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populism
Why the Dems Should Campaign on Economic Populism
Ceding that ground to Republicans, in this moment of fluid coalitions, could cement Democrats’ role as being seen as the elite party—and potentially help usher in a second Trump term.
Aug 30, 2024
Every presidential campaign showcases the direction in which a candidate’s party is heading. This year’s choices of running mates are prime examples. Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate demonstrates the Republican Party’s desire to further its image as a populist, working-class party. And for her part, Vice President Kamala Harris sidestepped a centrist in Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in favor of a progressive populist in Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The fact is that, policy wise, Walz’s populist bona fides are quite real whereas Vance’s are largely manufactured. But still, this much is clear: Both campaigns appear to recognize that the key to winning in November will be building trust with an electorate that increasingly sees both parties as elites, out of step with the concerns of ordinary working people.
To be sure, Americans’ distrust of elites is reaching a boiling point. Institutions of power—from Congress to the media to the corporate sector—maintain little of the public’s confidence. Among voters in both major parties, trust in government is at its lowest level since the 1950s. More Americans than ever view both Democrats and Republicans unfavorably, and a quarter do not feel represented by either party. Instead, most now believe that lobbyists and big donors, as well as big business, wield too much influence over politics. And an overwhelming majority of the U.S. public believes corporations are becoming too powerful in our economy.
Once we look beyond rhetoric and campaign promises, the party with the more credible claim to economic populism ought to still be the party of the New Deal.
This breakdown in the relationship between the mass public and elites is occurring alongside the march of class dealignment. That is, the Democratic Party’s base has steadily shifted from the working class toward upper-middle-class suburbanites—to the point that Republicans, for the first time in a half-century, can dispute Democrats’ claim as the party of working America. After all, the country’s richest areas are now blue, and the richest voters roughly split across the aisle. Sadly, at a moment when public disdain for the elite is reaching its peak, the Democrats are arguably becoming as much of an elite party as the GOP.
In many ways, the Democratic Party is uniquely positioned to benefit from anti-elite attitudes. After all, although populist sentiment has found putative champions on both sides of the aisle, not all these appeals are equally sincere. While Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has pushed to increase taxes on corporations and the rich, Donald Trump signed a historic giveaway for the wealthy and corporate America. While the Biden administration has strengthened organized labor, Republican judges and legislators have chipped away at the union movement. Once we look beyond rhetoric and campaign promises, the party with the more credible claim to economic populism ought to still be the party of the New Deal.
But Democrats can’t take for granted that voters will see the party that way. For that to happen, they have to embrace their role as defenders of the ordinary worker against the predations of a wealthy upper class. And so it bears asking: Are Democrats embracing this role? How many Democrats are employing populist rhetoric, by explicitly raising up workers, or by calling out economic elites? And is it working?
In our latest report, the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) sought to answer these questions and more. In order to get a sense of where Democratic messaging stands, we conducted a comprehensive quantitative analysis of the campaign rhetoric of Democratic candidates for Congress in 2022.
While our complete study contains a wealth of important findings, our results with regards to economic populism are less than encouraging. We find that while anti-elite rhetoric is indeed effective at winning over working-class voters, very few Democratic candidates actually deploy it. By and large, Democratic rhetoric is not rising to meet our moment of mass distrust of elites.
To examine the communication strategies employed by Democrats, the CWCP collected the text from the websites of nearly 1,000 Democratic candidates running in the 2022 House or Senate elections. Our analysis provides significant insight into the promise of economic populism. We looked for two components of populism in candidates’ rhetoric. The first component raises up workers, casting them as the engine that keeps the economy running, and as deserving of a decent standard of living. This was commonplace: Over 70% of candidates spoke positively of workers. That said, less than half mentioned labor unions, so even here there is a great deal of room for improvement.
Harris and other Democrats should instead recognize populism for what it is—a powerful egalitarian sentiment promising to lift up the many over the few—and give voice to it.
The second component of populism, conversely, points the finger at economic elites as responsible for “mucking up” the engine—that is, for mass economic woes, for standing between workers and the quality of life they deserve. This type of rhetoric was much rarer: Less than 20% of candidates went after large corporations, billionaires, Wall Street, or price gouging in this manner. Less than 15% attacked corporate money in politics, and less than 5% of candidates went after the top 1%, corporate greed, or big banks. A separate analysis of television ads found that only about 15% of candidates called out economic elites in any way, even in competitive races, where such rhetoric was found to be most effective. This result may not be so surprising: It’s easy, after all, to speak positively about one group, but harder to actively antagonize another—especially when the other makes up a large chunk of the donor pool.
The lack of anti-elite rhetoric wouldn’t be so concerning if not for another important result: Candidates who employ such rhetoric perform better than other candidates in highly-working-class districts—to the tune of two to three percentage points. Crucially, this relationship persists after we control for relevant candidate and district factors that influence elections, across a range of statistical specifications. This is consistent with findings from our previous experimental research, as well those of other pollsters.
Nor will mere rhetoric be enough: As we’ve demonstrated elsewhere, politicians’ words must be backed up with an ambitious policy agenda that addresses working-class grievances in order to be taken seriously.
