House Minority Leader Jeffries got a big applause and a lot of media coverage when he told House members that Trump won the election fair and square, and then added that “there are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.” It was an effective comment, and one that shut down the House Republican gloatfest, as Dems rose up to cheer their leader.

Inauguration day, January 20th, however, does present Dems with an opportunity. No, not angrily protesting the inauguration. There will be some of that. But it doesn’t serve the Democratic cause. Just as Democrats are not election deniers, it behooves Democrats to remember that theirs is not the sour grapes party. It’s a bad look and Democrats shouldn’t wear it.

January 20th is also the Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday, a day of nationwide community service projects. The King holiday, as enacted and signed into law in 1983, always falls on the third Monday of January, and sometimes that third Monday is January 20th, Inauguration Day, as it will be this year.

So, Democrats who are looking for an alternative to grumbling about Trump’s inauguration, have an interesting alternative: Get involved in the community service projects that are occurring all across America. It’s a much better look for Democrats to  be doing something to actually help people, and to do it in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.,  than it is for Dems to be whining and grinding teeth on the sidelines.

There is a lot in Trump’s stated plans which merit protest. Those who feel they must protest the inauguration should feel free to do so. But not all of those in the the majority of Americans who voted against Trump are comfortable with going negative on January 20th. It’s kind of like going to an opening day baseball game and focusing on insulting the visiting team, instead of rooting for your home team.

The MLK holiday presents a positive way for Democrats to express their hopes for a better America – to reaffirm their commitment to MLK’s great dream for our country by helping people in need in community service projects. It’s a good look.

Some of the amazingly-diverse MLK Day community service projects undertaken by groups and individuals in cities, counties and small towns in recent years include:

• Blood donor drives
• Cleaning up trash in parks and local rivers
• Collecting food for feed the hungry projects
• Painting and refurbishing shelters for homeless people
• Collecting guns for disposal by the police
• Tutoring kids
• Planting trees
• Reading to vision-impaired seniors
• Yardwork help for people with disabilities
• Fixing broken playground equippment
• Running errands for homebound people
• Shoveling snow for elderly homeowner walkways
• Collecting clothes for family violence shelters
• Organizing free medical care clinics for MLK Day
• Sponsoring teach-ins about MLK’s nonviolence

Such community service projects and many others have been launched on the King holiday every year since the first MLK holiday was observed in 1986. Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden have all personally volunteered to serve communities on MLK Day. Countless public service organizations and private sector businesses have also sponsored such projects. More multi-racial community service projects are completed on MLK Day than on any other holiday, and Democrats who want to do something positive on January 20th are encouraged to help fulfill the Dream.

There will be mass marches, community breakfasts, dinners and other activities in hundreds of cities and towns all across the nation on the MLK holiday. But community service will always be the heart and soul of this holiday.

In “Immigration is no longer the key to securing America’s millions of Latino voters. What is?,” Laurie Carillo writes at USC Annenberg Media that, ” According to the Pew Research Center, U.S. births are the main drivers of the growth of the Latino population, not new immigrant arrivals. Getting further and further away from the immigration experience, there isn’t much holding this diverse community together….“The more Americanized the Latino voter is, the more right-wing they become, the more Trump-supporting they become,” Madrid said. “The closer Latino men are to the country of origin, the more they have supported Black and female candidates.”….The Latino population is largely working class. One in five Latino men work in construction. For some Latinos, labor, not immigration, drives their votes….Although the Republican Party has never been known for supporting unions, labor leader Sean O’Brien of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters appeared at the Republican National Convention in July, demonstrating weakening political cohesion among working-class voters….For millions, the prospect of an improved economy was enough to cast a vote for Trump, despite his platform of mass deportation. If a Latino voter is a citizen, and no one in their family is undocumented, a plan like Trump’s might even sound like a good thing.” Marcelino Quiñonez, a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives, said “I’ve heard from folks who are on the ground and working to get out the vote that men would say, ‘Well, I don’t believe everything that Trump is saying, but at least he’s talking about the things that I want to hear about,’” Quiñonez said. “From a campaigning standpoint, people want to feel like, ‘Oh, if I vote for this person, my life is going to change….“We’re often playing the defense, responding to what’s being said about us, and I think what we need to do is really focus on the things that we’re good at,” Quiñonez said. “We need to go back to some of the bread and butter issues.’”

When a politician loses a U.S. Senate race, he or she frequently fades into obscurity, rarely to be heard much from again. In the case of Rep. Tim Ryan, who lost his senate race to J. D. Vance in 2022 and in 2020 mounted a failed presidential campaign, that would be a shame, because Democrats have few leaders who have as solid an understanding of working-class voters as does Ryan. So, when Ryan argues  that “‘Our brand is toxic’: Former US Democratic lawmaker calls for ‘complete reset’ of party after Harris loss to Trump,” as reported at msn.com, Democrats should listen. Ryan may have indeed lost his seat as part of the trend punishing individual Democrats for their party’s sins against working-class voters. “You start with a complete reset. We need a rebrand. I think you and I have been talking about this since 2016, like, our brand is toxic in so many places and it is like, you are a Democrat? That’s the stuff we get like in Ohio. So it needs — we need a complete reboot. We need a complete reboot with the DNC. We need a complete rebranding,” Ryan said, as reported by Fox News. He believed the party hadn’t offered enough to voters in the political middle ground who were reluctant to vote for Trump….Ryan suggested the Democrats should focus on policies that resonate with working-class voters, like reindustrialization and American competitiveness. He questioned the party’s stance against the crypto industry and called for a return to “bread and butter policies.” He contrasted his view with a focus solely on redistribution….“We are going to tax the bad guys who are rich, which we want people to aspire to make money in America. We will tax them because they’re really bad people and we’re going to give you money. No, it is about growing the pie,” he added.” Can Ryan bounce back after losing high-profile elections to win the presidency? Stranger things have happened in America.

