SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
midterm elections
The Democrats Must Regain the Working-Class Vote in 2026
To win back the House, the party needs an economic agenda that offers a viable path to a sustainable future.
Oct 04, 2025
With the Trump administration gradually altering the form of US government from a “flawed democracy” to an emerging dictatorship, the 2026 general midterm election becomes especially important for the future of the country. And for the future of the Democratic Party. The sad and unfortunate reality is that, with the United State being a two-party system, the Democratic Party is the only political alternative to a Trumpian dictatorship. But whether the current Democratic Party is able to fight Trump’s neofascism and actually save America is a dubious proposition at best.
For President Donald Trump to be able to remake everything and thus fulfill his dystopian vision of the United States of America, Republicans know that they must retain control of both chambers of Congress in next fall’s midterm election. For the Democrats to upset Trump’s plans, they need a gain of just three seats to flip the House of Representatives from Republican control and to flip a net of four seats to take control of the Senate.
Trump himself is fully aware of the significance of the outcome of the 2026 general midterm election and has already embarked on a series of strategic moves designed not only to ensure that both chambers of Congress remain under GOP control but that they have wider majorities. First, he has called on GOP-led states to redraw the electoral map in favor of the Republican Party; second, he is using his role as GOP kingmaker to shape the primaries; thirdly, he is trying to change the way people vote by eliminating mail-in ballots and making voter identification a requirement; fourth, he is trying to rebrand “The One Big Beautiful Bill,” which is not popular with voters, and the law’s tax cuts overwhelming benefit the wealthiest Americans, as “a working families tax bill;” and, finally, he has announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the Republican Party will hold a convention ahead of the 2026 midterm election in order to show the American people the “great things” that his presidency has done since the presidential election of 2024.
Various polls have shown over the past few months that Trump’s popularity is declining, especially with independents but also, however slightly, with Republicans. Whether this drop will last or not is hard to predict. That said, it is important to underscore the point made by political scientist Larry Bartels and author of such path-breaking works as Unequal Democracy and Democracy Erodes from the Top that, when we discuss the Trump phenomenon, we need to “separate the electoral process from the outcome.” As Bartels states, “The outcome of the election is certainly aberrant and hugely consequential, but the electoral process.… operated in much the same way that it usually does, and in particular, in much the same way that it has over the past quarter century or so.”
In the current political climate, the leadership of the Democratic Party should be able to recognize on its own the urgency of adopting an aggressive class-based approach in order to bring back the working-class vote.
Trump received 49.9% of the popular vote, which is actually less than what George W. Bush received in the 2004 presidential election, and not that different from what other Republican presidential candidates received over the past 20 years. The political landscape is fairly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans and has been so for many years. As such, all is not yet lost. The tide can turn. The only question is whether today’s Democratic Party has what it takes to shift the balance of power in the House and the Senate in 2026. To do so, it needs vision, strategy, and boldness. It needs an economic agenda that offers a viable path to a sustainable future. It needs to fight back against plutocracy and thus put class at the center of politics because it needs to regain the working-class vote.
Most white working-class voters cast their ballots for Trump in all three elections that he ran as president. But this is not a new development related specifically to Trump’s appeal. Working-class voters have been shifting toward the Republican Party over the past few decades, according to data collected from The Vanderbilt Project on Unity & Democracy. Yet, some Democrats did not seem to mindthe defection of the working class to the Republican camp. The great strategist Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asserted back in 2016 that “for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” The fact that this lifelong politician with his long ties to the finance industry is now senate minority leader presumably leading the fight against Trump and his extreme agenda speaks volumes of what has gone so terribly wrong with the Democratic Party.
In saying that the Democrats needs to bring back working-class voters if they expect to regain control of the government, one does not miss the irony that today more Republicans identify themselves as working class than Democrats do. An even bigger irony of course is that neither party is the home of the working-class people.
The truth is that the American working class is trapped in the two-party system. The country needs a mass working-class party, and it is not realistic to expect that it can be built through the Democratic Party, which is a capitalist party. By the same token, building a workers’ party may be a noble and necessary undertaking, but it needs to be recognized that such a political project cannot be completed in a short span of time and that it is very difficult anyway for third parties to tip the electoral scales in the United States. As such, progressive and radicals cannot afford to abandon struggles for the type of reforms that might make an immediate improvement to the lives of working-class people by devoting all their energies to building a new party.
What this suggests is that those aspiring to radical change have to necessarily work mostly outside the system but also do what they can to support the progressive left inside the Democratic Party and cast their votes for progressive candidates running for public office like New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. It is through such activism that the Democratic Party was pushed a bit closer to the left during the last few years.
