An excerpt from “Cracks are showing in Trump’s white, blue-collar base” by Steven Greenhouse at The Guardian: “If any demographic group was key to Donald Trump’s election victories in 2016 and 2024, it was white, blue-collar voters. But in perhaps perilous news for Republicans, Trump’s support from that group has plummeted – as many white, working-class voters have grown upset about everything from increased inflation and gas prices to Trump’s war against Iran. These glaring cracks in Trump’s blue-collar base point to big trouble for Republicans in this November’s midterm elections…In 2024, Trump won 66% of white voters without a college degree, but a new CBS News poll found that 54% of that demographic disapprove of his performance. That was up from 45% disapproval in February (before Trump began bombing Iran) and up sharply from 32% in February 2025…This shows severe cracks in Trump’s white, blue-collar base, a group that candidate Trump wooed by promising to crack down on immigration, to reduce prices on day one, to bring back manufacturing jobs and to not start new foreign wars. Many blue-collar voters see that Trump has failed to deliver on any of these promises except for his massive crackdown on immigrants – that crackdown has grown unpopular, however, after Trump’s masked agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis…Trump’s blue-collar base didn’t get the lower prices that he promised; instead, they face painful 4.2% inflation, the highest rate in three years. Trump has utterly failed on another important promise to blue-collar Americans: to increase manufacturing jobs. Ever since Trump returned to office, the number of factory jobs has declined by 68,000. As for Trump’s promise not to begin any foreign wars, many blue-collar Americans are furious that he launched his unsuccessful war against Iran, which, to their huge dismay, has pushed up gasoline and grocery prices.” More here.

In “Politicians have long misunderstood the ‘working class’. The rise of the far right shows how mistaken they have been,” David Peetz writes at The Conversation: “In many countries, the labour and social democratic parties are mere shadows of their former selves…Perhaps the labour parties mistook the decline in “blue-collar” (manual) jobs for the decline of the working class. In Australia, the blue-collar share of jobs fell from 44% in 1979 to 28% in 2025. It’s fallen in the UK, the US and elsewhere…Union membership, once a mostly “blue-collar” phenomenon, declined in most industrialised countries. It fell from an average of 30% of employees across the OECD in 1985 to 19% in 2005 and 15% in 2023. The fall was even greater in Australia…But these changes did not reflect how likely people were to identify as working class…In the US, where the phrase “working class” appeared absent from public discourse for decades until Trump, a differently worded question showed that in 1976, 51% of Americans thought of themselves as either working class or lower class. In 2006, the same survey showed 52% identifying as either working class or lower class. Within this period, numbers had fluctuated from year to year — but always between 48% and 55% expressed working or lower class identity…A Gallup poll added “upper-middle class” to the options, and the proportion claiming working or lower class status was only 39% in 2006. In 2024, that number was 43%…” More here.

Egberto Willies explains why “Platner’s Maine Victory Exposes the Democratic Establishment’s Blind Spot” at Daily Kos: “Graham Platner’s landslide win in Maine sent a message that the Democratic establishment and progressives must absorb quickly: working people are tired of consultants, triangulation, elite gatekeeping, and media-manufactured false equivalencies. Voters did not excuse every flaw; they rejected a political culture that treats personal imperfection and systemic harm as the same thing. Platner won because he centered the working class, spoke to economic pain, owned his past, and refused to let establishment narratives define the race. That matters because Americans increasingly feel the economy is crushing them while pundits and political consultants keep pretending averages, abstractions, and donor-friendly messaging tell the full story.

• Platner’s win showed that voters want candidates who understand working-class struggle, not polished politicians packaged by consultants.
• The mainstream media tried to create false equivalencies between flawed personal conduct and the deliberate policy violence of Trumpism and the Republican Party.
• The Democratic establishment should stop centering billionaire comfort and start centering workers, families, students, veterans, renters, and people crushed by debt.
• It is clear that economic inequality hides behind misleading averages while real people fall further behind.
• Progressives should learn the lesson: authenticity, accountability, and a working-class agenda can defeat establishment politics.” More here.

Kim Kelly reports on “Trump’s Latest Target: Coal Miners’ Safety” at In These Times. Subtitled “In one fell swoop, the Trump administration took an axe to the agency tasked with handling legal disputes around mine worker safety. It could signal even deeper cuts to worker protections coming down the pike,” the article may reveal a new midterm advantage emerging for Democrats in Appalachian congressional districts. Kelly’s article explains further, “As government agencies go, FMSHRC is about as apolitical as they get; miners and their advocates appreciate the work they do to help workers, and mine operators generally appreciate the agency’s ability to resolve issues like mine closures at an expedited pace. Even under a Department of Labor that has pushed a brutal anti-regulatory agenda, it’s unclear who the constituency for these kinds of deep cuts even is. ​“I wonder if there’s a list of agencies that the OPM (Office of Personnel Management) and the White House have been working down, and we happen to be near the bottom of that list, but they’re getting to us now,” a source with knowledge of the agency’s inner workings told In These Times. (The source requested anonymity out of concern for possible retaliation.)…Rather, their fear is that the gutting of the FMSHRC signals the administration’s potential appetite to go after MSHA and its ability to inspect mines for safety violations. Two of the FMSHRC’s three members, both appointed by Democrats, will end their terms in August, leaving one (appointed by a Republican) remaining, plus four empty seats. FMSHRC will now have to push forward with a skeleton crew, and if they’re unable to reach quorum, even less will get done.” More here.