In “Democrats Launch Plan To Win Back Working Class,” Kahleda Rahman writes at Newsweek: “The leading super PAC supporting House Democrats in next year’s midterms has launched a $50 million fund aimed at winning back working-class voters….The House Majority PAC’s investment, which it has dubbed the “Win Them Back Fund,” is “focused on ensuring that we win back working-class voters across the congressional battlefield,” according to a Monday memo. It comes two years after it began the 2024 election cycle with funds for House seats in New York and California….The memo said that one of the “major roadblocks we have faced as a party has been declining support among a multiracial group of working-class voters.”….But it noted that some House Democrats including Representatives Adam Gray, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Don Davis “continue to overperform with this crucial bloc of voters,” demonstrating that House Democrats “can win back this coalition of voters with the support of strategic investments in recruitment, research, and programming.”….The memo said, “the House Republican agenda—including tariffs and taxes that would raise costs on families and force steep cuts to programs like Medicare, Social Security, and veterans’ benefits, would hurt working-class voters and only benefit the ultrarich—and awareness of that reality is key to our success with these voters….The super PAC’s memo included a list of 14 Republicans the fund will initially target, saying they represent districts where working-class voters would be “especially hurt” by the Republican policies….Mike Smith, the president of the House Majority PAC, said in a statement to Newsweek: “We’re laying a marker down with our Win Them Back Fund—this is a priority. Crafting and developing a credible working-class message through an economic frame is the single best thing we can do as a party.”

Les Leopold explains “Why Working People Need a Political Movement of Their Own” at Common Dreams, and writes: “It would be suicidal, some argue, for the working class to abandon the Democrats. Better that they exert pressure so that the Democrats become genuine economic populists. For that to happen, realistically, it must be proven that Democrats can win elections on a populist platform in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin….But Sherrod Brown, a very strong economic populist, lost his Senate seat in Ohio in 2024. Did populism drag him down? Brown, who lost by 3.6 percent, certainly ran better than Harris, who lost Ohio by 11.2 percent. Brown believes, however, that he was done in by NAFTA, the free trade bill pushed for and signed by Bill Clinton in 1993….The power of NAFTA, not the working-class racism, is also what delivered the South to the Republicans, according to Nelson Lichtenstein in his new book on the Clinton years, A Fabulous Failure. Even after Nixon used his racist Southern Strategy to lure the South away from the Democrats, Lichtenstein notes that congressional representation in the southern states was still evenly split between the two parties. After NAFTA demolished the southern textile industry, however, most of the South abandoned the Democrats….The Democrats also have failed to redevelop decimated areas by directly creating jobs, as the New Deal did during the Depression. Job stability is not something either political party cares about, because corporate interests come first, but the issue hurts the Democrats more because of its historical claim as the party of working people….Working people, union and non-union alike, can still be mobilized through civic engagement to express their hopes and desires. Workers could join something new, like a new Workers Populist Alliance, to develop and put forth a working-class agenda….The billionaire class has two political parties. Working people need one of our own.”

Democrats should energetically publicize that military veterans are included in the Trump-Musk  seizure of data pertaining to all U.S. government payments. As Rebecca Kheel writes at military.com: “Over the weekend, Musk and his team gained access to the system that the Treasury Department uses to make all U.S. government payments. The system includes taxpayer data, such as Social Security numbers, for nearly every American, which naturally includes scores of veterans. On top of that, information about VA disability and retirement benefits, Medicare and Medicaid payments and any other government benefits veterans might receive would be swept up in the system….”Anyone who’s receiving payments from the federal government, first and foremost, is likely to be concerned that payments that they are obliged to receive might not show up, either intentionally because they’re getting blocked for some reason that’s not explained, or even unintentionally, because they’re giving admin access to a critical piece of our federal infrastructure to random coders off the street, which violates like every principle of cybersecurity and administration of these systems that exists,” said Alan Butler, executive director and president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit privacy advocacy group….”With this takeover, Musk can now access veterans’ personal data — from where they live, to their bank account info, and the amount of their earned VA benefits,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a statement. “Veterans risked their lives to defend this country, and they deserve more than to have unaccountable billionaires playing with the benefits they earned and rely on.” Read on here.

It’s not going to happen and it’s just a distraction from the Administration’s barrage of unpopular recent initiatives. But Kevin Liptak, Alayna Treene and Jeff Zeleny explain “How Trump arrived at his stunning idea to ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip” at CNN Politics: “President Donald Trump’s idea — announced Tuesday evening at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — was formulated over time, people familiar with the matter said, and appeared to originate with the president himself. It was only the latest reminder that policy ideas often start with Trump, rather than slowly build through national experts before ultimately reaching the Oval Office for discussion….“The president has said he’s been socialing this idea for quite some time. He’s been thinking about this,” his press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday….The proposal for Gaza has not come up in private meetings Trump has held with GOP members of the Armed Services Committees, aides said, even though the ceasefire and broader challenges across the Middle East were key points of discussion as late as last week….Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was traveling in Guatemala, heard the idea for the first time as he watched Trump’s news conference with Netanyahu on television. The Middle East has been dramatically reduced from his portfolio, with Witkoff, the president’s longtime friend, serving as the US envoy to the region….A day after Trump made his comments, [national security advisor Mike] Waltz suggested it had been in the works for some time….“We’ve been looking at this over the last weeks and months, and frankly he’s been thinking about it since October 7,” Waltz said Wednesday on CBS….In public and private conversations over the last year, Trump has repeatedly highlighted the value of Gaza’s seaside location, suggesting it was prime real estate for development….Sending US troops to the region would be in stark contrast to Trump’s long-held critique of nation building and foreign entanglements. He was among the sharpest critics of Republican orthodoxy of national building during the George W. Bush administration.”