People lined up for over an hour in Arizona sun to get in to Bernie & AOC’s event here in Tucson — the line stretched for a mile, with almost no shade. You are correct they didn’t present any new ideas (the message was “resist Trump” and “down with the oligarchs”) and Bernie is obviously too old to run for anything. BTW I doubt AOC is running for President — she seems pretty invested in Congress.
Still, I think you have misunderstood the point of what they are doing.
It’s a proof of concept more than anything. It’s demonstrating to the Democratic leadership that if they get out of the Beltway and out of Wall Street’s pockets, there are voters waiting to greet them. AOC has also said that they are demonstrating to GOP that voters will turn out to oppose unpopular MAGA policies.
Your comments about not firing up Gen Z are correct. The crowds that came out here for their tour and for the Hands Off protests skewed white and older.
My perspective is Bernie and AOC are celebrities, and there are always going to be faithful there to see them. There is a core of the party that loves them and that's great. They have a role to play. It's just not the face of the party if you're looking to build a new majority. My argument, however, is less about them personally than what elevating them says about party leadership. It indicates a leadership class that thinks the problem is messaging and winning over demographics instead of developing the right ideas that will win over America. Bernie's 2016 campaign issues were great for 2016, but it isn't going to solve the problems of 2025 or win back the people Democrats want to win.
Are you familiar with Maurice Glasman in the British Blue Labour movement. He makes a lot of these arguments. I find them hard to reconcile with my own progressive, broad church approach … but I am increasingly tending towards anthropological perspectives across different domains and if you take this lens rather than a rationalist or Marxist lens, you see why so many young & working class voters despair of the bedraggled late stage social democratic left. But there is enormous pushback against this in countries which still maintain a high number of gilded (older) elites who want to pretend that we can go back to the 90s if the vulgar populists will go away. The sense-making on all this is by no means complete. We are mostly still at the denial stage, embodied for me in a social media meme showing a baseball cap with the words: “Obama 2028”.
I think it's pretty coordinated. This isn't a rebel operation. The entire apparatus is on message. There's also a lot of media right now about how AOC is the future and a party leader. This is definitely a trial balloon supported from the top.
Although it's also more than just winning back particular voters. That's the wrong framework. The problem for the Democrats is bigger. They built the party around a worldview that's collapsing and have no substantive response to the very real problems that the middle class and working people are facing. The Republicans have unfocused and poorly thought out ideas like trade wars and 100 percent tariffs, but the Democrats have no ideas that don't come out of an Obama era briefing book.
How are they going to tear up the system to bring back middle class stability? "Fighting Oligarchs" is a slogan and not a program (particularly because a heck of a lot of the Oligarchs are the same exact people who run the party). But this perspective is because I think the system isn't working and is going to need serious reform, where a lot of the Democratic establishment still seems to think the system is mostly going great so the job is to defend it against change.
I noticed that a lot of people didn't like this one! Which is fine because that means it was a message I should have shared. And I figure my audience is people who like strong and ideocratic takes that support neither party or ideology, or they wouldn't (or shouldn't!) be reading me.
I question your thought process. I agree with you by themselves I don't think can do much, but if you see Bernie's popularity even among the podcast bro crowd, it represents something: institutional critique. Why Bernie and AOC are rising is they have an institutional critique that is resonating with people it didn't last time: boomers and black people (AOC specifically) and more importantly they are not ideologically braindead like the rest of the party. I view whatever new way to Democrat sees itself it's going to take ideas and critiques and visions from the AOC Wing of the party. You can't tell 30% of a political party to go fuck themselves and expect to win. The oligarchy critiques on Elon musk in particular even though he's out of the government resonates very deeply. And isn't what happened to AOC this typical process of what happens to insurgent ideologies. They eventually embed themselves as the mainstream; look at MAGA.
I think listening to the wing of the party who liked Bernie in 2016 is smart. I just don't think making Bernie-AOC the focus is the way to build a new majority. What matters most is what it says about party leaders. What they're trying to do here is signal to demographics instead of developing a message and ideas to the very real problems of 2025 (many of which weren't yet apparently in 2016 when Bernie ran and developed the platform he's still talking about on his Oligarchy tour).