We’ve probably seen most of the post-mortems about the presidential election. Now, get ready for the flood of post-mortems regarding President Joe Biden’s term in the White House. Here’s a handy poster meme from demcastusa.com:

“On paper, the 2026 midterms should be a good year for House Democrats,” Emily Singer writes at Daily Kos, explaining “How House Democrats are plotting their comeback. “They need to flip just three seats in order to win back control of the House—something they came painfully close to doing in 2024. Democrats fell short this year in the three districts that determined the majority by a combined total of just 7,309 votes….And given that the party in the White House almost always loses seats in the first midterm election, that puts Democrats in prime position to oust Johnson from the speaker’s office….Democrats will have the added advantage in 2026 of being able to run against what is sure to be Republican dysfunction in Congress, as the GOP will struggle to pass its agenda with a historically small majority and fractious caucus of members who love to vote against legislation and refuse to make the compromises necessary to pass bills….”It has become increasingly apparent that many of my House Republican colleagues want to jam big tax cuts for the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected down the throats of the American people and try to pay for those tax cuts, which will not benefit everyday Americans, by cutting Social Security and Medicare,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a Dec. 11 news conference on Capitol Hill….“This is not a hypothetical. It’s not hype. It’s not hyperbole. It’s happening before our very eyes because extreme MAGA Republicans in the House are telling us, publicly and repeatedly, that’s exactly what they plan to do to the American people,” Jeffries warned. “House Democrats are clear we will oppose any effort to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it.”…. Expect to hear that message a lot over the next two years.”

Morgan Stephens shares “How Democrats can win back the working class” at Daily Kos: “Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut is calling for a break from the economic neoliberalism of the past. He joins a growing list of progressives who argue that Democrats must prioritize the needs of working-class Americans to stay relevant in today’s political climate of staggering economic inequality….He also highlighted what he sees as a false choice between unfettered market capitalism and socialism, proposing a middle ground: “common-good capitalism.” This vision, according to Murphy, would ensure that economic rules value workers just as much as shareholders and that certain sectors—such as health care—should not be commoditized for profit. “I think that’s the winning argument for Democrats,” Murphy concluded….Democrats like Murphy are right to assume Americans feel economic discontent. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, wealth inequality has steadily increased for those at the top, with the wealthiest 5% of Americans owning a staggering two-thirds of the wealth distribution. Meanwhile, wages have remained stagnant, and home ownership is unattainable.” Stephens adds, “At its core, populism claims the system is rigged against the average, working-class citizen in favor of wealthy “elites.” Defining features of populism are a disdain for the ruling class and a focus on the working class, critiques of government and corporate institutions, nationalism and identity politics, and perhaps, most importantly, an overall sense of economic discontent.”

An excerpt from “New progressive chair says Dems don’t have to abandon trans folks to reconnect with working class” by Greg Owen at lgbtqnation.com: “The progressive movement needs to change,” he told NBC News in an interview on Wednesday before his election to chair the influential caucus. “We need to re-emphasize core economic issues every time some of these cultural war issues are brought up.”….“So when we hear Republicans attacking queer Americans again, I think the progressive response needs to be that a trans person didn’t deny your health insurance claim, a big corporation did — with Republican help,” Casar said. “We need to connect the dots for people that the Republican Party obsession with these culture war issues is driven by Republicans’ desire to distract voters and have them look away while Republicans pick their pocket.”….And he asserted Democrats can do it “without throwing vulnerable people under the bus.”….That response may have been in answer to his colleagues Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) laying blame for Democrats’ losses in part on Vice President Kamala Harris’ stance on trans rights….Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also recently backed away from his support of health care for trans inmates — mandated by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution barring cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners….During the election, Republicans spent over $215 million on attack ads highlighting the Democrats’ and their standard bearer’s support of trans rights.”

If you were wondering “Why Democrats Are Losing Americans Without a College Degree—and How to Win Them Back,” Neil Krauss and Jon Shelton provide some answers at The Nation, including: “The Democrats have been losing white non-college-graduates for some time. But when we consider racial disparities in educational attainment in relation to voting patterns, there is an equally troubling pattern emerging: In 2016, Clinton won voters of color without a college degree by 56 points. In 2020, even with Biden’s over-performance relative to Clinton, Trump still narrowed the gap in this demographic to 46 points. In 2024, Trump closed the gap even further, to just 30 points (and only 24 points in Wisconsin). That’s massive. In 2024, whatever has turned white non-college-graduates off Democratic candidates is now happening for other racial groups, as well. And that’s really bad news for Democrats, considering that the majority of American adults don’t have a college degree….To win back working-class voters—particularly those with less formal education—Democrats must clearly commit to a vision and a narrative that prioritizes meaningful economic security for working people. In 2016 and 2024, Trump capitalized on the Democratic Party’s failure to offer a transformative economic vision for workers, especially for those without bachelor’s degrees….What Democrats must do, instead, is to offer a big transformative vision, and stick to it for as long as it takes to actualize it. Offering such a vision is not as daunting as it sounds. Rather, the Democrats need to tap into their own history of changing the nation’s economic tapestry, through traditions like the New Deal and Great Society, which made them a majority party for decades, to improve the livelihoods of the people who do all the work.”

