and out-of-touch corporate elite into a politics that served his political goals and will end up further enriching his fellow billionaires.
Trump’s “genius” is his ability to divide the working class so that tens of millions of Americans will reject solidarity with their fellow workers and pave the way for huge tax breaks for the very rich and large corporations.
While Trump did talk about capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent, and a new trade policy with China, his fundamental explanation as to why the working class was struggling was that millions of illegal immigrants have invaded America and that we are now an “occupied country.”
In his pathologically dishonest world, undocumented immigrants are illegally participating in our elections and voting for Democrats. They are creating massive amounts of crime, driving wages down, and taking our jobs. They are getting free health care and other benefits that are denied to American citizens. They are even eating our pets.
That explanation is grossly racist, cruel, and fallacious. But it is an explanation.
And what do the Democrats have to say about the crises facing working families? What is their full-throated explanation, pounded away day after day in the media, in the halls of Congress, and in town meetings throughout the country as to why tens of millions of workers, in the richest country on earth, are struggling to put food on the table or pay the rent? Where is the deeply felt outrage that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care for all as a human right while insurance and drug companies make huge profits?
How do they explain supporting billions of dollars in military aid to the right-wing extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has created an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza that is causing massive malnutrition and starvation for thousands of children?
In my view, the Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of working class America and became the defenders of a rigged economic and political system.
This election was largely about class and change and the Democrats, in both cases, were often on the wrong side. As Jimmy Williams Jr., the president of the Painters Union, said, “The Democratic Party has continued to fail to prioritize a strong, working-class message that addresses issues that really matter to workers. The party did not make a positive case for why workers should vote for them, only that they were not Donald Trump. That’s not good enough anymore!”
As an Independent member of the US Senate, I caucus with the Democrats. In that capacity I have been proud to work with President Biden on one of the most ambitious pro-worker agendas in modern history.
We passed the American Rescue Plan to pull us out of the COVID-19 economic downturn; made historic investments in rebuilding our infrastructure and in transforming our energy system; began the process of rebuilding our manufacturing base; lowered the cost of prescription drugs and forgave student debt for five million Americans. Biden promised to be the most progressive president since FDR and, on domestic issues, he kept his word.
But, unlike FDR, these achievements are almost never discussed within the context of a grossly unfair economy that continues to fail ordinary Americans. Yes. In the past few years we have made some positive changes. We must acknowledge, however, that what we’ve done is nowhere near enough.
In 1936, in his second inaugural address, FDR spoke not only of his administration’s enormous achievements in combatting the Great Depression, but of the painful economic realities that millions of Americans were still experiencing.
The Democratic leadership must recognize that, in a rapidly changing economy, working families face an enormous amount of economic pain, anxiety and hopelessness — and they want change. The status quo is not working for them.
Roosevelt’s words remain relevant today: “I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day … I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children … I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”
Of course, the world is today profoundly different than it was in 1936. We are not in an economic depression. Unemployment is relatively low. People are not facing starvation.
But the Democratic leadership must recognize that, in a rapidly changing economy, working families face an enormous amount of economic pain, anxiety and hopelessness — and they want change. The status quo is not working for them.
In politics you can’t fight something with nothing. The Democratic Party needs to determine which side it is on in the great economic struggle of our times, and it needs to provide a clear vision as to what it stands for. Either you stand with the powerful oligarchy of our country, or you stand with the working class. You can’t represent both.
While Democrats will be in the minority in the Senate and (probably) the House in the new Congress, they will still have the opportunity to bring forth a strong legislative agenda that addresses the needs of working families.
Either you stand with the powerful oligarchy of our country, or you stand with the working class. You can’t represent both.
If Republicans choose to vote those bills down, the American working class will learn quickly enough as to which party represents them, and which party represents corporate greed.
In my view, here are some of the working class priorities that Democrats must fight for:
- We must end Citizens United and stop billionaires from buying elections.
- We must raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage to a living wage — at least $17 an hour.
- We must pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act to make it easier for workers to form unions and end illegal union busting.
- We must protect senior citizens by increasing Social Security benefits and extending the solvency of the program by lifting the cap on taxable income.
- We must bring back defined benefit pension plans so that workers can retire with security.
- We must do what every other wealthy nation does and guarantee health care to all as a human right, beginning with the expansion of Medicare to cover home health care, dental, hearing, and vision.
- We must cut prescription drug prices in half, no more than is paid in other countries.
- We must provide guaranteed paid family and medical leave.
- We must guarantee equal pay for equal work.
- We must create fair trade policies that work for workers, not just corporate CEOs.
- We must build 3 million units of low income and affordable housing.
