Progressives: We Have to Drive Efforts to Confront the Working Class Disconnect

In 2025, progressives must take the lead on resisting Trump 2.0 and reconnecting with working-class voters. While individual progressive leaders in Congress are working hard, we can’t rely on the institutional Democratic Party – not without constant prodding. And we have to reject centrist advice that trimming our sails and abandoning vulnerable people is the path to political success.

It's up to us and here are some key guideposts for moving forward.

#1: We have to admit that working class people have been taking it on the chin for decades under both Republicans and Democrats.

Reconnecting with working-class voters is a substantive issue, not just a messaging one. People living paycheck to paycheck and feeling unheard and unseen by many Democrats aren’t wrong. In November, their frustration boiled over triggered by inflation.

But the roots of the problem trace back decades. And electorally the shift of working-class voters away from Democrats has been underway for three presidential cycles.

No messaging shift will work unless Democrats back it up with action. We must push for an economic populist agenda and against policies that stack the deck against hard-working people.

#2: We need Democrats who can speak authentically to working class voters.

You can’t fake authenticity. For every AOC who speaks with heartfelt clarity grounded in her own working class roots, there are far too many Democrats who convey a palpable lack of connection to the life experiences of their own constituents.

We need Democrats who can give voice to the needs and aspirations of people struggling with economic uncertainty as easily as they represent people worried about climate change or the spread of authoritarianism. And they need to talk about economic hardship in a much more visceral, emotional way.

Working class people naturally belong at the very heart of the Democratic coalition and until that’s how it feels, we won’t make much progress.

#3: We have to propose concrete, immediate steps and sell them like crazy.

Even Bernie Sanders acknowledges President Biden advanced important progressive economic policies. But when it comes to how his administration framed and tried to promote those policies, they failed miserably.

The "finish the job" message implying substantial achieved progress was out of sync with working families’ lived experience. The policy focus was on long-term, not immediate, impact. And efforts to actively promote what was achieved were feeble.

We have to advance steps that don’t ask people to wait around for years before feeling the impact. And we have to aggressively sell that agenda.

#4: Neoliberals helped get us into this mess. They can’t get us out.

What Jim Hightower said decades ago still holds true. “The only thing you find in the middle of the road is a yellow line and dead armadillos.” The drumbeat has begun from centrists who advanced the neoliberal policies that helped break the Democratic connection with working class people in the first place.

They claim Trump’s victory is all the progressives’ fault. We were too “woke,” helped push Biden’s economic policies too far, and focused too much attention on cultural issues. Don’t buy it.

#5: We didn’t lose the election because we cared too much about trans kids.

We didn’t lose by standing with trans kids dealing with outrageous harassment and heartbreak. We lost because we didn’t demonstrate the same kind of empathy and concern for working-class families worried sick about how to pay their bills, feed their family and carve out a brighter future for their children.

Sure, standing up for peoples’ rights doesn’t mean taking the bait every time our opponents try to draw us into crazy conversations.

But the way forward is widening our circle of compassion, not narrowing it.

Coming Next: Laying the groundwork for our 2026 election messaging now.

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