Politics

The false narrative at the heart of Trump’s victory over Harris

Published

1 year ago

November 11, 2024

The false narrative at the heart of Trump’s victory over Harris

Since Tuesday night’s election results were tallied, there has been a recurrent refrain as to why Democrats lost so badly — they ignored the working class, both white and nonwhite.

In what amounted to the proverbial act of coming down to the battlefield and shooting the survivors, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., labeled the Kamala Harris campaign “disastrous” and said Democrats should not be surprised that “a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

There are a couple of problems with Sanders’ argument. The most obvious and glaring is that it simply isn’t true that Democrats abandoned the working class.

It simply isn’t true that Democrats abandoned the working class.

During his nearly four years in office, President Joe Biden was arguably the most pro-union president since FDR. He literally walked a picket line, supported union organizing efforts, increased funding for the National Labor Relations Board. He infused $36 billion into the Teamsters Union pension plan (an act that Sanders praised).

Biden’s attention to the working class went far beyond the symbolic. The Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act all led to a fertile job creation environment — and a significant increase in manufacturing jobs, which declined during Donald Trump’s presidency. (It bears noting that all of this legislation passed in the U.S. Senate with the support of the senior senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders.)

Indeed, since Biden took office, the U.S. economy has added more than 16 million jobs — which starkly contrasts Trump’s negative job growth rate. As for wages, the working class saw a higher increase in their pay than any other group of Americans, so much so that it undid one-third of the growth in wage inequality since 1980.

During Biden’s administration, subsidies for Obamacare grew. He forgave billions in student loan debt, much of which went to community college students. His Department of Labor changed overtime eligibility rules, boosting wages for more than 4 million workers and also increased pay for construction workers on federal projects.

Critics like Sanders would likely argue that these successes weren’t messaged properly to working-class Americans. That’s not true either. As the New Republic’s Greg Sargent pointed out earlier this week, the Harris campaign poured $200 million into ads that focused on her economic message. In fact, she outspent the Trump campaign by around $70 million on ads about the economy.

What was the content of these ads? Calls to end corporate price gouging, lower housing costs, cut middle-class taxes and protect Social Security and Medicare. Other Harris ads accused Trump of only looking out for his billionaire pals and corporations and attacked him for enacting tax cuts that were primarily directed at the wealthiest Americans.

This is the definition of an economic populist message.

Critics like Sanders would likely argue that these successes weren’t messaged properly to working-class Americans. That’s not true either.

Yet, Biden’s record and the disparity in the two candidates’ economic messages didn’t increase the party’s support among working-class voters (which are defined here as those without a college degree). Arguably, it improved Harris’ margins in swing states where these ads predominately ran, but according to preliminary exit polls, Trump won them by 14 percentage points over Harris (56%-42%), a 6-point improvement over his performance in 2020.

Harris only did one point worse than Biden among white working-class voters, but she was still mired in the low 30s with them. Instead, her losses came among the nonwhite working class, a group with which she did 16 points worse than Biden — and 26 points worse than Hillary Clinton.

In short, under Biden, Democrats adopted one of the most pro-working class policy agendas in recent political memory, enacted much of it — and accrued no electoral benefit.

As for Trump, his main economic agenda item was a pledge to increase tariffs, which by increasing costs on imported items, would have disproportionately harmed low-wage workers. Did he have a plan for lowering housing or dealing with health care? What about lowering inflation?

What Trump essentially offered the working class were attacks on undocumented immigrants, which his campaign blamed for much of the nation’s ills.

As in 2016, Trump served as a political voice channeling the fears, cultural grievances and resentments of working-class Americans — and, as has been the case for much of the past 60 years for Republicans, it worked.

Of course, it’s not just Trump. The GOP’s attention to the white working class is overwhelmingly symbolic. They offer nothing substantive on policy. They oppose expanding health care access or raising the minimum wage.

During Trump’s tenure in office, his major legislative accomplishments were a tax cut for the wealthy and the further tilting of the economic playing field in favor of corporations and not workers. While some working-class voters drifted away from him in 2020, he easily won them back in 2024 (and of course, won the majority of such voters in both elections). None of his policy positions mattered much at all.

During Trump’s tenure in office, his major accomplishments were a tax cut for the wealthy and further tilting the economic playing field in favor of corporations, not workers.

Take, for example, what happened in Missouri on Election Day. Voters in the Show Me State didn’t just narrowly support a referendum enshrining a right to abortion in the state constitution by a 58%-42% margin, they backed a ballot measure raising the minimum wage and requiring employers to provide paid sick leave. Yet, at the same time, only 40% of the state’s voters cast a ballot for Harris, who, unlike Trump, supports both policy initiatives.