In the current political climate, the leadership of the Democratic Party should be able to recognize on its own the urgency of adopting an aggressive class-based approach in order to bring back the working-class vote. This is clearly what Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are trying to do. Those of us on the sidelines should give them a helping hand. It’s the only way that the tide will turn. And take very seriously next fall’s general midterm election. If the Democrats fail, at the very least, to flip the House, Trump’s dystopian vision for the United States will come ever closer to becoming a reality.
Keep ReadingShow Less
This Government Shutdown Is Not Normal
Democrats finally have some bargaining leverage. They should use it.
Oct 03, 2025
I’ve been directly involved in government shutdowns, one when I was secretary of labor. It’s hard for me to describe the fear, frustration, and chaos that ensued. I recall spending the first day consoling employees—many in tears as they headed out the door.
In some ways, this shutdown is similar to others. Agencies and departments designed to protect consumers, workers, and investors are now officially closed, as are national parks and museums.
Most federal workers are not being paid—as many as 750,000 could be furloughed—including those who are required to remain on the job, like air-traffic controllers or members of the US military.
So-called “mandatory” spending, including Social Security and Medicare payments, are continuing, although checks could be delayed. (President Donald Trump has made sure that construction of his new White House ballroom won’t be affected.)
Were Democrats to vote to keep the government going, what guarantee do they have that Trump will in fact keep the government going?
There have been eight shutdowns since 1990. Trump has now presided over four.
But this shutdown—the one that began Wednesday morning—is radically different.
For one thing, it’s the consequence of a decision made in July by Trump and Senate Republicans to pass Trump’s gigantic “big beautiful bill” (I prefer to call it “big ugly bill”) without any Democratic votes.
They could do that because of an arcane Senate procedure called “reconciliation,” which allowed the big ugly to get through the Senate with just 51 votes rather than the normal 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.
The final tally was a squeaker. All Senate Democrats opposed the legislation. When three Senate Republicans joined them, Vice President JD Vance was called in to break a tie. Some Republicans bragged that they didn’t need a single Democrat.
The big ugly fundamentally altered the priorities of the United States government. It cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act—with the result that health insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans will soar starting in January.
The big ugly also cut nutrition assistance and environmental protection, while bulking up immigration enforcement and cutting the taxes of wealthy Americans and big corporations.
Trump and Senate Republicans didn’t need a single Democrat then. But this time, Republicans couldn’t use the arcane reconciliation process to pass a bill to keep the governing going.
Now they needed Senate Democratic votes.
Yet keeping the government going meant keeping all the priorities included in the big ugly bill that all Senate Democrats opposed.
Which is why Senate Democrats refused to sign on unless most of the big ugly’s cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act were restored, so health insurance premiums won’t soar next year.
Even if Senate Democrats had gotten that concession, the Republican bill to keep the government going would retain all the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations contained in the big ugly, along with all the cuts in nutrition assistance, and all the increased funding for immigration enforcement.
There’s a deeper irony here.
As a practical matter, the US government has been “shut down” for over eight months, since Trump took office a second time.
Trump and the sycophants surrounding him—such as Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and, before him, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficnecy—have had no compunctions about shutting down parts of the government they don’t like—such as US Agency for International Development.
They’ve also fired, laid off, furloughed, or extended buyouts to hundreds of thousands of federal employees doing work they don’t value, such as at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (The federal government is already expected to employ 300,000 fewer workers by December than it did last January.)
They’ve impounded appropriations from Congress for activities they oppose, ranging across the entire federal government.
Wednesday, on the first day of the shutdown, Vought announced that the administration was freezing some $26 billion in funds Congress had appropriated—including $18 billion for New York City infrastructure (home to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries) and $8 billion for environmental projects in 16 states, mostly led by Democrats.
All of this is illegal—it violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974—but it seems unlikely that courts will act soon enough to prevent the regime from harming vast numbers of Americans.
Vought is also initiating another round of mass layoffs targeting, in his words, “a lot” of government workers.
This is being described by Republicans as “payback” for the Democrats not voting to keep the government going, but evidently nothing stopped Vought from doing mass layoffs and freezing Congress’ appropriations before the shutdown.
In fact, the eagerness of Trump and his lapdogs over the last eight months to disregard the will of Congress and close whatever they want of the government offers another reason why Democrats shouldn’t cave in.
Were Democrats to vote to keep the government going, what guarantee do they have that Trump will in fact keep the government going?
Democrats finally have some bargaining leverage. They should use it.
