An excerpt from “What 2024 Non-Voters Told Us About Why They Didn’t Vote – and What Democrats Can Do to Win Them Back” by and at The Working Class Project: “We’re back this week with another update from the largest research effort to understand why working class voters are trending away from Democrats...we want to share some unique insights from focus groups we’ve conducted specifically with working class Americans who did not vote in 2024…These working class Americans are folks that Democrats ought to be earning support from (and in many instances, used to vote for Democrats). But they aren’t. And while their disgust with the status quo hurt Democrats in 2024, there are signs this could shift in 2026 and 2028. They don’t really like what they’re seeing from Trump, like on his spending priorities or tariffs, but they need to see an authentic and believable alternative…Despite their defiance and disaffection, many of the non-voters we heard from wanted politicians to more squarely focus on getting more money into their pockets. They consistently said this was something that could get them to support a Democrat or other politician…It was striking how many of these voters named higher wages as one thing politicians could deliver that may change their mind. Democrats would be wise to make a higher minimum wage and lower working class taxes central to their economic plans going forward – but they cannot turn a blind eye to the harsh reality that most working class voters may not trust they would get it done. They’ll have to communicate these economic ideas with focus and intensity, but also make sure to actually follow through on what they say.” Listen to comments from the respondents in their own voices and read more here.
Scrolling down the page where the previous article is located, we find a link to the the irresistibly titled “Deep Dive: Where Working Class Voters Get Information, and How and When to Reach Them,” which notes: “The survey included more than 2,000 working class voters…At the end of the survey, respondents were invited to participate in a more in-depth 24-hour media usage diary, and nearly 500 working class voters took part…The diaries were filled out each hour, allowing both overall daily and more detailed time spent by part-of-day with different types of media…It’s important to note that this survey and diary sought to understand their overall media consumption – not just news. We wanted to learn more about the entertainment streaming services they use, the social media platforms they spend the most time on, and whether they listen to music or podcasts more, among other things…Working class voters are more likely to consume news via links on social media than the general population. Overall, they use YouTube and social media more than the general population (including more regular TikTok consumption), and only 1 in 20 ever read a print newspaper…Early morning is prime time for news consumption among working class voters. News readership spikes between 6:00 and 7:00 AM, and most working class voters (3 of 5) proactively read a news article at some point each day…Audio is a critical format for working class voters. From early morning to early evening, working class voters say they use audio throughout the work day, including streaming services like Spotify or Pandora as well as traditional AM/FM radio, more than the general population…There is some age variance in how working class voters get their news. Voters over 50 still overwhelmingly get news and information from TV. But the social media trend seen above is huge among voters under 50 – with 62% of those aged 18-49 saying they use social media and YouTube most for news…Working class voters also don’t really consume news throughout the day or in the evening. Their peak news consumption is first thing in the morning, likely before they go to work. Later in the day, they are more likely to be exposed to audio (streaming and radio, likely while they work), as well as nighttime entertainment media consumption like TV, streaming, and video games…”
The article continues: “Working class voters are more likely to listen to audio throughout the work day than the overall population. (More than 4 in 5 working class voters told us they listen to audio at some point during the day.) This may seem obvious on its face – working class voters may be more likely to commute to work, have workplace settings where they have a radio on, or have opportunities where they can put their headphones in and listen to streaming music or audio while they work.” Here is one of the article’s revealing graphs:
Matthew Yglesias shares some of his thoughts on “MAGA’s war on the American economy” at Slow Boring: “…Trump is obsessed with superficial indicators of success…He’s spinning economic numbers where he can and moving to suppress data where he can’t…And in addition to political meddling, he’s continuing a pattern of funding cuts that make it hard for statistical agencies to function. The tariffs aren’t going to blow up America’s biggest and most successful companies, but they will exert an ongoing drag on all kinds of businesses that don’t have the clout to successfully beg for exemptions…Last week’s bad jobs report, which showed anemic employment growth over the past several months, confirms this same trend: the economy is slowing…If you ignore economic data and look at immigration data (which, unfortunately, is not measured as precisely or as frequently), the White House is happy to brag that it has transformed immigration from a major source of labor force growth to a slight drag. MAGA fans get defensive when you point this out. But slow growth in aggregate employment and a negative hit to GDP growth are obvious results of this policy choice…Inflation is still running above the Fed’s 2 percent target level and has, in fact, gone up recently. Even if you think monetary policy should ignore the impact of tariffs, it’s hard to see the case for a cut…It’s true that job growth is slowing down sharply, but that’s not because of weak demand; it’s because the administration is strangling labor force growth. It’s never been clear to me what Trump’s team thought would happen if they pulled off their immigration policies. Grandma’s going to come out of retirement to pick up day labor gigs? Residents of depressed former manufacturing towns are going to move to coastal metro areas and work as nannies?…tariffs concentrate a lot of power in his hands personally. Trump is able to grant exemptions to politically connected companies, and this is good for his personal quest for power and enrichment. But it’s still a bad dynamic for America…Trump passed a regressive tax cut and offset part of the cost by cutting Medicaid and nutritional assistance. Now, he’s offsetting another part of that cost by raising taxes on the poor. After the initial tariff rollout was panned by financial markets, he put a lot of time and energy into negotiating deals that have safeguarded the interests of big technology and financial services companies, while continuing to harm lower-income consumers, small businesses, and manufacturing. And it only gets worse from here…Hopefully, a future administration will establish an immigration regime that is more humane and growth-friendly than Trump’s, but also more orderly and secure than Biden’s. It’s normal for policies to ping-pong a little as we try to reach sensible outcomes.”