Democrats are a party of “doing stuff” with an electorate utterly indifferent to the stuff they do.

As Larry Mishel, former president of Economic Policy institute, who has written extensively on politics and the working class, said, there is a glaring lack of connection between material reality, even material gains, and recognition or appreciation for such gains. “Partisanship shapes perceptions. There is simply a disconnect between policy, outcomes, and political rewards.”

Is there a path for Democrats to reverse their declining support with the working class? The short and depressing answer is that they likely can’t.

Appeals to the working class might have worked for Democrats when the Republican presidential nominee was a blue blood like Mitt Romney or even a creature of Washington like George H.W. Bush or Bob Dole. But when facing off against a racist demagogue like Trump, it’s a nearly insurmountable challenge.

Moreover, the Democrats’ political coalition is liberal and overwhelmingly Black (even with the inroads Trump made on Tuesday), which only compounds the challenge. The party can’t run against undocumented immigrants or retreat on cultural issues like guns, LGBTQ and civil rights, or abortion, which are such powerful political drivers among the working class.

In 1992, Bill Clinton could get away with naked appeals to white voters, like when he attacked the rapper Sister Souljah. Back then, the Democratic Party was around 80 percent white. Today, the number is closer to 56 percent.

Quite simply, the Democratic coalition as presently constructed doesn’t allow for the kind of political appeal that might (but probably wouldn’t) win back the working class.

Indeed, when I recently asked a red state Democrat what the national party would need to do to win over working-class Republicans, he joked, “Firebomb an abortion clinic.” The cultural divide is so intense — and Republicans are so hostile toward the left — that it’s hard to see any reasonable way for Democrats to bridge it.

If there is any path for Democrats to return to national power, it might be in doubling down on what produced such significant political gains for the party in 2018, 2020 and 2022 — college-educated suburban voters. At the same time, they need to find ways to arrest their slide with minority voters. Or considering the fact that the last four presidential elections have gone Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican —which hasn’t happened in America since the late 19th century — maybe they should just wait for an inevitable anti-Trump backlash.

But if Democrats think they can win back the loyalty of the working class, they likely should think again.

Michael A. Cohen

Michael A. Cohen is a columnist for BLN and a Senior Fellow and co-director of the Afghanistan Assumptions Project at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He writes the political newsletter Truth and Consequences. He has been a columnist at The Boston Globe, The Guardian and Foreign Policy, and he is the author of three books, the most recent being “Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans.”

Politics

Inside the DNC’s Middle East (not) working group

Published

3 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

After the Democratic National Committee punted on two resolutions in August that highlighted the party’s deep divide on Israel, DNC Chair Ken Martin convened a task force “to have the conversation” and “bring solutions back to our party.”

Seven months later, the Middle East working group — meeting today in-person for the second time — still has work to do.

The group, composed of eight DNC members with backgrounds in Jewish and Palestinian advocacy, has struggled to meet consistently or coalesce around shared objectives. Part of that is due to the difficulties of coordinating across schedules and time zones, with at least one member actively running for office. But atop those hurdles come the challenges of productive discourse about one of the party’s most contentious debates among a cohort with sharp ideological divides.

“People aren’t comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Steph Newton, a DNC member from Oregon who’s part of the working group, told Blue Light News. “These uncomfortable discussions are how we’re going to be able to move the party forward and find a solution.”

The working group met for the first time in December at the DNC’s winter meeting in Los Angeles, and convened virtually two more times, on March 1 and March 18. Those meetings mostly centered on figuring out what the group should be working on in the first place. “Most of the time, what we’ve talked about is, ‘What are we supposed to be doing?’” said James Zogby, another member from D.C.

The working group comes as divides over support for Israel remain a persistent liability for Democrats, and as AIPAC’s involvement in midterm primaries presents a new purity test for candidates. “No one gets anywhere by trying to shout the other side of the room — as a matter of fact, I think that would be harmful politics,” Andrew Lachman, another working group member from California, said.

A DNC spokesperson emphasized the group’s goal is to figure out how to talk to voters about the Middle East in a way that ultimately helps the party build coalitions and win elections.

The group’s inaction so far came into sharper focus yesterday at the DNC’s spring meeting in New Orleans, when the party’s resolutions committee considered one brought by Joe Salas, another member of the working group from California, to recognize Palestinian statehood.

“It is necessary for the Democratic National Committee to address the ongoing heinous and illegal acts against the Palestinian people. Some here may say that there is a working group. To that, I say that we are in a midterm year and they are yet to produce any results in a moment where anger has only grown amongst the American people,” said Cameron Landon, VP of the College Democrats of America, who spoke on behalf of Salas.