If tens of millions of Americans lose their health insurance starting in January because they can no longer afford to pay sky-high premiums, Trump and his Republicans will be blamed. Months before the midterms.
It would be Trump’s and his Republicans’ fault anyway—it’s part of their big ugly bill—but this way, in the fight over whether to reopen the government, Americans will have a chance to see Democrats standing up for them.
Keep ReadingShow Less
What Is (the) Left to Do? 400 Days and Counting
As the midterms approach, two paths to making history should be taken simultaneously and with the urgency that our predicament compels.
Sep 24, 2025
Driven by the contradictory demands of his situation, and being at the same time, like a juggler, under the necessity of keeping the public gaze on himself… by springing constant surprises—that is to say, under the necessity of arranging a coup d‘état in miniature every day—[he] throws the whole… economy into confusion, violates everything that seemed inviolable, makes some tolerant of revolution and makes others lust for it, and produces anarchy in the name of order, while at the same time stripping the entire state machinery of its halo, profaning it and making it at once loathsome and ridiculous—Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1851
So ends Marx’s keen-eyed chronicle of the events in France from 1848-1851 that resulted in the brutal crushing of the French proletariat, along with rise of Napoleon III, first as president (very temporarily) and eventually as emperor. In the midst of our consternation and concern to understand our own present slide into these dark times, we might look to Marx’s analysis for some much-needed guidance.
As Marx himself characterized his goal (in an 1869 preface to a second edition) for the series of articles that became the pamphlet, he was not interested in glorifying Bonaparte or telling a “great man of history” kind of tale, but rather he wanted to “demonstrate how the class struggle in France created the circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part.” Sound like anyone or anything we know?
How about this then? Marx, in this passage, was trying to understand how the French peasantry came to play their unlikely, but essential role in Bonaparte’s rise. It reads as an eerily prescient characterization of the MAGA movement as the seemingly unshakable center of support for the present regime, along with their dangerous susceptibility to its incessant demagoguery:
Insofar as millions of families live under conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests, and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. Insofar as there is merely a local interconnection among these [people], and the identity of their interests forms no community, no national bond, and no political organization among them, they do not constitute a class. They are therefore incapable of asserting their class interest in their own name, whether through a parliament or a convention. They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. Their representative must at the same time appear as their master, as an authority over them, an unlimited governmental power which protects them from the other classes [for which we might, of course, read dangerous and unworthy "others," about which, more in a moment] and sends them rain and sunshine from above. The political influence of the [MAGAlites], therefore, finds its final expression in the executive power which subordinates society to itself.
And what about the putative institutional checks and balances on executive power? Here, too, we can find startlingly apt observations that precisely forecast our day-to-day headlines:
By repulsing the army… and so surrendering the army [military] irrevocably to the President, the party of Order [i.e., the Congressional branch along with its war powers] declares that the bourgeoisie has forfeited its vocation to rule. A parliamentary ministry no longer existed. Having now indeed lost its grip on the army and the National Guard, what forcible means remained to it [the Congress] with which simultaneously to maintain the usurped authority of parliament over the people and its constitutional authority against the President? None. Only the appeal to impotent principles remained to it now [or sternly worded letters of concern], to principles that it had itself always interpreted merely as general rules, which one prescribes for others in order to be able to move all the more freely oneself.
So what does all this (and so much more that could be quoted) add up to in terms of insights for coming to grips with the myriad dilemmas we face currently? If we are to follow Marx’s advice, our inquiry should not focus on the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of our own “grotesque mediocrity,” but rather on the circumstances and relationships that have allowed him to “play a hero’s part.”
For that, I think it is instructive to return to a particular element of the 2016 presidential primaries and campaigns. It became clear to many observers as these wore on that the vast majority of the electorate, no matter their position on the political spectrum, were avid for change from the then-prevailing status quo. For better or worse, quite literally, the two candidates that eventually emerged as the most likely embodiments of such change were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The most unlikely were the virtual clones on the Republican stage, and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side. Although Sanders was shunted aside by the party establishment, I think it is still worth comparing his narrative (then and now) with Trump’s (then and now as well) in order to understand the constellation of factors (including, as Marx observed, unlikely alliances), that have produced the present moment.
I begin with what Marx began with in his assessment (both in this pamphlet and almost all of his other works): peoples’ material conditions on the ground. This is also where both Sanders and Trump located their campaigns, and both recognized that their potential supporters had quite legitimate grievances about essential elements of their lives. Beyond this fundamental agreement, however, the stories diverge immediately and wildly.