- We must make public colleges and universities tuition free, childcare affordable for all, and strengthen public education by paying teachers the salaries they deserve.
- We must adopt a progressive tax system which addresses the massive income and wealth inequality we are experiencing by demanding that the very wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes.
- We must save taxpayer dollars by ending the massive waste, fraud and abuse that exists in the Pentagon.
These are extremely popular ideas. The Democratic Party would do well to listen to the clear directive of American voters, and deliver. The simple fact is: if you stand with working people, they will stand with you. In my view, if Democrats deliver on an agenda like this, they can win back the working class of our country and the White House.
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Why Democrats Lose Even When Republicans Are So Endlessly Terrible
In large part the campaign reflected the direction the Democratic Party establishment has taken, away from working class issues since the advent of neoliberal policies in the 1970s and carried out by most Democratic Party presidents since.
Nov 07, 2024
Amid the postmortems and reckoning that will now follow the wreckage of Donald Trump’s return to “absolute” power, as authorized by the Supreme Court, there are a two notes in particular that deserve a deeper dive.
First. In Missouri, a state Trump won by 58 percent, voters also acted to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and to require employers to provide paid sick leave to workers. Proposition A was backed by unions and workers’ advocacy groups, social justice and civil rights organizations, and even over 500 state business owners despite the opposition of the Chamber of Commerce, the big corporate lobby wing.
“We’ve shown the rest of the world, the rest of the country, that regardless of what’s going on outside of our state, we’re able to come together and win,” said Terrence Wise of Stand Up KC, a coalition of low wage workers. “We felt that we have the power as everyday Missourians to come together and make our lives better.”
In Nebraska, another red state won by Trump, voters also passed a paid sick leave measure, Initiative 436, by 75 percent. Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans and other supporters noted that 250,000 Nebraskans were working full-time without paid sick days, especially in restaurants and other service jobs, construction, manufacturing, warehousing, retail, educational support, and transportation.
“These are old school Democratic Party policy proposals that Republicans have actively voted against in DC, but are hugely popular. Harris barely campaigned on them—despite progressives begging her to. Voters were clearly looking for solutions to their economic angst and agreed with Democrats on these policies, even if not associating those policies with Harris and her party,” ABC News correspondent MaryAlice Parks said in a social media post.
Second. In the multitude of exit poll results, one particularly stands out—94 percent of registered Republicans voted for Trump, the exact same percentage he received in 2020. The heavy campaign focus on pulling away Republican voters from Trump turned out to be a pipe dream.
The old cliché “it’s the economy stupid,” triumphed again. It was the major issue for many Joe Biden voters in 2020 who Vice President Kamala Harris lost in 2024.
Much has been written and said about Latino voters, but the Washington Post assessment seems right: Seven in 10 Latino voters nationally rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” and a narrow majority supported Trump. Four in 10 Latino voters termed the economy their top issue, and those chose Trump by a 2-to-1 margin.
Another demographic that should cause concern are the youngest voters. Again from the Post analysis: Though voters under 30 supported Harris by 13 points, in 2020, Biden won that age group by a 24-point margin.
Some of those were certainly disaffected by the Biden/Harris administration’s disastrous support for Israel’s horrific war and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. But there are many indications that many more were discouraged by an economy of relentless high prices the past four years and by the difficulty in finding living-wage jobs.
The Biden administration passed important legislation to tackle inflation and high prices, and it made laudable efforts to reduce student and medical debt despite the unified Republican opposition and conservative courts. Yet, the pain of struggling families, including many young people across the country, persisted.
After Biden’s calamitous debate with Trump in late June, he unveiled an expansive progressive campaign platform on multiple issues influenced by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Squad members, the Progressive Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus. It included multiple proposals to end medical debt and other dramatic reforms.
“To win the election, the president … needs to … fight for a bold agenda that speaks to the needs of the vast majority of our people — the working families of this country, the people who have been left behind for far too long,” Sanders wrote in a New York Timesop-ed on July 13.
Harris embraced much of that agenda and she expanded it with innovative ideas to call for a national ban on corporate price gouging on grocery and other food costs, expanded child tax and new born credits, subsidies for new home buyers, and more.
She could have done more, such as aligning with proposed progressive reforms such as those passed by voters in Missouri, Nebraska and other states, and highlighting the vital work of Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan in attacking corporate abuses. Instead, much of the critical final weeks was focused by the campaign’s appeals to Republican voters and the emphasis on demonizing Trump.
In large part the campaign reflected the direction the Democratic Party establishment has taken, away from working class issues since the advent of neoliberal policies in the 1970s and carried out by most Democratic Party presidents since.
