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Opinion
Billionaires Have Two Parties. Why Do the People of America's Great Plains Have Only One?
Abandoned by the party they once considered their own, many Democrats across vast areas of the nation's heartland turned to the Republicans to vent their anger at a system that was screwing them.
Jun 03, 2026
Not so long ago the Democrats wielded significant power in the Great Plains states. In 1990, 10 of the 18 Senators from Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho were Democrats. Today, none are.
In much of this area, the Democrats are no longer functioning as a competitive second party. They lose by 25 percent or more in 21 of the 30 congressional districts in these states. By my rough count, the Democrats did not even run candidates in about 40 percent of the region’s 1,400 state legislative races. Clearly, something has gone profoundly wrong.
What happened?
During the Reagan era (from his election in 1980 and up through the early 1990s) Great Plains Democrats resurrected the populist traditions of the late 19th-century People’s Party, the progressives of the early 20th century, and the Nonpartisan league a few years later. The core ideology of this tradition focused on protecting family farmers and workers from the rapaciousness of big corporations and banks. The political opponents of the Reagan Revolution followed in their path and enough of them were in Congress in 1983 to form the Congressional Populist Caucus.
"It is political malpractice to abdicate so much of America’s heartland."
These 14 congresspersons adopted the populist moniker and fought against corporatized free trade deals, the high Federal Reserve interest rates, plant closings, anti-union legislation, and farm foreclosures. And they did so in alliance with, and in support of, dozens of community groups including abortion and gay rights organizations.
But in 1990, a powerful segment of the Democratic establishment created the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and made a firm decision to embrace corporations, agribusiness, free trade, and Wall Street deregulation, while moving away from labor unions and family farmers. In the 1992 presidential primaries, Bill Clinton was the Democratic Leadership Council’s representative, while Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa represented the progressive populists. As we know, Clinton won.
In When the Democrats Lost the Heartland Corey Haala shows that this turn to neoliberalism was not the inevitable result of technological advances, nor was it predetermined by the iron laws of capitalism. Rather, it was a victory by one interest group within the Democratic Party over another, and the consequences were felt immediately.
After the centrists won, they starved the Great Plains Democrats of funds and legislative victories, leaving them with little to offer their constituents—the populist-oriented farmers and workers struggling to survive against corporate power.
Working-class voters and family farmers sensed that the party’s priorities were changing long before Chuck Schumer said the quiet part out loud:
“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
The same logic could easily have been applied to the Great Plains.
Abandoned by the party they once considered their own, many Democrats turned to the Republicans to vent their anger at a system that was screwing them.
Rebuild the old or build something new?
Despite this fundamental ideological shift, it’s hard for progressives to move away from the Democratic Party, especially given the rise of MAGA. Don’t we have to do everything we can to support Democratic candidates in order to win back Congress and stop the fascist takeover of America?
Of course, defeating the MAGA Republicans is crucial. And the fortunes of the Democrats are a real concern in blue and marginal districts where new seats can be won and old seats can be held. Third-party candidates in those competitive districts would only serve as spoilers likely to help elect MAGA Republicans.
But that’s not the case in the ruby red states in which the Democrats have given up on 40 percent of the local races, and where they lose congressional seats by 25 percent or more.
In these areas there is nothing to spoil.
It is political malpractice to abdicate so much of America’s heartland. One strategy is for progressives to recapture the Democratic Party in the Great Plains and elsewhere, infuse it with new energy, change its neoliberal brand, and run new working-class candidates across the board.
But a new survey by the Center for Working Class Politics shows that many of those who have given up on Trump show little interest in voting for Democrats. And a recent New York Times/Siena survey reports 43 percent of registered voters nationally are dissatisfied with both parties. That’s a hell of a headwind to overcome, given how tarnished the Democratic Party brand has become.
Something new that isn’t blue?
Dan Osborn’s race for the US Senate in Nebraska points in another direction. This former local labor leader is running against both parties, what he calls “the two-party doom loop,” in an unabashed progressive populist campaign—the Nebraska Fairness Plan. As he says “It’s not a party’s platform or written by consultants. It’s written for the people who punch a clock and wonder why nobody in Washington is fighting for them.”
Osborn is appealing to independents, disaffected Democrats, and even disgruntled Republicans. So far, the race is a toss-up in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly two to one. The Democratic nominee, Cindy Burbank, has said she will avoid playing the spoiler by dropping out before ballots are printed if she doesn’t see a path to victory.
Osborn’s effort (and the polling we report on in The Billionaires Have Two Parties, We Need a Party of Our Own) strongly suggests that the best path forward in the Great Plains districts largely abanoned by the Democrats is to create a new organization by and for working people to run independent candidates.