For Sanders (and, of course, this is a central part of the ongoing anti-oligarchy campaign), the very real problems that people encounter stem from a system that pits the 1% against the rest. And while this diagnosis might resonate with people with quite divergent ideological positions (as Sanders continues to demonstrate in both red and blue precincts), the remedies either are, or more realistically are made to appear as, nearly impossible: i.e., fundamental, systemic change. And on top of that, Sanders had and has to contend with the knee-jerk reactions (either existential dread or trivialized utopianism) to his self-declared, though hardly radical, democratic socialism. Returning briefly to the 18th Brumaire, this burden also has a lengthy history:
Whatever amount of passion and declamation might be employed… speech remained… monosyllabic… As monosyllabic on the platform as in the press. Flat as a riddle whose answer is known in advance. Whether it was a question of the right of petition or the tax on wine, freedom of the press or free trade, the clubs or the municipal charter, protection of personal liberty or regulation of the state budget, the watchword constantly recurs, the theme remains always the same, the verdict is ever ready and invariably reads: “Socialism!” Even bourgeois liberalism is declared socialistic, bourgeois enlightenment socialistic, bourgeois financial reform socialistic. It was socialistic to build a railway where a canal already existed, and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a cane when one was attacked with a rapier.
And so what was and is Trump’s tale? As with Sanders, he begins with the presumption and continual public assertion (whether he believes it or not) that the grievances are genuine. The causes, however, do not stem from a system rigged by the rich and powerful, but rather are the result of unworthy “others” illegally and illegitimately impeding the prospects of those deemed deserving by the regime in power. And if that regime is willing to push aside the minimal protections afforded to these identified “others,” it is easy to see why the tangible and visible actionability of this approach is preferable to its supporters, to the vague hand-waving and -wringing of the Sanders’ prescriptions. The flip side of the so-called meritocratic “American Dream” mythology (work hard, play by the rules, you’ll make it) is that if you fail, it’s your own fault. In light of this, it is doubly appealing to be told, “No, it is not your fault; it’s ‘theirs,’" and then to see “them” humiliated, dehumanized, and disappeared one way or another.
It is also possible, in light of Marx’s assessment, to use this Trumpian narrative to help us understand what appears as an unlikely coalition (the circumstances and relationships) between big capital (finance and big tech in particular) and diverse elements of the working class (e.g., some segments of organized labor). It also serves to explain some of the apparently contradictory demographic shifts that we have seen recently occurring among various populations of color and in age-related cohorts. Referring to the Marx-MAGA quote above, many people are susceptible to demagogic claims of relief and salvation, and this is particularly the case in these fraught moments. When people are undeniably living in precarious circumstances it becomes much more appealing to hear that there is an “easy” remedy (eliminate “those people”) than to hear that fundamental systemic change is required before things improve.
As we move further toward governance through coercion (applied if one dares to dissent from current directions), we must be prepared to withdraw our consent to be governed by this regime.
So, what to do? I return once more, and finally, to the 18th Brumaire, and its most famous quote (amended for the present sensibilities): “[People] make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” There are now just over 400 days until the 2026 midterm elections, if indeed, they take place. And this is a very big if, given that the regime is now trying every possible way (war with Venezuela, war with the cities, war on “the left," etc., etc.) to foment an actual or false “emergency” in order to declare martial law and cancel, rather than risk losing, the elections.
But if we have them, in these next 400 days, two paths to making history should be taken simultaneously and with the urgency that our predicament compels. The first is the electoral route and operates under the still valid (for now) presumption that the elections will take place. During this period, and as the effects of the current policies (especially the tariffs and the Big Ugly Bill) take hold and produce material effects in peoples’ everyday lives, every Democratic candidate or office holder should make it their top priority to follow Sanders’ lead and share with voters of all political persuasions: 1) precisely where their genuine pain is coming from; and 2) how, specifically, a Democratic controlled Congress would work programmatically to alleviate those burdens. Is this realistic? What is the alternative?
The other path that should be taken up is to challenge, in every way possible, the legitimacy of the current administration. As we move further toward governance through coercion (applied if one dares to dissent from current directions), we must be prepared to withdraw our consent to be governed by this regime. If we actually had the “organized left” feverishly conjured and imagined by the broletariat, we could be creatively producing withholdings of labor and consumption, developing 5-10 minute general strikes, and prevailing upon our allied elected officials to “put their bodies on the gears and wheels and levers of the odious machine and make it stop” or at least slow it to a crawl till we can take charge. In the absence of that coherent left (one of those circumstances transmitted from the past), we must take advantage of those cognate organizations that do exist or that can be created rapidly to implement such a strategy at every appropriate level. Is this realistic? What is the alternative?
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular