Who is like -- "Trump's gonna turn the planet into a pile of ash, but I can't see voting the other way."
Yea it sucks but if you can't see a substantial difference, wow.
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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They gotta get that Bloomberg and Every town money.
What an absurd, right-wing article. The author clearly doesn't understand it either.
But even where working-class voters nominally agree with a Democratic policy goal, they don’t trust the institution being asked to deliver it – a distrust decades in the making.
This undermines the entire thesis that the Democrats "moved too far left" and that's what alienated the working class. How can it possibly be the case that that's the problem, if the Democrats are distrusted even when they align on policy?
The idea that Democrats are too focused on class, or have been historically, is just ridiculous, and relies on cherry-picking to an absurd degree. A handful of Democrats have recently begun talking about class, which is highly controversial within the party and goes against the party establishment. The article even goes so far as to cherry-pick Graham Platner, who hasn't even been elected! How is it possible that this recent trend in rhetoric could be responsible for "a distrust decades in the making?"
Meanwhile, the author's approach of moving right to appeal to this perceived silent majority has been the accepted, conventional wisdom during the very decades that the distrust was made! If this approach was actually effective, then where are the results to show for it?
They are morons. But so are both parties. It’s all cash grab buy votes. But fuck progressives too. They only care about their fringe groups, higher taxes and 2A removal. Progressives would love to be enslaved bc they want 2A removed.
I said like a decade ago that if Democrats dropped the gun thing they would win every election.
Gotta get that Bloomberg and Every town money. Stupid. Dems suck at winning anything.
So the big argument seems to be that the nebulously defined here "working class", or rather people who explicitly consider themselves such, don't want things that the GOP has been demonizing for decades?
This is just an argument for dems to be more right to appeal to Republican voters. One of the citations is a link to an essay written by the senior editor of the American conservative.
What a worthless article.
That’s how I interpreted this as well.
Either that, or it reads that working class Americans aren’t very good people.
I used to think that but have come to the conclusion in recent years that people act the way they do because their lives are genuinely terrible and there is no possibility of them becoming better because there is nowhere for them to go. For those with great motivation, great intelligence, or great connections, there are plenty of things to do. For the average person brought up in and living in an average way, though, there is nothing but generational pain.
Sadly, most people don't have enough imagination to consider how things could be better for them or everyone.
This is also my takeaway. Moving to fascistic leaders is just an expression of overwhelming pain.
It’s similar to Weimar Germany. Shame and economic dislocation are enormously powerful motivators.
If you’ll give me some rope, I think the Democratic Party has lost their constituency because they have made two errors:
- Following Reagan, they tried to chase Republican voters by abandoning working class policies, disenfranchising workers and increasing inequality. Now, older people run the Democratic Party and they fail to see how much the landscape has changed since they were initially elected.
- There are not many Democrats that harness anger. Anger is addictive and enthralling. The party instead promotes loyalists, policy wonks, technocrats, and extremely ineffective consultants. This has not paid off but their donors demand this sort of management.
Dang.
I also think that the Democratic party is lead by people who are among the elite and have no real connection to the average person. The GOP doesn't either but they tell a story that will compel those with enlarged amygdalas.
For the average person brought up in and living in an average way, though, there is nothing but generational pain.
And despite this, they seem hell-bent on perpetuating said generational pain.
That’s the unironically saddest thing in life.
Well what do they have to lose? And maybe with accelerationism something will change for them. Theres more hope there than in limping the status quo along. I keep hearing people on lemmy say you are either voting Dem or voting republican and theres nothing in between. But not voting in an attempt to hold the dems hostage for once is a possible choice too, and its as calculated and strategic as lesser evili-sm is.
You could be correct with that. Certainly, what you say about there being nowhere for people to go in terms of life improvement certainly seems to be the case. I’m not even sure if intelligence or motivation is enough for some in the worst positions over there.
I just can’t see these gaps between left moving Democrats and Americans wanting better lives. I certainly, from the outside at least, don’t see a gap where the healthcare question is concerned. My scope here is limited; I’m restricted to what I see on socials plus general articles on the topic.
The article just doesn’t seem right, it seems constructed to produce a particular view.
It's difficult to get a man to learn a lesson when his paycheck depends on him not learning it.
Yeah, blame Democrats while 14 billionaires fund massive anti-intellect campaigns.
Who is it you think Democrats are taking money from to ignore our material needs?
The billionaires I just mentioned, stupid.
Democrats are taking money from those billionaires to be out of touch, Democrats are to blame
ok, maga boy
BlueMAGA are closer in ideology to MAGA than any socialist. Your cult like devotion to your own exploitation is why we call you BlueMAGA
Ok, Tankie boy. Blame the democrats, while billionaires and Republicans do all the fuckery. You're brainwashed. Go outside, for the love of god.