If Democrats hope to win back working-class voters in an environment of elite distrust, which they should, more of them will have to acknowledge and validate that distrust. This is a tall order, as there are major forces militating against them. Party messaging naturally caters to the base, so deploying anti-elite rhetoric has only become more difficult as Democrats have begun to transform into an upper-class party. Wealthy donors from elite and corporate backgrounds continue to fund Democratic campaigns. And the upper class also works overtime to make populism the object of widespread fear: In media and intellectual circles, a torrential ideological current frantically sounds the alarm against mob rule, against anti-intellectualism, against “the paranoid style” of the masses—against, in short, a bevy of bogeymen that have been called on to disparage populist movements since the 1890s.
But unlike these imagined evils, the dangers of shooing away economic populism are all too real. The GOP is embracing populism, at least in name—in the selection of Vance, in hosting Teamsters President Sean O’ Brien at the Republican National Convention, and in the party’s changing language. Ceding that ground to Republicans, in this moment of fluid coalitions, could cement Democrats’ role as being seen as the elite party—and potentially help usher in a second Trump term that promises to be disastrous, especially for working people.
Harris and other Democrats should instead recognize populism for what it is—a powerful egalitarian sentiment promising to lift up the many over the few—and give voice to it. It would be a profound mistake to miss this opportunity.
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Working-Class Journalist's Speech Hailed as 'Most Radical' in DNC History
John Russell urged Democrats to serve working Americans "looking for a political home, after years of both parties putting profit above people."
Aug 23, 2024
The Democratic National Convention on Thursday featured a video and speech from More Perfect Union reporter John Russell, who stressed to the Chicago crowd that the party has an opportunity to win over working-class people.
"Thank you to the workers that make this convention happen," Russell began. "Let's never forget how essential all of our labor is."
"I come from Appalachia," he explained. "We kept the lights on in this country for generations. But the wealth made by our broken backs and our black lungs never did trickle down. And Washington listened to rich men demanding that we stick with dirty energy at any cost."
"Across the country, working-class people are looking for a political home, after years of both parties putting profit above people," he said before taking aim at the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump—who has chosen Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), author of Hillbilly Elegy, as his running mate.
"Now Trump, a billionaire, says that he'll take on the elites, but then he promises handouts to Big Oil and he punches down at anyone with the guts to be different," Russell noted. "Populism that insists we are too different to get along is just divide and conquer by a different name."
More Perfect Union reporter @heyjohnrussell just spoke directly to the DNC crowd:
"It is our choice to build on this progress and to create a political home for the mass of working Americans fighting for control over their government, their workplaces, and their planet." pic.twitter.com/lbZaCpJKgw
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) August 23, 2024
"There's another sort of populism, with roots in this party, that we—in West Virginia—know well," said Russell, a resident of the state. He pointed to a century ago, when the term "rednecks" was used to deride organized coal miners who "wore red bandanas around their necks as they fought and died for respect and a living wage."
"Their fight yesterday is our fight right now," Russell declared to a roaring crowd. "It is our choice to build on this progress and to create a political home for the mass of working Americans fighting for control over their government, their workplaces, and their planet. And it is our moment to live up to. Let's get after it."
The Nation president and Jacobin founding editor Bhaskar Sunkara said on social media: "I'm pretty sure that John Russell just made the most radical speech in the history of the DNC. A call for class solidarity and a world where working people control their workplaces and their futures."
Antonia Juhasz, a senior researcher on fossil fuels at Human Rights Watch, also responded with praise. Sharing the video, she said, "A great speech on climate action: Climate Action is action for workers, for justice, and for health from John Russell."
In addition to Russell's address, the DNC audience saw a two-minute More Perfect Union video in which he spoke to workers across the United States and highlighted positive impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act, which congressional Democrats passed and President Joe Biden signed two years ago.
Our team has traveled America documenting the impact of historic investments in clean energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure.
From Las Vegas to Tennessee, working people’s lives are changing.
Watch the video we aired at the DNC on why we need an agenda that centers workers: pic.twitter.com/cXio7CbzPm
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) August 23, 2024
One of multiple "influencers" or content creators to take the stage this week, Russell has a significant social media following and a newsletter calledThe Holler. Before West Virginia, he lived in Ohio, where he ran for state House in 2016 and Congress two years later.
Russell told Justice Hudson of the Wheeling Free Press that "we need a populism that doesn't divide us, but unites us."
"That's the way forward, especially as we are fighting against right-wing politicians who are offering us a fake version of populism—and we know it's fake because they want us to point fingers at each other rather than at the wealthy," he continued.
Russell also acknowledged that "we have not heard Palestinian voices on the stage, even as this party claims to be working to stop the carnage unfolding in the Middle East," and urged Democrats to stop "silencing or burying their heads in the sand at protestors outside making the very simple ask of five minutes of speaking time so that Palestinians are represented."
Other champions of the working class who have addressed the DNC this week included United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who also spoke Monday at a Progressive Democrats of America event, where he celebrated people across the country who are organizing "on a class basis" and "prepared to take on big money interests."