Salas, who wasn’t at the meeting, submitted the resolution without discussing it with the other members of the Middle East working group, according to Zogby and Newton, who said she was “surprised” to see it in the resolutions packet.

“I would assume that if we’re on a work group together discussing these issues, you say, ‘Hey, work group members, teammates, I want to submit a resolution on X, Y and Z. I know we’re working toward something like this together. Is this something that we can discuss?’” Newton said.

Deborah Cunningham-Skurnik, another member of the group from California, told the resolutions panel yesterday that there were “some parts of it I would like to go bit by bit over with” Salas.

Salas said in an interview ahead of the vote he wouldn’t attend the New Orleans meeting because “I’m just gonna let them have those words and reject them, accept them, modify them, whatever they want to do.” He didn’t respond to further requests for comment about why he didn’t tell the working group he submitted the resolution.

The panel ultimately referred those resolutions back to the working group — with a warning. “As a body, we recommend this going back to the task force,” said Ron Harris, the resolutions committee co-chair. “But then we can put some — I don’t want to say ‘constraints,’ but expectations that we hear back.”

John Verdejo, a DNC member from North Carolina, was more direct. “It can’t just be we have a task force and then the next time we have a DNC meeting, it just comes up again. No, we want to see your progress. You want to have a task force? You want to make the hard changes, have the hard discussions? Then do it,” he said.

Allison Minnerly, another working group member from Florida, said after the snafu that “so long as the party does not prioritize this conversation, you will see what happened today, which is that DNC resolutions committee members have many questions on the inaction and the results of the working group. It’s really clear that this issue will keep coming up at every subsequent DNC meeting until there’s a clear direction, solution, talking points.”

Now that the party has referred the resolutions to the working group, it finally has a clear, near-term objective for its meeting today.

“I actually am pleased that we will now have a very specific charge that we must accomplish in a defined period of time,” Zogby said. “We have not had a defined agenda, and it’s been difficult to get people together. Now we have to get this done, and there’s just no way we can duck it at this point.”

Like this content? Consider signing up for Blue Light News’s Playbook PM newsletter.

Politics

Pope Leo XIV condemns war, rejects claims of divine backing

Published

4 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Pope Leo XIV on Friday issued a sweeping condemnation of war, continuing to reject the idea that military action can bring about peace or freedom as the Trump administration and other leaders use religion to justify the U.S.-Israel war in Iran.

“God does not bless any conflict,” Leo wrote on X. “Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”

Military force, he added, will not result in peace or freedom — that “comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.” He did not mention President Donald Trump or other leaders by name in the post on X.

Trump, who describes himself as a Christian, but not Catholic, has invoked faith several times throughout his term as a means to justify his actions.

Trump on Monday told reporters at a White House press briefing that he believes God supports the Iran war “because God is good” and wants to “see people taken care of.”

Leo had previously condemned Trump’s threat from earlier this week to destroy Iranian civilization.

He called the threat “truly unacceptable” and urged that the conflict in the Middle East “is only provoking more hatred.”

At a Palm Sunday mass, Leo insisted that no one could use God to justify war, telling the tens of thousands of people gathered before him that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has framed the Iran war, which reached a temporary ceasefire Tuesday after six weeks of fighting, as divinely sanctioned — often turning to prayer and belief that God is on the side of the U.S. military.

At a Pentagon church service held weeks after the Iran war began, Hegseth, who is also a Christian, but not Catholic, read a prayer that called for violence against military enemies.

“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation,” he prayed during the livestreamed service. “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

Politics

Harris gives her clearest signal she is mounting a 2028 presidential bid

Published

5 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — Kamala Harris just gave the Democratic Party the most explicit sign yet she’ll run for president in 2028.

“Listen, I might, I might. I’m thinking about it,” Harris told the Rev. Al Sharpton at the National Action Network convention on Friday, when he asked her whether she will run again in 2028. “I’ll keep you posted,” she said as she walked off the stage, concluding a roughly 40-minute appearance that was peppered with cheers and a standing ovation from attendees.

The former vice president has toyed with the idea before, but her comments Friday took on a new meaning in front of an audience full of Black lawmakers, influential power brokers and voters at what amounted to the first major cattle-call for the potential 2028 Democratic field.

“I know what the job is and what it requires,” she told Sharpton on stage.

Harris was the sixth possible 2028 contender to take the stage at the conference for a fireside chat with Sharpton, a tacit acknowledgement that whether the hopefuls ultimately decide to run or not, they know they can’t skip this room. But Harris was received with the most enthusiasm from the audience compared to any of the Democrats who spoke earlier this week, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

The crowd in the packed ballroom chanted, “Run again! Run again!”

At one point, the cheers for Harris grew to such a tenor, Sharpton jokingly admonished the crowd: “This is a convention, not a revival.”