The only real thing I think I disagree with you about is that Democrats don't have enough ideas for how to solve problems. I left the GOP for Dems because I realized that Democrats had all the ideas while Republicans just wanted to fight against Dems and stick their heads in the sand. At the end of the day, voters are just going to vote for who they trust on the economy. Dems had the exact same problem with Jimmy Carter because of stagflation. They ended the GOPs winning streak by moving right on economic issues. That plus enforcing the border is all Dems really need to do to win imo.
If anything, this is an indictment of Democratic party leadership. AOC and Bernie are the only ones who are speaking to an aspect of the moment, and are on the attack. The base wants this, but the leadership is too incompetent. I think you are underselling AOC and, in particular, Bernie, are serious ideas people. Since AOC represents one wing of the party, thus will be a face of the party.
I think what you are looking for is someone who synthesizes multiple strains and creates something new. I agree with you that it hasn't happened yet, and I think that person is someone who is not in the limelight. I don't think AOC will be that person, nor should she be. She has a very important role in representing a powerful faction in the party. I don't know if you read Steven Teles and factions, but it's very influential on how I think. What you are looking for is someone who mixes the factions to a new ideology. I don't think that will happen for another two years at least.
Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm looking for! It's a good read of what I've been saying. And I agree, AOC is a popular politician who is going to play a role. Although I see her as less of an idea person than you do. I see her as a Gavin Newsome, ambitious, flexible, a chameleon when necessary, and killer communicator. She is already on her second political image. She's someone you send to sell a message, but I see her as quite flexible about what the message is.
Can Bernie and AOC be more critical of institutions than Trump or Vance? If the answer is no, then all they will do is drive people into the arms of the GOP. Why would you want a party that whines a bit about institutions when you can vote for the party that will hack those institutions up with a chainsaw? Bernie and AOC have been feeding the MAGA movement.
Like it or not, Democrats are now the party of competence and trust in institutions. The GOP won the battle for populism because they can appeal to populist social issues in a way that Dems never can. Bernie will simply scare away suburbanites and business leaders without getting the working class back.
Exactly saying screw you to 30 % of a party is very unrealistic. I think there is a lot of anger at unelected oligarchs causing mass unemployment with Zero accountability!
Do you really think "middle-aged guys in trucker hats from Ohio and Wisconsin who left the Democratic Party to vote for Donald Trump" exist? This is precisely the description used for these guy's fathers who left the Democratic party to vote for Reagan. They *grew up* Republican and have always voted Republican. They have never been Democrats.
The working class today are not the working class of old. People today talk about tradesmen as working class. They are middle class, not working class. They may style themselves as working class since they do a physical job, but in terms of *class* they are like those folks who earn $250K a year and style themselves middle class.
Working class are folks who earning their living through labor. They get hired, trained to do a job and then paid for their labor by the hour. Such folks often receive some kind of government benefit and are on unemployment during bad times. Republicans have always been big on cutting programs they benefit from hence they have supported Democrats. When times are good, as they were in 2024, working class folks are flush and can vote on things other than survival and often vote Republican because they want to endorse the stuff Republicans talk about even if they don't live up to it.
Agree to most all of that, but I'm not sure you're right about them voting GOP when times are good. Traditionally I believe they vote more conservative when times are bad, which is why Reagan won in the first place, and why Clinton moving the party rightward on economics allowed him to unseat an incumbent. They started voting for Trump because he seemed conservative while abandoning cuts to social programs. Best of both worlds for that crowd.
I see where you’re coming from and agree with parts of it, but I’d push back on a few points. I do think most Americans believe in healthcare access — and I wouldn’t be surprised if that even extends to support for Medicare for All in certain segments. As for AOC, while I share some of the concerns raised, I don’t think she qualifies as an elder millennial. She’s closer to that Zillennial cutoff. Personally, I don’t think she’d be the right pick for a presidential run, but I get why her name comes up.
I just checked the "official" cut offs. AOC was born in 1989. Based on the "official" definitions, that places her a little shy of elder millennial but also older than a zillennial (which starts at 1992). Although I would say she has way more of an elder millennial aesthetic than zillennial.