That requires a break from the Democrats. Osborn says he will not caucus with either major party, and attacks both billionaire parties that have left so many working people high and dry. Independent working-class candidates will need to take strong progressive populist positions that protect jobs, create new ones, and save what’s left of family farming—positions with strong support across the Great Plains.
Working people can build independent political power even in places where the Democratic Party has ceased to function as a competitive second party.
And progressive political activists will need to get comfortable with turning neoliberalism on its head—putting people instead of capital in the center of our economy. That means promoting real job creation, not public-private partnerships that enrich corporations and rarely produce new jobs.
We will need to promote strong policies like “the right to a job at a living wage, provided by the public sector if the private sector fails to do so.”
As radical as this policy seems, polling shows again and again that it is very popular. People want stable, secure jobs even if the government has to step in to provide them.
Rebuilding progressive populism in the Great Plains requires the kind of boldness that challenged corporate power from the 1880s onward. Those populists were able to grow their appeal nationally, and their efforts led to progressive reforms like the graduated income tax, anti-monopoly moves against the robber barons, the formation of public universities and colleges, and even a public bank in North Dakota, among other successes.
We must escape the corporatist framework that governs today’s Democratic Party, which appeals to wealthy donors, admires the billionaire class, and has given up on the working class it considers socially backward.
Can it be done? Not quickly. Not easily. But the Great Plains once produced some of the most powerful populist movements in American history that challenged concentrated wealth, built durable institutions, and won reforms that reshaped the country. We won’t know what is possible until we try again.
We need to leave our blue bubbles, talk face-to-face with alienated working people, and rebuild an independent politics rooted in work, community, and economic security.
And really, where better to spread populism than in America’s heartland, “where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.”
If we dare to act boldly, perhaps we can once again become the wind.
*****
The questions raised in this essay are explored in much greater depth in my new book, The Billionaires Have Two Parties, We Need One of Our Own: How Working People Can Build Independent Political Power.
The book examines why so many working people have abandoned the Democratic Party, why independents are now the largest political bloc in many states, what voters in the heartland actually want from politics, and whether a new working-class political organization can be built without acting as a spoiler.
Drawing on new polling and historical research, it argues that working people can build independent political power even in places where the Democratic Party has ceased to function as a competitive second party.
If these arguments resonate with you, I hope you’ll take a look at the book.
All book proceeds support our Reversing Runaway Inequality educational programs for working people.
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It's Time for a Progressive Policy to Protect Agricultural Supply Chains
Price floors and supply management programs seem common sense to policymakers when it comes to oil and minerals, but what about US farmers and our overall food system?
Jun 03, 2026
The race to obtain critical minerals and the war in Iran have not only exposed a dangerous dependence on fossil fuels and mining, but they have also uncovered something more surprising—Republicans in Congress actually understand progressive agriculture policy. They just don’t want to admit it.
In February, Vice President JD Vance announced at the State Department that the administration must institute a price floor to protect the US critical mineral market. “This morning, the Trump administration is proposing a concrete mechanism to return the global critical minerals market to a healthier, more competitive state: a preferential trade zone for critical minerals protected from external disruptions through enforceable price floors,” Vance explained. Meanwhile, the US—and other countries around the world—are deploying oil reserves to buffer price shocks caused by the Israel-US attacks on Iran. Price floors and supply management programs seem common sense to these policymakers when it comes to oil and minerals, but what about US farmers and our overall food system?
Like oil and critical minerals, food and agriculture supply chains, such as corn, soy, and dairy, are vulnerable to global shocks, including extreme weather events, wars, and other supply disruptions. The public also needs to understand that without inflation-adjusted price floors, agricultural commodity prices may sink to disastrously low levels, leaving farmers no choice but to increase production with more chemicals and GMO seeds at the expense of our land and water. Congress and the US Department of Agriculture can avoid low prices by creating reserves accumulated during large harvests and, just like the federal petroleum reserve, bringing them back on the market to stabilize prices in times of shortage. We can all agree that food shortages would be disastrous, so guaranteeing its citizens food security should be imperative for any democratic government.
So while Republicans can recognize the importance of price floors and supply management during this administration, Democrats should look at history to understand how the same instruments were developed for agriculture during the Great Depression under the Democratic Party’s New Deal. The twin crises of farm bankruptcies and the Dust Bowl spurred militant farm organizations to demand a response from the federal government. The response was parity farm bills that stopped farm bankruptcies and stabilized the farm economy so that conservation measures and preservation of diversified farming could lead to food security and a balanced economy. Federal leadership in the White House and Congress recognized that price and supply management benefited both farmers and society as a whole. The policy was simple and transparent: The farm bill would ensure that during years of good harvests, public grain reserves would purchase the surplus at the parity rate (price floor adjusted for inflation) and store it to protect consumers in future times of shortage.
A productive agricultural economy that conserves our resources, challenges agricultural consolidation, and offers economic opportunity in rural communities should be a top priority for all our citizens.