Krauss and Shelton continue, “Democrats can side with corporate interests, or they can win elections. But they cannot do both…Economic inequality and insecurity are typically framed in terms of inflation, and it’s true, the cost of nearly everything skyrocketed during Covid and never came down, despite inflation’s coming down to normal levels well over a year before the election. But inflation is largely a problem because so many workers have so few mechanisms—like collective bargaining—to ensure that they can keep, or purchase, a larger slice of what the economy produces….Regardless, this election hardly realigned American politics. Remember that Trump was defeated in 2020 after offering absolutely nothing for working people as president. Rather, when we consider the last three presidential elections in tandem (each time the effective incumbent lost), it becomes clear that most Americans are voting, with desperation, for any political party that seems to prioritize their economic livelihoods….Nationally, Democrats must do what they have done in Wisconsin: show up at our union meetings and picket lines and connect economic messages directly to those of unions, so working people can see their livelihoods connected with Democrats. Democratic candidates need to publicly and vocally show up to help organize new workers in unions, too, so we can build a more vibrant labor movement capable of building political power for the long term.”

The following article, “New Year’s Resolution for Democrats: Be Honest and End the Myth that Door Knocking is Real ‘Ground Game’” by Scott Goodstein, Founder & CEO of CatalystCampaigns.com, is cross-posted from scottgoodstein.medium.com:

Once upon a time, in a precinct long, long ago, there was a campaign that built voter contact programs solely from those who lived in the targeted neighborhood. The entire community shopped at the same grocery stores and even saw one another at the bank, gym, and library. In other words, this was totally different from today’s “ground game,” manned by people who drive from hours away, armed with clipboards, shiny new campaign t-shirts, and ready to tell residents exactly how they should vote.

While a ton of articles have been written about the importance of the “ground game” in the final days of the Harris campaign, no one is discussing the increasing problems and decreasing rate of return of this tactic. Time Magazine’s October election article, “Democrats Bank on Ground Game Advantage in Pennsylvania,” opens with the author observing that “most of the people on Elana Hunter’s list weren’t answering the door,” but does not dig into the actual problem. The same is true with campaign analysis in hundreds of other news outlets. The New York Times wrote a lengthy piececomparing Vice President Kamala Harris’ in-house door-knocking operation to the Trump campaign’s outsourced field operation. The article highlights both sides bragging about how many doors they knocked on and how much paid staff was hired. But, neither side (nor the writers) discuss how few people answer their doors or even care what the stranger is selling.

This analysis misses the real problems of modern-day door knocking: Voters don’t open their doors anymore, voters do not know their neighbors, and undecided voters are more skeptical than ever when it comes to talking about politics.

As Democrats, we should know that a last-minute paid “ground game” that gets dropped into the battleground days before an election hasn’t worked in years.

Year-round precinct work with “local captains” who knew their “turf” and how each neighbor would vote disappeared as the campaign industry grew and political parties stopped building traditional ward systems. Instead, they were replaced with volunteers and paid voices that only knocked on doors during major elections. This transition from a known, trusted neighbor to an unknown door knocker has made modern campaigning a data-driven competition that ignores effectiveness as it optimizes toward knocking on the most doors.

Nonetheless, message and messenger still matter in all aspects of campaigns, especially in the field. Door-to-door salesmen are a relic of history (Even the legendary Fuller Brush company started transitioning out of door-to-door sales in 1985).

Public safety studies show neighborhoods are more responsive to community policing programs when public safety officers know the people they serve. Why would political campaigns be different?

Technology has also had a major impact on door knocking. It’s now been a decade since the invention of video door camera technology. According to a 2024 Consumer Reports study, 30% of Americans use video door cameras. These changes in neighborhood dynamics and consumer behaviors are realities that must be faced.

The rite-of-passage, where a volunteer gets lost in below-freezing weather canvassing an unknown precinct or gets bitten by a dog while knocking on doors, needs to be relegated to history. While campaign war stories are fun, it’s time to be honest about the changing times and begin a new chapter: These age-old tactics are neither sacred nor effective. If no one is home or no one is answering their door even if they are home, political campaigns need to change with the times.

To win more elections, target voters with appropriate messages and messengers. It’s time to explore better ways to use scarce time, people, and money to achieve the desired victory. Are there better places to send volunteers to work more efficiently and rally potential voters?

This is not to say that field organizing should be discarded or that campaigns should go completely digital. (Lots of criticism is being written on the current problems with these newer tactics that will hopefully be fixed.) But, as the Democratic Party’s messaging and mobilization are transformed, an honest assessment of all tactics is needed to understand what works and create better ways to win.

Remember, just because a tactic worked on one campaign, it will not always continue to work the same four years later. We have tried this with auto-calling and text messaging technologies and know they have diminishing returns each cycle. Now is the time to dig deep and have honest conversations with field organizers and volunteers to learn what tactics need to be retired and start adopting new approaches.

Let’s stop pretending that more “fake neighbors” door-knocking is the solution to the Democrats’ problems and focus on how to best reach targeted voters with a message that resonates, delivered by respected voices that matter, while we have time now to build a real organic field effort.

As Democrats, we should know that a last-minute paid “ground game” that gets dropped into the battleground days before an election hasn’t worked in years. It didn’t work on Howard Dean’s well-funded 2004 campaign that flew tons of staff and volunteers to Iowa. It’s now 20 years after the infamous Dean scream, and we continue to blindly follow the same failed “orange cap” tactics of these past campaigns: inserting last-minute volunteers and door-knocking teams instead of thinking about how to create long-term community-based approaches.

We all have to grow up at some point and face the truth. Or you could keep believing in Santa Claus and see what gift he brings you in the next election cycle.