I think if culture had nothing to do with the working class’s movement to the right, the South would have remained heavily Democratic through the 1960’s.
That said, with moderate pols clearly not having the crossover appeal, base turnout is undoubtedly more important than it used to be. And I don’t accept that the defeats or retirements in hopelessness of Jon Tester, Krystin Sinema, Joe Manchin, Mary Peltola, and lots of others over the past decade don’t speak for themselves. Particularly since no small amount of them occurred in the Democratic years of ’12, ’18, and ’20.
The mechanism that led to many moderates being thrown out of Congress was indeed led by geographic sorting.
But culture only became dominant because the Vietnam War took away fiscal room to expand the programs that kept the Southern working class voting for Democrats, while free trade with Japan and Germany were already causing headaches as neoliberal globalization started to become entrenched. Democrats started with their stupid energy agendas telling people to conserve energy just as they allowed (unscientific) opposition to nuclear to expand. Add to this all the Soviet apologists (including pseudo pacifists) and Blacks’ turn to nationalism (and even Islam) and the public was right to be skeptical of Democrats and the left.
The left has not been able to capitalize on sorting and polarization the same way as the right and people like you will spend your lifetimes saying it eventually will.
(My former congressman Bowman is a testament to what happens when the left overreaches with gimmicks instead of substance.)
The 2008 Blue Dog Caucus was a historical accident due to the Great Recession and failed War on Terror, while the 1994 Contract with America win was a sign of things to come.
Still, Democrats are without a doubt a centrist party. It just uses identity politics as window dressing.
The base doesn’t want the same things as activists elites, so a base mobilization strategy based on Israel, climate change and radical wokeness doesn’t cut it.
If leftists spent half as much energy on domestic economic policy issues as they spend on Gaza the party would have a much different brand.
The Democratic brand is basically an unholy alliance between corporate Democrats who don’t amount to much but are constantly celebrating the first (this or that minority) to become (whatever office has become vacant due to seniority) and a few leftists who confuse Congress with the United Nations and have dismal turnout records in their own districts.
I wonder what issues you think a base mobilization strategy should center, which it should recoil from and which it should say that the party was wrong about….
Blaming the hippies for the loss of the South seems ridiculous for three reasons.
First, the Republicans made significant gains in southern House and State Legislative races in the pre-hippy cycles of 1964 and 1966. So, that revolution predated the flower kids. It therefore seems to have been a combination of polarization and racism. The latter may not go over well with you but it’s quite a coincidence that this began around the time Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Might I add that he correctly predicted that the South would be lost?
2. The old Dixiecrats who consistently won nominations in the old South were conservative Democrats through and through. Just as one example, the anti-union Taft-Hartley passes over Harry Truman’s veto because of the Dixiecrats. That would seem to suggest that the difference between the heartland’s economic and cultural views have been exaggerated by some.
3. Finally, you may find it hard to believe, but I live in rural Georgia. And my personal experience with the other locals tells me that, as I have argued, they are also fairly conservative on economics because their old school values include a softer version of “If you don’t work you don’t eat.” That means support for austerity. No matter how horrifying this concept is to class-minded Dems.
The conclusion that is logical from the sum of your comments is not clear to me at all.
Yglesias is deeply committed to the neoliberal status quo ante in regards to free trade.
He is so blinded by this that him as well as many others don’t understand why Trump would if fixated on interest rates as a way to counterbalance tariffs.
That the US needed to become less of a consumer driven economy was a consensus in mainstream economics until Trump actually implemented it.