However, both parties abandoned this common-sense approach to farm policy in the early 1950s, so that costs of farming have totally outpaced commodity prices. Subsequently, headlines warning of a farm crisis in 2026, like during the Great Depression and the 1980s, are not uncommon. The prices paid to farmers for commodities such as corn, soybeans, wheat, and dairy have dropped to record lows in real dollars. Over the years, this imbalance has led to the loss of family farms, the consolidation of agribusiness and food processing monopolies, along with their profits benefiting handsomely. Stabilizing the ratio of farm prices to farm costs (the correct goal of any Farm Bill) is the key to a sustainable agriculture that avoids soil loss, water pollution, and the decline of rural communities.
A supply management program would not only help revive family operations and rural economies but would also be essential to combat the expansion of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and lower costs for taxpayers. As reported by Food & Water Watch, CAFOs are a disaster for our climate, air, and water, especially for nearby communities. CAFOs are among the most egregious features of today’s low-price, commodity-based industrial agriculture. Thousands of livestock (owned or vertically integrated with large food processors) are confined in small facilities without fresh air or sunlight and fed cheap corn and soy.
CAFOs have been replacing conscientious family farmers who are stewards of the soil and their animals. When family farmers are forced out of livestock production, they face the dilemma of “get big or get out” and often have no farming alternatives other than to tear up their pastures to grow corn and soybeans that will end up feeding animals in CAFOs.
The Trump administration is applying often-forgotten policy instruments to sustain our fossil fuel dependence and our high-tech future, rather than prioritizing a resilient, sustainable economy. Managing a price floor and creating federal food reserves in the agriculture sector are necessary to combat the adverse effects of food processor monopolization, farm consolidation, soil and water degradation, and external shocks, such as wars.
A productive agricultural economy that conserves our resources, challenges agricultural consolidation, and offers economic opportunity in rural communities should be a top priority for all our citizens. “We love farmers” and “We put America’s farmers first” are just political slogans to get votes with no substance behind them. These slogans lead to the usual sleight of hand to send taxpayer dollars to get some farmers through the next planting season. This policy leaves the disastrous cheap commodity regime in place—encouraging CAFO production and exporting commodities at a loss.
The administration’s discovery of the logical policy of price floors and reserves for oil and minerals must open new doors to applying these logical and transparent mechanisms to agriculture to restore the security of family farmers and conservation of our precious resources—after all, we can’t eat petroleum or precious minerals.
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US Voters Are Hungry for a Country With Consequences for Corruption at the Top
A new poll finds that large majorities of voters believe corruption is a big problem across politics and government and back bold reform.
Jun 03, 2026
I’ve written that corruption is the sleeper issue of 2026. Well, it’s awake. And the issue may be bigger than I realized.
That’s the implication of a new national poll released Tuesday by the Brennan Center. The survey was conducted in late April and early May, just before the president’s attempt to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to funnel taxpayer money to his political allies.
The results are striking. More than 9 in 10 voters believe corruption is a big problem across politics and government. Large majorities view corruption as endemic and deeply embedded in government institutions, from the Supreme Court to Congress to the presidency. They are dejected about the fact that scandals continuously go without consequences and shocking revelations fail to produce reform.
Margins are overwhelming among Democrats, Republicans, and independents.
Vast majorities believe this corruption is part of why government doesn’t respond to major issues, including concerns like affordability and housing.
Most importantly, voters back bold reform. Eighty-three percent want a law that bars presidents from having conflicts of interest and holds them to stronger ethical standards. Eighty-one percent want a new federal ethics enforcer. Seventy-nine percent want a constitutional amendment that restores limits on money in elections, and other anti-corruption measures received similar levels of support.
It’s hard to find a set of proposals with a wider bipartisan appeal.
Yet there are notes here that should jar complacency. Listen carefully to voters. They define corruption broadly. Vast majorities see the spectacle of politicians catering to the interests of billionaires and big corporations as corrupt, not surprisingly. But to most Americans, wasting taxpayer dollars and even failing to respond to constituent needs are also forms of corruption.
Vast majorities believe this corruption is part of why government doesn’t respond to major issues, including concerns like affordability and housing. How do we connect these arcane government rules to people’s economic well-being? Voters are already doing so.
There are warning signs aplenty for politicians from both parties. Other polls have shown that voters think neither Democratic nor Republican politicians are better than the other on the issue.
Policymakers should understand that the public’s conception of what has gone wrong goes far deeper than super PACs or White House ballrooms or even slush funds. To them, it is a system that is fundamentally misfiring. A government that is not performing. And there is a willingness to name names and assign blame.
In some ways, these results are ominous. We often note that the 2024 election was the first time since the 1800s where the incumbent party lost the White House three times in a row (2016, 2020, 2024). This survey shows a deeply disquieted electorate, scornful of the political system and furious at its flaws. That environment created the conditions for President Donald Trump’s populist nationalism to emerge in 2016. It hasn’t gone away.