They take the same money from the same billionaires that Republicans do while you defend their actions, and you want to talk about brainwashed?
You mean those same billionaires who fund the democrats?
Yes
I think they do understand. They just are unwilling to acknowledge it because then they would be expected to change, which would upset the corpos and billionaires.
This is willful ignorance
"For every working class democrat we lose, we'll get 2 or 3 moderate republicans in the suburbs" -Chuck Schumer, 2016
We just had governor elections in California and not one candidate was picked by the democrats to lead the charge. They don't care
What a strange way to say everyone, politicians have lost touch with people due to the constant infighting and across the aisle bullshit along with the temptation of easy money and no one can take control of the monsters they created.
No leader.
Sure there is. He just happens to be pleasing the Epstein class enough that the centrists don't have to do anything to sabatage the party.
What we need is a leader with a strong progressive message.
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Don't get? More like don't care
maybe thinking that working class and two-car garage families are the same thing might be a place to start
Almost every American is working class. Part of the problem is using "working class" to mean "blue collar workers and poor people".
Absolutely.
If most of your income comes from selling your labor, you're working class.
If most of your income comes from owning things, you're owning class.
That's it. It's that simple. And yes, that means that in some cases, some working class people are actually wealthier than some owning class people. A movie star or star athlete or even a specialized surgeon might have more money than a small-time landlord, but they work for their money, while the landlord gets money simply from owning a few properties. The former is working class, the latter is owning class.
And no, there's no such thing as 'middle class'. That's a lie made up to pacify people. The only other class is the underclass -- people who have little or no income at all. Prisoners, the homeless, the institutionalized, etc.
Hear hear. I have a white collar office job and make a good deal as a tech manager. I get a salary from my employer; therefore I am working class.
How is a 2 car garage not working class exactly?
Its a terminally online attempt at shifting the overton window of what it means to be "working class".
I've seen a similar attack on Platner, that because their mom owns a restaurant, that means they aren't working class. Its a perspective utterly detached from reality.
This idea that anyone who has enough wealth to be above the poverty line is "not working class" and "an unreliable ally" is straight out of Stalinism and one I see pretty frequently in lefty circles. Have a house? A paid-off car? A business? You're a filthy kulak.
Tankies are very susceptible to that, sure.
They often fall into the trap of seeing 'working class' as more of an aesthetic than as a way of relating to capital. Which is why they'll fawn over construction workers and coal miners, but dismiss baristas and office workers.
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A lot of places have relatively cheap housing with two car garages which are owned by the working class.
Let's not lose sight here. The enemy is the upper class (typically billionaires, but a lot of time this includes politicians), and they want the lower class divided and shitting on each other so that they can do whatever they want in the meantime.
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damn, didn't ANYBODY in the comments section bother to read the article?
Nope! Most all everyone just reacts to headlines and doesn’t even click through.
I guess I’m just a coastal elite, but I didn’t find the argument that Dems have tacked left and the electorate has stayed the same particularly compelling. The part about the working class identity was annoying — there’s so many people who want to think of themselves as some kind of merchant or artisan class that I don’t think really exists, and they would be much better off if they realized that if you live off the income you get from your work, you’re working class. Overall, I didn’t find the analysis persuasive.
Everybody who says the democrats - who are right wing by international standards - are too left are just lying.
I also disagreed, but I can't coherently argue why, which is obviously a sign to reflect on my opinions.
One thing that stood out to me was the broad, encompassing usage of "left". The author lumps together the theatrical leftism like this photo with political leftism like codified worker protections.
I did think he made an excellent point that "down with oligarchs!" isn't going to resonate with a lot of working class people.
edit: I also think the author failed to acknowledge that conservative think tanks and media savvy have certainly influenced opinions and even the LANGUAGE used to discuss topics among all classes, so to imply that the working class hasn't changed at all isn't fair.
I agree. The author presents a thesis that Democrats have tracked left, and then presents two issues where they have (abortion, job guarantees), one issue where they have returned to where they were in 1990 and the working class has tracked right (healthcare), and then just an identity question (liberal) which is not actually an issue. It's far from a comprehensive data analysis.
The author misses out on a huge area where Democrats (and the left in general) have consistently gotten worse at: communication and persuasion. Part of this is the failure of the Democrats to identify, push, and promote charismatic candidates (find a single human being who feels more excited about left ideas after hearing Pelosi, Jeffries, or Schumer talk). The other big part is the concentration of media power in fewer organizations and more ideologically right owners. Even more, the party of the young whiffed on social media entirely which could have lessened the impact of the latter part.
Because stupid. My dog can choose correctly between 1 cookie and 2. These people either chose worse or just noped out.
They do know, they don't care.
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