Yes, it should be possible this November to elect enough Democrats to stop MAGA and undo some of the damage Trump et al have done. But without the support of the working class the progressive wish list will remain just that—a series of unfulfilled wishes.

Despite big hopes and a likely small majority, we won’t see Medicare for All, an increase in the federal minimum wage, a green New Deal, job security for working people, labor law reform to facilitate unionization, a billionaire’s tax, elimination of big money from politics, the break-up of mega-corporations, and affordable housing for all, to name just a few.

None of these ambitious and popular reforms will pass as long as the blue-red margins remain narrow, ensuring that there are never enough votes to enact major reforms even if the Democrats control all three branches after the 2028 elections.

Ask any labor leader and they will tell you the sad and maddening 50-year story of failed attempts to level the labor-management playing field, despite Democratic tri-fectas during Obama and Biden. And because of these slim margins one of the biggest recent Democratic victories, Obamacare, is a Rube Goldberg-like contraption relying on corporate subsidies, massive costs, and spotty coverage that has failed to deliver universal and affordable health care.

Bad stuff can be stopped and maybe some of the worst MAGA policies reversed, but there won’t be a progressive majority to win the big stuff even if the Democrats win the House, the Senate and the presidency in 2028.

So, instead of pushing toward a more just economy, we sail in the opposite direction and are increasingly dominated by what Bernie derides as the billionaire class.

We just assume these days that razor-thin blue-red margins are a fact of life, the result of increasing political polarization, money in politics, gerrymandering, and misinformation, etc. But not so long ago there were times, under FDR and LBJ, when progressive political majorities were massive. That’s when the Democratic Party included and could count on most working-class voters (roughly defined as those without college degrees). That is no longer the case.

The numbers are stark, especially among white working people.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter received 53 percent of the white working-class vote. In 2024, only 33 percent voted for Kamala Harris.

In a working-class county in the heart of coal country in West Virginia, like Mingo County with its fierce union tradition, Bill Clinton received 70 percent of the vote in 1996. After 3,000 of the county’s 3,300 coal jobs disappeared, Harris got a miniscule 12 percent in 2024.

If a sizable majority of those voters returned to the Democrats’ fold, one could imagine enough votes to enact major economic reforms. Could that happen?

How do Democrats win the working class back?

My comrades at the Center for Working Class Politics have spent years showing that working-class candidates, especially with union backgrounds running on a strong progressive economic program, can win in contested districts. Their arguments are persuasive. But the current handful of successes leave most of the working-class swimming on their own in red America, where the Democratic Party is dead and gone.

For example, of the roughly 1,211 state legislative seats in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, the Democrats don’t even run candidates in 40 percent of them.

The Democratic Party needs to be reformed dramatically if it is to adopt CWCP’s strategy. But we have just learned from the missing chapter in the Democratic Party’s autopsy report, released this week by its author, that the party’s functionaries have become “generationally wealthy off politics.” Sponging off the status quo, whether they win or lose, the party’s ecosystem of pollsters, consultants, ad agencies, and such has grown fat, rich, and happy. This is not a political culture open to radical reform.

The Democratic Socialists of America, arguably the most vibrant political organization in America today (though the bar isn’t high), have attempted to reform the Democrats by knocking off establishment Democrats in primaries and replacing them with DSA-backed candidates. They have succeeded this year in heavily Democratic urban areas, such as New York City, but will now be tested in Michigan, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed gained a narrow victory in the Democratic Senate primary this past Tuesday. Similarly, Francesca Hong, another DSA candidate, is the favorite to win the upcoming Wisconsin gubernatorial Democratic primary in another state won in 2024 by Donald Trump. Can El-Sayed, not a DSA member but a very progressive candidate, and Hong win in purple states?

Ironically, DSA members and the establishment Democrats generally come from the same class – the class of the college educated. El-Sayed reportedly ran “strongest in communities with young voters, college students and educated and wealthy white voters.”

DSA claims to be speaking on behalf of the working class, but according to its own 2021 survey, only four percent of its members are blue-collar workers, and another six percent work in retail, food service, or similar occupations. Roughly 40 percent are teachers, academics, white-collar professionals, tech workers, or students. Of........

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