Yet this is also the kindling that can fuel new approaches, sharper critiques, and stronger solutions. If polls are to be believed, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has turned his political fortunes through a relentless and often stirring stump-speech focus on corruption.
The breadth of public unhappiness suggests a deeper moral critique. Even now, amid wrenching technological change and evaporating standards, people seem focused on an underlying core of personal responsibility.
My old boss, President Bill Clinton, often talked this way, especially when he was running for president in 1992. “The American dream that we were all raised on is a simple but powerful one,” he would say. “If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be given a chance to go as far as your God-given ability will take you.”
More recently, that ethos was given voice in Hungary by its new president, Péter Magyar. Running against the authoritarian kleptocrat Viktor Orbán, Magyar vowed that Hungary would no longer be “a country without consequences.” He pledged to oversee not just new policies but a thorough effort to clean house and to hold accountable those who had stolen from the people.
The new Brennan Center research suggests that voters here, too, are ready for a country with consequences. That will help shape the next political era—if we are ready to make it happen.
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Trump Chose War Over Daycare
The president says we can't afford both. My neighbors are already paying the price.
Jun 03, 2026
In a single week, the Pentagon spent $11 billion destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities—the same capabilities the administration had declared "completely obliterated" just months earlier.
On Easter Sunday, President Donald Trump explained his priorities. "It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things," he said. "We have to take care of one thing: military protection."
He's right that a choice is being made. But in a democracy, we the people are the ones who are supposed to have that choice.
My neighbors didn't get one. Until recently, our children went to the same daycare, at least until prices went up by 10%. They provided several weeks notice, then phased the increase over a few weeks. For us, the raise meant $200 more per month. Our neighbors, on the other hand, had three kids in daycare.
For the Pentagon, it's bomb first, figure out the money later. For parents, the bills are due today.
The increase added up to $600 a month more than they'd been paying, so they pulled out. Two kids went to a super cheap option—more like group babysitting, really—because they were about to age out and attend free pre-K. Their youngest daughter switched to a place they didn't love, with food they didn't trust.
Overall, they were disappointed. It meant more logistics for pickup and dropoff. They felt more pressure to teach and cook healthy food for their kids. But ultimately, they didn't have a choice. Financially, this was the only way to make it work.
Millions of American families make calculations like this every day—cutting corners on childcare, food, healthcare—just to keep the math working. They do it quietly, without a press conference, without a vote.
The daycare crisis was already breaking families before the Iran war started.
The average American family pays over $13,000 a year per child—more than the average cost of in-state college tuition in many states. Waitlists stretch for months. In some counties, there are more children who need care than licensed spots available. For working parents, especially single parents, affordable daycare isn't a luxury. It's the difference between holding a job and not. And after an election fought on affordability, it was getting harder, not easier.
Economic shockwaves from the war hit immediately. Gas prices surged, adding an average of $175 (and counting) to every American driver's bill. Food prices followed. And in May, Spirit Airlines shut down entirely, citing Iran War fuel costs as the final straw—grounding a low-cost carrier that millions of working families depended on.
There are about 10.8 million US children enrolled in daycare at a national average of $13,128 per year. Collectively, parents spend roughly $390 million per day making sure their children are cared for.
The Pentagon's official tally for the war is $29 billion—almost certainly an undercount. Administration sources told CBS the real figure is closer to $50 billion. Even at their own number, that covers daycare for 2.5 months for every enrolled American child.
But the Pentagon's figure leaves out Midnight Hammer, Southern Spear, and the ongoing ceasefire costs. Harvard professor Linda Bilmes, who has spent two decades tracking the true costs of American wars, estimates the full bill could swell to over $1 trillion within a decade.
And then there's what no spreadsheet can measure. Thirteen service members killed. More than 400 wounded. Military families lend their loved ones to this country on the promise that their sacrifice means something—that the people sending them into harm's way are making choices worthy of that trust.
The daycare math suggests otherwise.
The combined price tag of Trump's wars, plus over $40 billion in extra gas costs borne by American drivers since the war began, brings the total north of $79 billion—enough to fund more than seven months of daycare for all 10.8 million enrolled children.
For the Pentagon, it's bomb first, figure out the money later. For parents, the bills are due today.
Simply put, you cannot make a meaningful choice—at the ballot box or anywhere else—when the numbers in front of you are at best incomplete and at worst deliberately misleading. And every day this war continues, Trump is deciding what your family can and can't afford.
Relief won't come in time for my neighbors. Their kids will age out of daycare before Washington does anything about it. They made the best choice they could with what they had. Most American families don't get any other kind.
Demand a vote on this war. Demand the real price tag. And in November, remember who made this choice for you.
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