And I actually agree health care remains a big concern for a lot of Americans, but I think over the last decade it's slid down the list. When so many people are worried about basic day to day life (housing, employment) healthcare becomes a luxury concern. In a contest between someone you think will get you a steady well paying job, and someone offering you more affordable health care, people will chose the house and job first.
Soul searching seems about right. Bernie is a fine politician with a lot of appeal regarding how the democrats can win back working class voters but he still has a focus on soaking the rich that is no longer that helpful. Aoc is right in trying to work as a democrat rather than a socialist but I think she needs to just do the hard work of broadening her appeal beyond blue states like New York. I think the squads intersectional politics are the too “woke” for the average voter, especially in the critical swing states.
My point here is also that it's less about signaling and symbols to demographics, which is what this move looks like Democratic leaders are attempting to do. The problem is the product isn't selling, and for a reason. It's because Americans are very worried about the world in 2025 for very real reasons, ones the Democratic Party ignores or has no solutions to. That needs to be the focus, instead of packaging the product that America didn't want.
I think you've understood the essence of the Dems problems. They believe they have great ideas that are poorly marketed, so they intend to keep those ideas while attempting to market them more effectively.
In fact they have terrible ideas that nobody is buying any more, no matter how they are marketed. Transgender ideology and uncontrolled mass invasion via the southern border are probably the two best examples of these toxic ideas.
Unfortunately, the radical clique that currently dominates the Dems just doesn't have bad ideas, they personify those bad ideas. In other words, they don't just think that transgenderism is great, the concept of transgenderism is a fundamental component of who they are. They define themselves as those bad ideas, and their self actualisation comes from them. This means that they won't be able to discard the bad ideas, any more than they could discard an arm or a leg. The bad ideas are just who they are.
So at the moment it appears that in 2026 and 2028 the Dems will still be wildly and enthusiastically pushing the current set of bad ideas, with a total lack of success.
The Dems won't achieve electoral success until they eject the woke fanatics, produce some leaders who are normal people, and stop sending representatives to El Salvador to agitate for the return of illegal immigrants to the country, let alone supporting the genital mutilation of children.
The same thing I think of David Hogg’s effort to replace aging Democratic politicians with younger leaders: it leaves out the part where the idea is to double down on the Omnicause.
Agreed, Democrats want to offer working class voters more empathy, without changing a single policy idea. They didn't start voting for Republicans because they had more empathy, if anything it's the opposite. People say things like, "Trump is the only one fighting for us" not because he looks like them or listens to them. It's because he talks like they do, and no Democrat is going to talk like that.
Personally I think trying to win back the working class is a terrible idea. The coalitions have changed, and appealing more to the working class would potentially alienate the suburban and educated voters Democrats picked up. The GOP never worried about being the working class party, and they won plenty of elections. How about trying to be the party that has competent leaders and gets shit done? I'd vote for that party.
You seem to think that the Democrats should appeal to the Republican base, but that would be a progressive demographic and started looking for the support of the Republican base with people like Cheeney and other Republicans. AOC appeals to that progressive base and most importantly to the people who have been politically disenfranchised.
I think you are wrong. I think hardcore MAGAs are mostly motivated by culture war, and that what you are referring to is not hardcore MAGA or even really MAGA at all, just more moderate Republicans or swing voters.
Bernie is toast. Most of the Bernie energy headed to MAGA after the DNC knifed him in 2016 and then he kept saying “more please sir”. As an attempt to transfer what remains of Bernie support to AOC for a 2028 (or later) run, it might work, but I don’t see Bernie on the ticket. With Newsome tacking violently to the right, maybe a Newsom-AOC ticket and they try to be all things to all people. Unless the strategists really do their work it looks like the 2028 platform will be the same as the previous 3: Orange Man Bad. AOC can be the repository of all the blue hair and cat lady zombie following just like Kamala was - she’s certainly no worse. In fact they probably should have run AOC in 2024. Not that Jilted Joe Biden gave them the luxury of picking a candidate.
The author writes “People left because they didn’t like the (Democratic) ideas. They’re deeply worried about real problems affecting their lives that Democrats have shown no interest in or intention of solving, and mostly deny are even problems.”
He asks” What are the Democratic Party’s answers to the very real new problems of the middle class? What major structural changes do Democrats propose? How are they going to tear into the system to make things work differently?
What systems are they going to tear down, and what new ones will they build? How are they going to restore Americans’ faith in democracy and the American Dream?”
There is no mention of what ideas or answers Republicans (his party) have offered.
The fact is, neither party has answers.
We need a reset. A New Deal. I call myself a New Dealer. I agree with Frank that we need a new way. Some of my ideas on this are on my Substack. Others I am still working on.
The author writes “If the Democrats showed up at a MAGA rally and asked the working people there wearing red, white, and blue T-shirts what they wanted”
People at a MAGA rally are die-hard Trump supporters. It would be like Christian missionaries showing up at a mosque asked want that wanted from religion.
The author writes “Democratic Socialism wasn’t ever a workers’ movement attracting middle-aged guys who work with their hands”
No, it wasn’t. But the majority of (white) “middle-aged guys who work with their hands” have been Republican for a very long time. A lot of them are self-employed or small business owners and so part of the traditional Republican base. They have little in common with working class gals who work low-paid service jobs who make up much of the working class today.
I think I know what you are aiming for here. It’s similar to what I want (I would like to recover something of the postwar economic world, the world of my youth). This is why I call myself a New Dealer. And it is true that what Bernie and AOC are flogging is not that, but what Trump is offering is even further from that.
People lined up for over an hour in Arizona sun to get in to Bernie & AOC’s event here in Tucson — the line stretched for a mile, with almost no shade. You are correct they didn’t present any new ideas (the message was “resist Trump” and “down with the oligarchs”) and Bernie is obviously too old to run for anything. BTW I doubt AOC is running for President — she seems pretty invested in Congress.
Still, I think you have misunderstood the point of what they are doing.
It’s a proof of concept more than anything. It’s demonstrating to the Democratic leadership that if they get out of the Beltway and out of Wall Street’s pockets, there are voters waiting to greet them. AOC has also said that they are demonstrating to GOP that voters will turn out to oppose unpopular MAGA policies.
Your comments about not firing up Gen Z are correct. The crowds that came out here for their tour and for the Hands Off protests skewed white and older.
My perspective is Bernie and AOC are celebrities, and there are always going to be faithful there to see them. There is a core of the party that loves them and that's great. They have a role to play. It's just not the face of the party if you're looking to build a new majority. My argument, however, is less about them personally than what elevating them says about party leadership. It indicates a leadership class that thinks the problem is messaging and winning over demographics instead of developing the right ideas that will win over America. Bernie's 2016 campaign issues were great for 2016, but it isn't going to solve the problems of 2025 or win back the people Democrats want to win.
Are you familiar with Maurice Glasman in the British Blue Labour movement. He makes a lot of these arguments. I find them hard to reconcile with my own progressive, broad church approach … but I am increasingly tending towards anthropological perspectives across different domains and if you take this lens rather than a rationalist or Marxist lens, you see why so many young & working class voters despair of the bedraggled late stage social democratic left. But there is enormous pushback against this in countries which still maintain a high number of gilded (older) elites who want to pretend that we can go back to the 90s if the vulgar populists will go away. The sense-making on all this is by no means complete. We are mostly still at the denial stage, embodied for me in a social media meme showing a baseball cap with the words: “Obama 2028”.
Is the party elevating them, or are they hitting the road bc the party leadership is paralyzed?
I agree with you that what they have done so far doesn’t “win back” voters the Democrats need.
I think it's pretty coordinated. This isn't a rebel operation. The entire apparatus is on message. There's also a lot of media right now about how AOC is the future and a party leader. This is definitely a trial balloon supported from the top.
Although it's also more than just winning back particular voters. That's the wrong framework. The problem for the Democrats is bigger. They built the party around a worldview that's collapsing and have no substantive response to the very real problems that the middle class and working people are facing. The Republicans have unfocused and poorly thought out ideas like trade wars and 100 percent tariffs, but the Democrats have no ideas that don't come out of an Obama era briefing book.
How are they going to tear up the system to bring back middle class stability? "Fighting Oligarchs" is a slogan and not a program (particularly because a heck of a lot of the Oligarchs are the same exact people who run the party). But this perspective is because I think the system isn't working and is going to need serious reform, where a lot of the Democratic establishment still seems to think the system is mostly going great so the job is to defend it against change.
I think this is spot on and absolutely not what many of your readers are going to want to hear. Have fun with that.
People want to be told that nothing is their fault and no compromise is ever needed. Bernie and AOC are the King and Queen of that instinct.
I noticed that a lot of people didn't like this one! Which is fine because that means it was a message I should have shared. And I figure my audience is people who like strong and ideocratic takes that support neither party or ideology, or they wouldn't (or shouldn't!) be reading me.
Calling you out here: What is the strongest example you can cite of Sanders or AOC being unwilling to compromise?
Also a trumpee arguing against hypothetical imaginary kings and queens is about as disingenuous as it gets coming from you.
The Democrats should hire you as a consultant. Spot on analysis. Keep them coming!
I question your thought process. I agree with you by themselves I don't think can do much, but if you see Bernie's popularity even among the podcast bro crowd, it represents something: institutional critique. Why Bernie and AOC are rising is they have an institutional critique that is resonating with people it didn't last time: boomers and black people (AOC specifically) and more importantly they are not ideologically braindead like the rest of the party. I view whatever new way to Democrat sees itself it's going to take ideas and critiques and visions from the AOC Wing of the party. You can't tell 30% of a political party to go fuck themselves and expect to win. The oligarchy critiques on Elon musk in particular even though he's out of the government resonates very deeply. And isn't what happened to AOC this typical process of what happens to insurgent ideologies. They eventually embed themselves as the mainstream; look at MAGA.
I think listening to the wing of the party who liked Bernie in 2016 is smart. I just don't think making Bernie-AOC the focus is the way to build a new majority. What matters most is what it says about party leaders. What they're trying to do here is signal to demographics instead of developing a message and ideas to the very real problems of 2025 (many of which weren't yet apparently in 2016 when Bernie ran and developed the platform he's still talking about on his Oligarchy tour).
The only real thing I think I disagree with you about is that Democrats don't have enough ideas for how to solve problems. I left the GOP for Dems because I realized that Democrats had all the ideas while Republicans just wanted to fight against Dems and stick their heads in the sand. At the end of the day, voters are just going to vote for who they trust on the economy. Dems had the exact same problem with Jimmy Carter because of stagflation. They ended the GOPs winning streak by moving right on economic issues. That plus enforcing the border is all Dems really need to do to win imo.
If anything, this is an indictment of Democratic party leadership. AOC and Bernie are the only ones who are speaking to an aspect of the moment, and are on the attack. The base wants this, but the leadership is too incompetent. I think you are underselling AOC and, in particular, Bernie, are serious ideas people. Since AOC represents one wing of the party, thus will be a face of the party.
I think what you are looking for is someone who synthesizes multiple strains and creates something new. I agree with you that it hasn't happened yet, and I think that person is someone who is not in the limelight. I don't think AOC will be that person, nor should she be. She has a very important role in representing a powerful faction in the party. I don't know if you read Steven Teles and factions, but it's very influential on how I think. What you are looking for is someone who mixes the factions to a new ideology. I don't think that will happen for another two years at least.
Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm looking for! It's a good read of what I've been saying. And I agree, AOC is a popular politician who is going to play a role. Although I see her as less of an idea person than you do. I see her as a Gavin Newsome, ambitious, flexible, a chameleon when necessary, and killer communicator. She is already on her second political image. She's someone you send to sell a message, but I see her as quite flexible about what the message is.
Can Bernie and AOC be more critical of institutions than Trump or Vance? If the answer is no, then all they will do is drive people into the arms of the GOP. Why would you want a party that whines a bit about institutions when you can vote for the party that will hack those institutions up with a chainsaw? Bernie and AOC have been feeding the MAGA movement.
Like it or not, Democrats are now the party of competence and trust in institutions. The GOP won the battle for populism because they can appeal to populist social issues in a way that Dems never can. Bernie will simply scare away suburbanites and business leaders without getting the working class back.
Exactly saying screw you to 30 % of a party is very unrealistic. I think there is a lot of anger at unelected oligarchs causing mass unemployment with Zero accountability!
Do you really think "middle-aged guys in trucker hats from Ohio and Wisconsin who left the Democratic Party to vote for Donald Trump" exist? This is precisely the description used for these guy's fathers who left the Democratic party to vote for Reagan. They *grew up* Republican and have always voted Republican. They have never been Democrats.
The working class today are not the working class of old. People today talk about tradesmen as working class. They are middle class, not working class. They may style themselves as working class since they do a physical job, but in terms of *class* they are like those folks who earn $250K a year and style themselves middle class.
Working class are folks who earning their living through labor. They get hired, trained to do a job and then paid for their labor by the hour. Such folks often receive some kind of government benefit and are on unemployment during bad times. Republicans have always been big on cutting programs they benefit from hence they have supported Democrats. When times are good, as they were in 2024, working class folks are flush and can vote on things other than survival and often vote Republican because they want to endorse the stuff Republicans talk about even if they don't live up to it.
Agree to most all of that, but I'm not sure you're right about them voting GOP when times are good. Traditionally I believe they vote more conservative when times are bad, which is why Reagan won in the first place, and why Clinton moving the party rightward on economics allowed him to unseat an incumbent. They started voting for Trump because he seemed conservative while abandoning cuts to social programs. Best of both worlds for that crowd.
I see where you’re coming from and agree with parts of it, but I’d push back on a few points. I do think most Americans believe in healthcare access — and I wouldn’t be surprised if that even extends to support for Medicare for All in certain segments. As for AOC, while I share some of the concerns raised, I don’t think she qualifies as an elder millennial. She’s closer to that Zillennial cutoff. Personally, I don’t think she’d be the right pick for a presidential run, but I get why her name comes up.
I just checked the "official" cut offs. AOC was born in 1989. Based on the "official" definitions, that places her a little shy of elder millennial but also older than a zillennial (which starts at 1992). Although I would say she has way more of an elder millennial aesthetic than zillennial.
And I actually agree health care remains a big concern for a lot of Americans, but I think over the last decade it's slid down the list. When so many people are worried about basic day to day life (housing, employment) healthcare becomes a luxury concern. In a contest between someone you think will get you a steady well paying job, and someone offering you more affordable health care, people will chose the house and job first.
Frank I love you and your work man but a Google search reveals elder Millennials are 1980-1985. Stop aging this poor woman 😆
Fair enough! We'll just call her a Millennial Millennial.
Although if she runs for president or VP, she's still going to be nearly 40!
Soul searching seems about right. Bernie is a fine politician with a lot of appeal regarding how the democrats can win back working class voters but he still has a focus on soaking the rich that is no longer that helpful. Aoc is right in trying to work as a democrat rather than a socialist but I think she needs to just do the hard work of broadening her appeal beyond blue states like New York. I think the squads intersectional politics are the too “woke” for the average voter, especially in the critical swing states.
My point here is also that it's less about signaling and symbols to demographics, which is what this move looks like Democratic leaders are attempting to do. The problem is the product isn't selling, and for a reason. It's because Americans are very worried about the world in 2025 for very real reasons, ones the Democratic Party ignores or has no solutions to. That needs to be the focus, instead of packaging the product that America didn't want.
I think you've understood the essence of the Dems problems. They believe they have great ideas that are poorly marketed, so they intend to keep those ideas while attempting to market them more effectively.
In fact they have terrible ideas that nobody is buying any more, no matter how they are marketed. Transgender ideology and uncontrolled mass invasion via the southern border are probably the two best examples of these toxic ideas.
Unfortunately, the radical clique that currently dominates the Dems just doesn't have bad ideas, they personify those bad ideas. In other words, they don't just think that transgenderism is great, the concept of transgenderism is a fundamental component of who they are. They define themselves as those bad ideas, and their self actualisation comes from them. This means that they won't be able to discard the bad ideas, any more than they could discard an arm or a leg. The bad ideas are just who they are.
So at the moment it appears that in 2026 and 2028 the Dems will still be wildly and enthusiastically pushing the current set of bad ideas, with a total lack of success.
The Dems won't achieve electoral success until they eject the woke fanatics, produce some leaders who are normal people, and stop sending representatives to El Salvador to agitate for the return of illegal immigrants to the country, let alone supporting the genital mutilation of children.
The same thing I think of David Hogg’s effort to replace aging Democratic politicians with younger leaders: it leaves out the part where the idea is to double down on the Omnicause.
Yeah David Hogg is the same as AOC. He actually is a Zoomer, but he's a Boomer's idea of a Zoomer.
Agreed, Democrats want to offer working class voters more empathy, without changing a single policy idea. They didn't start voting for Republicans because they had more empathy, if anything it's the opposite. People say things like, "Trump is the only one fighting for us" not because he looks like them or listens to them. It's because he talks like they do, and no Democrat is going to talk like that.
Personally I think trying to win back the working class is a terrible idea. The coalitions have changed, and appealing more to the working class would potentially alienate the suburban and educated voters Democrats picked up. The GOP never worried about being the working class party, and they won plenty of elections. How about trying to be the party that has competent leaders and gets shit done? I'd vote for that party.
Who do you think the Democrats must choose as the next nominee?
Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg, imo.
You seem to think that the Democrats should appeal to the Republican base, but that would be a progressive demographic and started looking for the support of the Republican base with people like Cheeney and other Republicans. AOC appeals to that progressive base and most importantly to the people who have been politically disenfranchised.
I think you are wrong. I think hardcore MAGAs are mostly motivated by culture war, and that what you are referring to is not hardcore MAGA or even really MAGA at all, just more moderate Republicans or swing voters.
Bernie is toast. Most of the Bernie energy headed to MAGA after the DNC knifed him in 2016 and then he kept saying “more please sir”. As an attempt to transfer what remains of Bernie support to AOC for a 2028 (or later) run, it might work, but I don’t see Bernie on the ticket. With Newsome tacking violently to the right, maybe a Newsom-AOC ticket and they try to be all things to all people. Unless the strategists really do their work it looks like the 2028 platform will be the same as the previous 3: Orange Man Bad. AOC can be the repository of all the blue hair and cat lady zombie following just like Kamala was - she’s certainly no worse. In fact they probably should have run AOC in 2024. Not that Jilted Joe Biden gave them the luxury of picking a candidate.
The author writes “People left because they didn’t like the (Democratic) ideas. They’re deeply worried about real problems affecting their lives that Democrats have shown no interest in or intention of solving, and mostly deny are even problems.”
He asks” What are the Democratic Party’s answers to the very real new problems of the middle class? What major structural changes do Democrats propose? How are they going to tear into the system to make things work differently?
What systems are they going to tear down, and what new ones will they build? How are they going to restore Americans’ faith in democracy and the American Dream?”
There is no mention of what ideas or answers Republicans (his party) have offered.
The fact is, neither party has answers.
We need a reset. A New Deal. I call myself a New Dealer. I agree with Frank that we need a new way. Some of my ideas on this are on my Substack. Others I am still working on.
The author writes “If the Democrats showed up at a MAGA rally and asked the working people there wearing red, white, and blue T-shirts what they wanted”
People at a MAGA rally are die-hard Trump supporters. It would be like Christian missionaries showing up at a mosque asked want that wanted from religion.
The author writes “Democratic Socialism wasn’t ever a workers’ movement attracting middle-aged guys who work with their hands”
No, it wasn’t. But the majority of (white) “middle-aged guys who work with their hands” have been Republican for a very long time. A lot of them are self-employed or small business owners and so part of the traditional Republican base. They have little in common with working class gals who work low-paid service jobs who make up much of the working class today.
I think I know what you are aiming for here. It’s similar to what I want (I would like to recover something of the postwar economic world, the world of my youth). This is why I call myself a New Dealer. And it is true that what Bernie and AOC are flogging is not that, but what Trump is offering is even further from that.