Let’s try a pragmatic populism, with the stirring ideas of an AOC and the plainspoken appeal of a Marie Gluesenkamp Perez
“How the Democrats lost the working-class vote”, ran the headline on the New York Times’s front page on 6 January. According to the Times, the Democrats’ estrangement from the working class was decades in the making. The party’s enthusiastic embrace of trade and globalization led to the closure of factories across industrial America, eliminating jobs that had been a prime source of stability, identity and prestige.
While many Democrats attributed Trump’s success to the left’s embrace of “woke” language and causes like transgender rights, the Times observed, the economic seeds of his victories “were sown long ago”. A longtime AFL-CIO official was quoted as saying that “one of the things that has been frustrating about the narrative ‘the Democrats are losing the working class’ is that people are noticing it half a century after it happened”.
Don’t ask what’s the matter with Kansas.
Don’t ask how Trump voters can vote against their interests.
Don’t ask evangelical Christians how they can support someone like Trump.
Don’t claim that the facts and science are on your side.
Don’t claim that Trump voters are victims of disinformation.
Don’t blame the Democrats’ unpopularity on Fox News and other rightwing outlets.
Don’t campaign with celebrities.
Don’t sermonize when discussing climate change.
Don’t call Trump supporters stupid.
Michael Massing is the author of Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind. He is writing a book about money and influence