The death of Jimmy Carter brings a much-needed reminder that American presidents, including Democrats, have on occasion provided object lessons in integrity, decency and compassion. In fact, it’s hard to identify another American President who cared more about human suffering and did more, post-presidency, to help alleviate it. Carter was not an impressive president in terms of concrete reforms that were enacted during his one term. And he was brutally shellacked by Reagan in 1980. And like President Biden, another decent man, who got more done in his one term than Carter, he was undone by inflation (as well as the Iran hostage crisis). I can still remember the SNL parody in which Dan Akroyd, playing President Carter, evoked laughter with the rant, “Inflation is our friend.” And that’s a point worth engraving on the portal of the DNC’s headquarters: “Inflation is a Democrat-killer.” Democrats need a more forceful strategy for fighting against it, so come what may, they at least appear to be fighting it with substantial reforms. Pretending it doesn’t exist did not work out well for Carter or Biden. His shortcomings notwithstanding, President Carter will be rightly revered for his fundamental decency, commitment to peace (Nobel Peace Prize winner) and humanitarian works, in the starkest possible contrast to the incoming president-elect.

At The National Catholic Reporter,  Michael Sean Winters probes the question, “Can Catholics save the Democrats?,” and writes:  “It is not a new question. I wrote a book about it in 2008: Left at the Altar: How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can Save the Democrats. There was overlap in my diagnosis then with the assessments from Judis, Teixeira and Hunter this year. But Catholic social teaching contains a moral imperative that more secular diagnoses lack: The Gospel compels us to stand with the marginalized and to be at least suspicious of the wealthy and the powerful. In 2024, it became painfully obvious that the Democrats are now the party of the well-to-do and the privileged, and that is no place for a Christian….So, Catholics, do you want to stand with those who claim to speak for the marginalized, or do you actually want to identify with the marginalized?….What is more, Catholic social teaching provides a morally coherent set of ideas and beliefs that would help the Democrats embrace more liberal economic policies and avoid more extreme cultural ones.” Catholic and Black Baptist Churches are the two religious constituencies which express the most concern about poverty and economic injustice, so Winters has a point, although Catholics can also be found among the most hard-hearted right-wingers.

Winters continues, “Pope Francis famously said that neoliberal economics is “an economy that kills.”….The pope has also made clear that Christians cannot harbor any animus to anyone, that the church must welcome everyone. He is well-known for hosting transgender sex workers…..But he also has condemned gender ideology. Welcoming someone does not require subscribing to their ideology. The Democrats’ problem on the transgender issue was not really with people who are transgender. It is with the way academics and others demand that people discuss, or not discuss, issues surrounding transgender ideology….The Democrats would never embrace the pope’s fierce opposition to abortion, but they might recognize that someone of his moral seriousness should have all of his moral convictions respected, even if they can’t be shared. Nor, in America, could we embrace the fullness of Catholic social teaching’s understanding of how an economy should work. But we could move in that direction. Same for just war theory….The Catholic Church from before the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council might not be of much help in building a national mythos broad enough to enlist the support of most Americans. But 60 years of interreligious dialogue since the close of Vatican II has provided at least some Catholic thinkers with the ability to engage those with different theological and ideological starting points, and build common understandings….Here, then, are the essential ingredients for a Democratic Party that can win national elections:

• Articulate an economic populism that appeals to voters and craft policies that will improve the economic prospects of working-class Americans.
• Moderate its hardline, academic-driven approach to cultural issues.
• And help fashion a national narrative that is capacious enough to embrace the hopes of all Americans.”

In similar vein check out “How the left can get its mojo back: Listen to working-class people of faith” by Nathaniel Manderson, who writes at Salon: “Everyone is trying to figure out what happened in the wake of the November election and what needs to be done to getting this country back on track. My advice is simple. Listen to the working-class people who are struggling, especially the folks at the bottom of the economic ladder, and even more specifically working-class people of faith. For all his hypocrisy and all his flaws, Donald Trump knew how to listen. Most liberals don’t….The working-class people of faith I’m talking about are blue-collar folks of all races, colors and backgrounds who tend to believe in something bigger than themselves. They have been drifting further right ever since Trump came into the picture, while the left, as I see it, has lost touch with what the Democratic Party used to stand for in word and deed. Contemporary liberals seem baffled that they’re losing working-class people of faith to Trump….when I see working-class people of faith who believe they are being ignored or overlooked by the structures of power in our society, I completely understand their desire either to stay out off politics altogether — or try to blow it up, by voting for the guy who seems intent on disrupting the system….While I realize that “woke” has become a right-wing cliché, that has happened for a reason. Liberal need to “woke” themselves  and start to recognize that they have lost the support of working-class people of faith because they stopped listening and speaking to them, and only show them contempt rather than respect. There are a lot of us, and we are not deplorable. We are tired, broke, hard-working Americans, and we feel ourselves losing. Listening to us is the only way to reclaim the integrity of liberal values, and the pathway to reclaiming the American dream.”

Ronald Brownstein explains on camera how “Trump Is About to Betray his Rural Supporters” at Local 3 News. Brownstein also has a paywall article, “Many Trump voters still have doubts about him. Can he hold them?” at CNN Politics. And here’s a stub of another paywalled Brownstein article, “The Potential Backlash to Trump Unbound: A returning president who expects to govern without constraints leaves his opponents hoping to benefit from the blowback” at The Atlantic: “Donald trump will return to office facing far fewer constraints than when he entered the White House in 2017. The political, legal, institutional, and civic forces that restrained and often frustrated Trump during his first term have all palpably weakened. That will be a mixed blessing for him and for the Republican Party….There’s less chance that forces inside or outside his administration will thwart Trump’s marquee campaign proposals, such as mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, big tariffs on imports, and sweeping rollbacks of climate and other environmental regulations. But there will also be fewer obstacles to the kind of polarizing ideas that got stopped during Trump’s first term. On numerous occasions, his own aides intervened to prevent the president from, for example, deploying the military to shoot racial-justice protesters, firing missiles into Mexico against drug-cartel facilities without authorization from the Mexican government, or potentially quitting NATO. Republicans in Congress thwarted parts of his agenda, as when senators blocked his attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The courts ruled against some policies, such as separating the children of undocumented migrants from their parents at the southern border….This time, Trump’s fate will be much more in his own hands. If he can deliver greater economic stability for working families, while avoiding too many firefights on militant MAGA priorities, strategists in both parties agree that he will be in a strong position to consolidate the gains he’s made among traditionally Democratic constituencies, such as Black, Latino, and younger white men.”

An excerpt of “The Democrats Have a Crime Problem. Blame the Media. How news coverage fuels the widespread, misguided perception that crime is up and cities are unsafe” by John Pfaff at The New Republic: “In Democrats’ seemingly endless election postmortems—and in the postmortems on the postmortems—a persistent theme has been to blame the reddening of blue states like New York and New Jersey on crime in their big cities. On Pod Save America, the political commentator Ezra Klein emphasized the importance of taking crime seriously as a factor in voters’ decisions. To explain why he wasn’t surprised by blue states’ “sharp red shift,” he said: “Because if you just talk to anybody who lives in them, they are furious. And this idea that, like … ‘Crime is actually down, this is all just Fox News’—like, shut the fuck up with that.” Klein argued that when it comes to crime and criminal justice policy, fact-checking is a political dead end for Democrats. Instead, Democrats need to “talk to some people who live near you” and grasp “the sense of disorder rising”—a disorder fueled by migrants, homeless encampments, turnstile jumping, and crime in general. In San Francisco, he noted, “the fury is overwhelming.” As evidence, he pointed to the losses of reform prosecutors and the defeat of San Francisco Mayor London Breed….At bottom, Klein’s claim was that it’s bad politics to respond to people’s fears about crime by saying that crime is actually down (even though it is) or by pointing out that their fears are the product of misleading press coverage (even though they are). In other words, facts don’t matter, the vibes do, and we need to govern in response to the vibes….Crime is not like inflation, a phenomenon everyone experiences because everyone buys stuff. Instead, crime is densely concentrated geographically and among certain people, in the areas that suffer the most from poverty, unemployment, and government disinvestment.” Read more here.

Laura Jadeed shares some insights regarding “How Democrats Can Win Back the White Working Class: Moving left on economic issues may be the key to winning over blue-collar voters of all races” at New Lines Magazine, including: “If rising enthusiasm for unionization is any indication, the white working class is already more progressive than most pundits think. Support for unions — which culture war proponents have tried to brand as “un-American” for their Marxist and socialist roots — has gone from 48% in 2008 to 70% this year. While Democrats are still more likely to support unionization than Republicans, the majority of low-income Republicans now believe that America’s decades-long trend of decreasing unionization is bad for workers. While the proportion of unionized American jobs has remained at around 10% since 2021, union election petitions filed increased by 53% — from 1,638 to 2,510 — between 2021 and 2022 alone, suggesting that it is anti-union regulations, not worker preferences, that keep the number of union jobs from rising higher. Recent surveys suggest that working-class voters support progressive economic policies when the proposals are stripped of liberal jargon; a July poll in swing states showed that 59% of voters without a college degree support free college education, 63% support single payer healthcare, and 76% support a cap on rent increases. This may help explain why a quarter of white voters for President Barack Obama without a high school diploma defected to Donald Trump in 2016. These candidates have little in common but both effectively used the language of economic populism.”

In “Teamsters president reveals how ‘arrogant’ VP Harris lost the party, and the vote,” Joe Dwinell writes at The Boston Herald: “Democrats have an ego problem, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien says….The head of the nation’s largest union said the party that once stood for the working class has “somehow lost their way” and it just cost them the election….He told the Herald Tuesday that the party of AOC — New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and VP Kamala Harris failed to grasp today’s political climate….“They feel it’s a birthright that they would get our support,” he said. “It’s troubling. They can’t dictate how voters should think….“It’s the fault of some Democrats who just forgot where they came from,” the Boston native added. “They need to be a little humble about it.”….The Herald reached out to O’Brien on Christmas Eve as his interview with Tucker Carlson was going viral. In that sitdown, O’Brien confirmed he was told by Harris pre-election that she wasn’t going to abide by the Teamsters’ full set of questions and answers….That roundtable, held after President Biden announced he wasn’t going to seek reelection, was cut short with the VP only answering a quarter of their 16 questions. Trump answered all of them, the New York Post added. ….“On the fourth question, one of her operatives or one of her staff slips a note in front of me — ‘This will be the last question.’ And it was 20 minutes earlier than the time it was going to end,” O’Brien told Carlson….“And her declaration of the way out was, ‘I’m going to win with you or without you,’’ O’Brien added….“Damn. I thought I was arrogant. That’s really arrogant,” Carlson responded.”

Boston College historian and sub stacker Heather Cox Richardson comments on the Musk-Trump budget resolution meltdown: “Passing continuing resolutions to fund the government is usually unremarkable, but this fight showed some lines that will stretch into the future….First of all, it showed the unprecedented influence of billionaire private individual Elon Musk over the Republicans who in 2025 will control the United States government. Musk has a strong financial interest in the outcome of discussions, but House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he had included Musk as well as President-elect Trump in the negotiation of the original bipartisan funding bill….Then Musk blew up the agreement by issuing what was an apparent threat to fund primary challengers to any Republican who voted for it. He apparently scuttled the measure on his own hook, since Trump took about thirteen hours to respond to his torpedoing it….Musk expressed willingness to leave the government unfunded for a month, apparently unconcerned that a shutdown would send hundreds of thousands of government workers deemed nonessential into temporary leave without pay. This would include about 800,000 civilian employees of the Pentagon, about 17,000 people from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and those who staff the nation’s national parks, national monuments, and other federal sites….Federal workers considered essential would have to continue to work without pay. These essential workers include air traffic controllers and federal law enforcement officers. Military personnel would also have to continue to work without pay.”

At Common Dreams, Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, the nation’s largest grassroots-funded progressive organization, argues that “The core of that reform message” Democrats deploy should being with: “Banning Dark Money in Primaries: Working-class voters have no reason to trust a party whose primaries are shaped by billionaire-funded super PACs. Eliminating dark money ensures that our candidates win based on voter support, not corporate influence. We’ve seen too many examples where races are flooded with big money to crush popular (progressive) candidates….Investing in State Parties and Grassroots Organizing: The first step to rebuilding working-class coalitions is investing in organizing infrastructure—direct voter outreach based on authentic solutions and supporting grassroots leadership in every state. A 50-state strategy means strengthening state parties and empowering organizers, not handing millions to out-of-touch consultants….Committing to a Progressive Platform: To win back working families, Democrats must champion and deliver on the issues that impact their lives—Medicare expansion, living wages, affordable housing, union rights, and climate justice, to name a few. These policies are not only popular; they are essential to solving the economic pain fueling Trump’s appeal….Increasing Transparency and Accountability: For too long, DNC resources have been squandered on expensive media buys and elite political insiders. A reformed DNC must be accountable to its base and transparent about how it spends its resources—resources that belong to grassroots Democrats.”

Dustin Guastella, research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623, writes at The Guardian  that “it will not be enough for the left to protest the billionaire economy. An honest assessment of progressive liabilities is in order. Those on the left must confront the cultural elite that has pushed the party away from workers on all sorts of non-economic issues. While Trump and his billionaires won’t be able to adequately represent the economic interests of the working class, liberals must recognize that their party doesn’t represent their values. The Democrats captured by highly credentialed clerics has led them to embrace the cultural values of an aristocratic elite. From crime, to climate, to gender politics, and the border, mainstream liberal opinion is much further from the views of workers than many liberals are willing to admit. And this too is a class story….s the Democratic party transformed itself from the party of the New Deal to the party of Nafta it embraced a new constituency: progressive professionals. Since Bill Clinton, liberals presided over the offshoring of high-wage blue-collar jobs in manufacturing. They watched as abandoned factories, and the towns that once relied on them, slowly oxidized. As the Rust belt stretched across the heartland, Democrats helped to subsidize the growth of a new elite primarily concentrated on the coasts. They pushed for policies that pulled the economy away from blue-collar industries and toward more “dynamic” sectors primarily in information technologies.”

Guastella continues, “They fashioned a “new economy” through public policy, and attracted a new constituency as a result. They hoped that as high-wage jobs disappeared, they would be replaced by new high-tech careers; as the party lost blue-collar voters, they invested in white-collar professionals. They got what they wished for….the folkways, mannerisms, and tastes of salaried high-income professionals have come to define the party, and now serve as a powerful repellent for working-class voters. Indeed, not only has the embrace of the knowledge class led to the economic neglect of the working class but the aggressive advocacy of professional class cultural values has played a major role in pushing working-class voters away….Simply put, progressive elites have remade the party to reflect the cultural and aesthetic preferences of blue-blooded liberals, and then made these preferences the priority. Ironically, some highly educated Democrats now embody the definition of “conservative” in their defense of these “woke” priorities: they defend the status of the affluent and the educated, the stand for the preservation of a profoundly powerful elite. If Democrats have any hope of winning back working-class voters they will need to confront this liberal aristocracy as much as they protest the corporate money grab of Republican plutocrats….There is promising evidence that workers may be more progressive on economic issues than in the recent past, and in relation to their professional-class peers. As a forthcoming analysis from the Certified Workers’ Compensation Professional program shows, workers do embrace progressive economic positions. Meaning, those on the left have an opportunity to develop an appealing populist economic program. Such a program would confront the very structure of the job market, ending mass layoffs, automation, and offshoring. It would advocate for rebuilding the industrial heartland, providing high-wage jobs for workers at all levels of education, not just for professionals in “smart” coastal hubs. And it would seek to strengthen union rights, revitalize social programs, lower costs and improve education.”

The following post, “MAGA Republicans Dodge Questions About Their Own Party’s Plans To Gut Social Safety Net” by Emine Yucel is cross posted from Talking Points Memo:

Some House Republicans in recent weeks have not exactly been shy about their interest in reviving the party’s longtime passion for gutting the social safety net in the wake of Donald Trump’s reelection and the coming Republican trifecta.

Reports have surfaced indicating that some congressional Republicans are in talks with Trump advisers about making cuts to programs like Medicaid and food stamps to offset the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Others are openly suggesting that Medicare and Social Security may be on the chopping block as part of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s performative venture into government spending cuts through the new Department of Government Efficiency.

But MAGA Republicans on Capitol Hill who recently spoke to TPM were unwilling to be pinned down on the issue.

When asked if he was supportive of the cuts to federal safety net programs being discussed by members of the Republican conference and DOGE enthusiasts, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told TPM that they would look at cuts at other programs first.

“The low hanging fruit is the DoD, which has failed an audit for the seventh year in a row,” Norman said last week. “Low hanging fruit is the DEI things in it.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) expressed a similar sentiment.

“I think there’s so much fraud and abuse in health care, so we can have trillions of offsets for reconciliation just in healthcare,” Spartz told TPM.

The “fraud in health care” line has become a go-to for Republicans in recent weeks. When Trump announced that failed Republican Senate candidate and TV doctor Mehmet Oz would serve as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid in his incoming administration, he said Oz would “cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency.” Since then, Republicans on the Hill have been using the rhetorically creative line to discuss potential spending cuts to tackle in the new Congress, emboldened by the supposed Musk/Ramaswamy mandate to cut down government spending by $2 trillion.

“You look at improper payments — that’s a big issue — where the government sends money to people fraudulently in Medicare, in Medicaid, where they send money fraudulently in unemployment insurance,” House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told CNN in an interview. “All of these improper payments are also on the table.”

“Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, you got to look at all that,” Norman told TPM when asked about the DOGE agenda. “Farm bill, you got to look at it.”

Read more…

If anyone needs further corroboration that Trump emphatically does not have a ‘mandate,’ this headline from The Hill should help: “Less than half of Americans say opinion of Trump is favorable: Poll” The article, by Tara Suter, says in part: “Less than half of Americans said their opinion of President-elect Trump is favorable, according to a recent poll….In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, about 41 percent stated their opinion of the president-elect is favorable. About 55 percent stated their opinion of the president-elect is unfavorable.” It’s only one poll, yada yada, and he hasn’t even taken office yet. In a saner political arena, however, the poll would buck up Democrats and maybe even discourage more groveling on the part of Republican elected officials. However, Suter also notes that “President Biden did not fare well when it came to public opinion in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, garnering an approval of 38 percent,” so let’s not all get on the high horse just yet. Suter notes, further, that “The Reuters/Ipsos poll took place Dec. 12-15, featuring 1,031 people and a 3 percentage point margin of error.” OK, not a huge sample, and it’s only one poll. Given all available polling evidence, Trump would be smart to pull off the political equivalent of a football reverse, and appoint Democrats to his inner circle, just to show that he is more bridge-builder than wall-maker. And he probably ought to give some serious thought to dumping his so yesterday dead weight staff and advisors, those charmers who are hell-bent on revenge and retribution, which are not  public priorities.

All of the GOP’s problems notwithstanding, “After the 2024 election, Democrats are at a steep disadvantage in the Senate: Polarization and incumbent losses make it harder for them to win the chamberr,” according to 538 writer G. Elliot Morris, who shares this grim outlook: “Much of the coverage of the outcome of the 2024 election has focused on how President-elect Donald Trump will wield executive power to pursue his political goals over the next four years. Trump, however, will not be alone in Washington: Voters elected Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate as well. The two chambers could help Trump levy taxes on imports, close the U.S. border and begin the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants. And with 53 seats in the Senate, in particular, Republicans will be able to approve a long list of Trump’s judicial nominees, approve (or withdraw from) any treaties and, of course, sign off on his Cabinet nominees….The coming, sudden U-turn in the policy output of the U.S. government is a reminder that elections have serious consequences in the short term. But the impact of the 2024 election could be felt for years in another important way: It may have relegated Democrats to long-term minority status in the Senate. According to a new 538 analysis, barring significant changes in the party’s coalition, it will be tough for them to win a majority in coming elections — and implausible, verging on impossible, to win the 60-seat majority needed to overcome a filibuster (assuming that parliamentary maneuver isn’t abolished).” Of course, all bets are off if Trump flunks most of his major tests in his term ahead, which is not beyond the realm of possibility, given his self-defeating opposition to the notion of broadening his support, instead of shrinking it.

“The trickiest problem for Democrats and progressives in the coming months will not be finding a new electoral strategy,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes in his Washington Post column, “Progressives should defend Biden’s legacy to protect their future: Trump’s victory should not be used to erase Biden’s policy achievements.” Dionne, adds, “There’s plenty of time for that, and the 2024 outcome was close enough to allow multiple paths to the White House. A far more pressing imperative is to prevent Donald Trump’s victory from discrediting Biden’s genuinely impressive accomplishments and the course he set for the country, which was broadly correct….Legacies are not just about bragging rights or a politician’s self-esteem. How a president is judged can affect the direction of policy for decades. Public anger over Herbert Hoover’s mismanagement of the Great Depression opened the way for the dominance of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal liberalism for a half-century — even when Republicans held power. Frustration over inflation under Jimmy Carter led to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 counterrevolution in favor of lower and less progressive taxes, regulatory restraint, and a celebration of the social role played by wealthy entrepreneurs…the truth about the Biden economy should not be lost in the mire of political defeat and messaging failure. It’s a reality that will make it much easier to defend his domestic policy legacy than it was to stand up for Hoover’s or Carter’s: The economy Biden leaves behind really is in good shape. Unemployment and, now, inflation are both low. The initial effects of Biden’s investment programs have been positive, and their impact will grow over time.”

Ryan Cooper explains how “Democrats Lost the Propaganda War: The party used up about $5 billion on political ads in 2024. There’s a better way” at The American Prospect, and writes that “the Trump campaign was so badly overmatched money-wise that they found a clever technique to maximize their ad spending. There is no price regulation for political ads on streaming services, so super PACs pay the same as campaigns. Streamers, particularly the free ones like Tubi, are also disproportionately used by the working-class, less-white swing demographics, and unlike broadcast or cable, ads can also be microtargeted using the surveillance data the platforms collect. The Trump campaign went hard on this approach, and claims it was dramatically more efficient than Harris’s tsunami of spending. It’s hard to argue with the results….Once again, Trump’s governing approach will benefit his political project. Hollywood can’t wait to consolidate the space, reducing the number of streaming channels and magnifying the data each of the remaining ones has access to. Without congressional legislation—a good bet—the streaming loophole will make super PACs even more powerful, and conservative billionaires are eager to capitalize….Putting this all together: The typical Democratic approach of funneling billions through sporadic ad campaigns on traditional television channels is plainly not working. There are cheaper and more reliable ways to get the party’s messaging in front of persuadable voters, consistently. This would probably require at least partly cracking up the cartel of well-connected party consultants who cream off a large chunk of the spending, as Minnesota Democratic Party chair Ken Martin argues in a case for why he should be chair of the Democratic National Committee….In any case, business makes for an instructive comparison. Does Ford try to convince drivers that it makes trucks for rugged manly men in the American heartland for only a few months every four years? Of course not. They are doing that every minute of every day, on every conceivable communications medium. It’s a big reason why the Ford F-series has been the best-selling line of personal vehicles in this country for the last 47 years straight….The Democrats, by contrast, have not had the same consistency. It’s time to rethink things.”