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The Progressive Populism of Tim Walz
Walz is making an argument for Harris and the party that is rooted in the rural values of regions where Democrats have struggled to compete in recent years.
Aug 09, 2024
Kamala Harris set up a virtual primary for the Democrats who wanted to join the party’s 2024 ticket as her vice-presidential running mate. She offered them all—governors and senators, progressives and centrists, East Coasters and Midwesterners, Southerners and Westerners—an opportunity to secure the nomination. And they all gave it their best.
So how did Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, arguably the least well-known and least politically connected of the finalists, come from the back of the field to win Harris’ confidence?
Democratic Party insiders and the political pundits who listen to them are struggling to figure out what just happened. But there is nothing complicated about the Walz surge.
“Their idea of freedom is to be in your exam room, your bedroom. You know, banning books, we’re banning hunger. These are Democratic policies.”
What Walz recognized—to a far greater extent than more centrist and cautious VP prospects such as Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro—was that Democrats wanted to add a happy warrior on the ticket with Harris, whose replacement of President Joe Biden as the party’s presidential nominee has given the Democrat’s 2024 prospects a significant boost in morale and in the polls.
Walz had no problem fitting the bill. His record and political instincts positioned him as a candidate who is capable of winning where Democrats need to prevail in the race against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance.
As a Democrat who had won six races in a rural, Republican-leaning congressional district in southern Minnesota and then two terms as the governor of a politically competitive Midwestern state, Walz knew exactly how to rally the party base and to reach out to the progressive-leaning independents who must be mobilized to defeat the Republican right.
Where other Democratic candidates and party strategists had struggled for years to figure out how to characterize Trump and the MAGA cabal that has taken over the Grand Old Party, Walz got to the point in his first interviews as a VP contender. “You know there's something wrong with people when they talk about freedom: freedom to be in your bedroom, freedom to be in your exam room, freedom to tell your kids what they can read,” Walz toldMSNBC’s Jen Psaki. “That stuff is weird.”
The “weird” line went viral, as Democrats from across the ideological spectrum embraced what turned out to be a highly effective critique of Trump and Vance.
But there was much more to Walz’s appeal.
In a remarkable series of cable TV appearances in late July, at a point when the former teacher and National Guard master sergeant was still in the back of the pack of Democratic vice-presidential prospects, Walz made an argument for Harris and the party that was rooted in the rural values of regions where Democrats have struggled to compete in recent years.
“I grew up in a small town of 400 people. I have said I had 24 kids in my class—12 were cousins—graduating. That’s small-town America,” began Walz in one of his first MSNBC appearances during the VP race, turning the tables on Trump and Vance. “I said the thing that most irritates me and baffles me... is a failed real-estate guy from New York City that knows nothing about small towns and a guy who wrote a book that denigrates my neighbors and tells them that this is some type of cultural thing. I think the real message here is that the reason that rural America is struggling more—[with challenges such as the] outsourcing of jobs—is because of Republican policies and people like Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, a venture capitalist who cares nothing about those institutions there.”
Then he dug into the issues that actually matter to the rural regions, small towns, and small cities where Democrats need to do better—areas where, if the party can hold its own in the way that it did when Barack Obama was its nominee in 2008 and 2012, it will win nearly every swing state. And, perhaps, a few states that weren’t thought to be competitive.
“If you’re in a town of 400, there are two institutions that are the most important to your town. That is the public school and a hospital or a clinic, if you have it,” Walz said to MSNBC. “Both of those things are being gutted by the Republicans. They’ve been telling us for six-and-a-half years they have a plan on healthcare, and that means taking away Medicare and Medicaid and reducing [Affordable Care Act] access. And they talk about privatizing public schools.”
Rejecting the tired, and massively disproven, Republican talking point that says the private sector will invariably do a better job than the public sector, Walz mocked the GOP line that says, “Oh, we’re gonna privatize this and take the money out of our public schools.” Then he said, “Let me be very clear: When you talk about private education, that means you gut the public schools, you send [public money] to people [who are] already sending their kids to those schools, and you got it. So I think the condemnation of these people [is that] they don’t know middle America. They don’t know who we are.”
That is a progressive populist message that’s rooted in the rhetoric of Democrats such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who won rural Americans, and of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, who won enough rural, small town, and small city votes to tip the balance to their party in the elections of 1976, 1992, 1996, 2008, and 2012.
It also reflects the record of a congressman from rural Minnesota who continuously won volatile elections from 2006 to 2016, and of the Democratic governor of a frequent battleground state who won big in 2018 and 2022.
Recalling his congressional wins, Walz now says, “I represented a district that Trump won by 18 points, but that got tougher and tougher.” But, instead of giving up, Walz says, “I think we need to take this populist message—the economy, the freedoms—[and say that]: These guys aren’t for freedoms. Their idea of freedom is to be in your exam room, your bedroom. You know, banning books, we’re banning hunger. These are Democratic policies. And I think the people in Missouri, [and] I would argue, the people in Montana, doing those types of things make a big difference. What is Donald Trump offering? You go to these rallies, he’s talking about Hannibal Lecter.”
And that, as Tim Walz put it, is weird.
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