In a Guardian column after Trump’s victory in 2016, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich made trenchant observations about the Democratic Party shift, aptly headlined “Democrats once represented the working class. Not any more.”
Reich wrote:
What has happened in America should not be seen as a victory for hatefulness over decency. It is more accurately understood as a repudiation of the American power structure.
Recent economic indicators may be up, but those indicators don’t reflect the insecurity most Americans continue to feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience. Nor do the major indicators show the linkages many Americans see between wealth and power, stagnant or declining real wages, soaring CEO pay, and the undermining of democracy by big money.
The Democratic party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused instead on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.
Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security.
The power structure is shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election because it has cut itself off from the lives of most Americans. Perhaps it also doesn’t wish to understand, because that would mean acknowledging its role in enabling the presidency of Donald Trump.”
It's now 2024 and very soon it will be 2025. The working people of this country can't wait a moment longer for Democrats to learn the lesson progressives have been screaming for decades.
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State Victories Against Inequality to Celebrate Despite Bleak Election Day
Any near-term policy progress will have to start at the city and state levels and work its way up to the federal level. Three progressive tax victories from last night are an encouraging sign.
Nov 06, 2024
If you’ve ever questioned whether our country has an inequality problem, this election should provide all the evidence you need. As billionaires used their financial firepower to throw support their preferred candidates’ way, Americans who’ve been left behind took out their frustrations at the ballot box.
How do we get started on this next chapter in the fight to reverse extreme inequality? With Senate Republicans still short of a filibuster-proof supermajority, next year’s debate over the expiration of the Trump tax cuts could still present one opportunity.
But it’s also likely that any near-term policy progress will have to start at the city and state levels and work its way up to the federal level. Three progressive tax victories from last night are an encouraging sign.
In addition to these fair tax victories, I’m heartened by the passage of pro-worker reforms in several “red” states last night—in sharp contrast to the positions of their Republican representatives in the U.S. Congress.
Washington state’s Initiative 2109 was the most important tax-related ballot measure of the year. Hedge fund executive Brian Heywood bankrolled this campaign, hoping to repeal the state’s innovative capital gains tax on high earners.
With 62% of votes counted, the rollback proposal went down in a 63-37% landslide.
“This victory shows that advocacy in support of creating a more equitable tax code works,” Melinda Young-Flynn, communications director at the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, told Inequality.org.
“So many groups and individuals—including business owners, labor unions, teachers, racial justice advocates, parents, lawmakers, and many more—have worked together for more than a decade to help the public at large in our state make the connection between commonsense progressive taxes and the very real needs of our communities.”
Introduced in 2022, Washington state’s path-breaking policy imposes a 7% excise tax on capital gains from the sale of stocks, bonds, and other assets that exceed $250,000 per year (excluding real estate sales). Who makes that much from their financial investments? Fewer than 1% of the state’s richest resident.
Prior to the introduction of this tax in 2022, Washington’s wealthy had flourished under a state constitution that prohibits income tax. The capital gains tax does an end-run around that ban and the state supreme court has ruled it constitutional.
In its first two years, the capital gains levy has raised $1.3 billion for investments in childcare and early learning, public schools, and school construction.
“The people of Washington have sent a clear message,” says Young-Flynn. “The well-being of kids takes precedence over tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. All those of us who care about economic justice know it’s well past time to stop giving the ultra-wealthy a special deal in the tax code at the expense of everyone else.”
Washington state voters also beat back an effort to allow employees to opt out of a new payroll tax for long-term care insurance if they waive the benefit of that state-operated program. If this measure had passed, it likely would’ve rendered the insurance program financially unviable. Fortunately, voters rejected the proposal by a 55-45% margin.
In Illinois, voters expressed support for an extra 3% tax on income of over $1 million, with revenue going to property tax relief. With 89% of votes counted, Illinois voters approved the ballot measure by an 89-11% margin. While this measure is nonbinding, organizers hope this victory will stoke efforts to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2026 to authorize the new tax on the rich.
In addition to these fair tax victories, I’m heartened by the passage of pro-worker reforms in several “red” states last night—in sharp contrast to the positions of their Republican representatives in the U.S. Congress. Voters in Nebraska, Missouri, and Alaska approved guaranteed paid leave and Missouri and Alaska also passed state minimum wage hikes.
A friend just wrote to me with this message: “A tree outside my window is nearly bare. Perhaps it is an image of our national life this morning. We have a choice: to focus on the bare branches or to appreciate the colorful leaves.”
These state victories against the scourge of inequality are some of the colorful leaves I’m appreciating today.
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