In “Is This How Democrats Win Back the Working Class?Embracing populism could help the party build a lasting political coalition—if the Republicans don’t do it first,” Tyler Austin Harper writes at The Atlantic: “The politics of the average American are not well represented by either party right now. On economic issues, large majorities of the electorate support progressive positions: They say that making sure everyone has health-care coverage is the government’s responsibility (62 percent), support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour (62 percent), strongly or somewhat support free public college (63 percent), and are in favor of federal investment in paid family and medical leave  (73 percent). They also support more government regulation of a variety of industries including banking (53 percent), social media (60 percent), pharmaceuticals (68 percent), and artificial intelligence (72 percent). Yet large majorities of this same American public also take conservative positions on social issues: They think the Supreme Court was right to overturn affirmative action (68 percent), agree that trans athletes should compete only on teams that match their gender assigned at birth (69 percent), believe that third-trimester abortions should be illegal in most circumstances (70 percent), and are at least somewhat concerned about the number of undocumented immigrants entering the country (79 percent).” There is not a lot of “buyer’s remorse” on the part of Trump supporters quite yet, but he hasn’t even been inaugurated. Democrats should now focus on getting their own ship in shape, and not waste a lot of time gloating about Trump’s troubles.

Dustin Guastella and Bhaskar Sunkara argue that “The US needs more working-class political candidates” at The Guardian, and write that “there is evidence that people want to vote for workers across the country. A study by the Center for Working-Class Politics found that among working-class voters, hypothetical candidates with elite or upper-class backgrounds performed significantly worse than candidates from humbler backgrounds….Yet, in reality, there were few working-class candidates to vote for. Only 2.3% of Democratic candidates worked exclusively in blue-collar jobs before entering politics. Even if we broaden out the category to professionals like teachers and nurses, the number is still under 6%. Why? Mainly because it’s extremely expensive to run for office. Most workers simply do not have the fundraising networks or the ability to take time away from their jobs to run for office….The lack of working-class representation in government is also one major factor in explaining the dysfunction in our politics and the persistence of economic policies that seem to only benefit the rich. Working-class voters have been cut adrift. Their views and voices are invisible in Washington, and they see no real champions for their interests. One reason these voters are likely to prefer working-class candidates is that these candidates are much more likely to advance an economic agenda that benefits them.” The authors add that Dan Osborne, an independent U.S, U.S. Senate candidate who lost in Nebraska “outperformed Kamala Harris by 14 percentage points, is “starting a new political action committee, Working Class Heroes Fund, to support working-class candidates, something our national politics direly needs.”

Zachary B. Wolf explains “Why hasn’t the US been trying to fix its health insurance problems?” at CNN Politics: “A Gallup poll released this week but conducted before the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, found that most Americans, 62%, think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that all Americans have health care coverage. A minority, 36%, said it’s not the government’s responsibility….Gallup has been asking this question for years, and this new data reflects a gradual reversal from 11 years ago, during the troubled rollout of private health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Back then, a minority, 42%, said it was the federal government’s responsibility to make sure people have health coverage, and a majority, 56%, said it was not….There’s a partisan story behind those numbers, since nearly all Democrats, 90%, now say the government is responsible, compared with a little more than two-thirds in 2013. Just about a third of Republicans hold the same view today, although that is up from just 12% who said the government had a responsibility in 2013….The upward shift in Americans who say the government has a responsibility to make sure its citizens have coverage has tracked with a downward shift in satisfaction with the health care system overall in Gallup’s polling….Any number of studies say similar things, that the US pays a lot more per person and as a percentage of its gross domestic product, or GDP, to cover a much smaller portion of its population and achieve a much lower life expectancy – although life expectancy in the USis also affected by gun deaths, suicides and drug overdoses.”

Steve Liesman reports “Majority of Americans are ready to support Trump and large parts of his agenda, says CNBC survey,” but notes that “the public is flashing yellow and red warning lights on some parts of the Trump agenda.”: Despite public support for Trump’s plan to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants and cutting taxes, “Where the potential agenda gets more contentious is most obviously in President-elect Trump’s plans to pardon those convicted of crimes from the Jan. 6 protest. Just 43% support the move, with 50% opposing it, including 87% of Democrats, 46% of independents and 18% of Republicans. It’s the issue with the single largest Republican opposition. Support for tariffs is also more lukewarm with 27% backing them outright and 24% saying it can be done later in the term. It’s opposed by 42% of respondents….Americans overall are more upbeat about the economic outlook for the second Trump presidency than they were the first. More than half, or 51%, say they expect their personal financial situation to improve, 10 points higher than when he was elected in 2016; the same percentage, 51%, also say they expect the U.S. economy to improve, up 5 points from 2016….There were also gains in the percentage believing they’d be worse off, suggesting Trump is even more polarizing now than he was in his first term.”