What Happens If We Win?

What Will Happen and What Should We Do?

It is looking very likely that Kamala Harris will win the election in November. There is still a lot of work to do to make her victory a reality, but it seems likely enough that we should ask, “What happens then?” What will the long-term result be, and what should we do?

The Republican Party Will Return to Its Business Roots

If Trump loses, he and his MAGA allies will probably lose control of the Republican Party. Their control of the party has always been based on their ability to bring in votes, and if they cannot do that, they will lose control, which will return to the business interests that controlled the party before Mr. Trump arrived. That will change the way the party presents itself to the voters. With Trump in control, the party has been able to present itself as the party of ordinary working Americans, but without Trump, the party will no longer be able to do that. It will be again the party of business.

The Democratic Party Will Have an Opportunity

The working-class votes that have supported Mr. Trump will be up for grabs. That will be an opportunity for the Democratic Party, but it is not clear that the party will be able to take advantage of the opportunity. To see, what kind of an opportunity the Democrats will have, we must first remember that the working-class voters who support Trump have real, legitimate grievances. 

When Mr. Trump says that “elites” despise the working class and ignore its interests, working-class people know in their bones that he speaks the truth. When he says that he will be a voice for voiceless people, those people flock to his banner. His populist rhetoric has always been a fraud, but for people who feel that our politicians have abandoned them, the fact that he appears to speak for them and to feel their pain is attractive, and it draws them in. 

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has gotten out of the habit of talking in terms of class interests. We talk about race; we talk about gender; and we talk about age; but we do not talk about class, and we do not address the concerns of working-class people as such. The lack of concern for working-class interests expresses itself in many ways. For example, we enthusiastically support a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion, but we do not bring nearly the same enthusiasm to the support of a national healthcare system. We worry endlessly about the admission policies of elite universities that serve a tiny number of people, but we do not work seriously to provide a way for a working-class person to acquire a college degree or a technical certification without taking on a heavy burden of debt. We debate intensely the morality of Israel’s war in Gaza, but we do not bring the same intensity to the debate over the minimum wage.

Can Democrats Seize the Opportunity?

If we are to win back the allegiance of working-class voters, we will have to change our priorities and the way that we talk. To find our new priorities we will have to listen carefully to what people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others on the left wing of our party are telling us. We will have to focus on issues of real concern to working-class people. If we do that, we may win back the support of working-class voters. Changing our priorities will not be enough. we will also have to figure out how to frame our proposals in a way that can appeal to the working class. Perhaps, we can use Harris's "Opportunity Economy," as I suggested in an earlier post. 

If we do not focus on the interests of working-class people and learn to frame those interests persuasively, our party will be weakened, and the alienation of the working class will remain a problem for our political system. If working-class people continue to feel that their interests have no voice, they will continue to look for leaders who will speak for them. If they feel that democracy does not work for them, they will support demagogues who promise an alternative that will work for them. 

What We Should Do

If we focus on working-class interests and if we learn how to frame them effectively, we can become the party that we should be. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have made a start with their strong support of labor unions  and with their industrial policies, but much more remains to be done. I wrote about some of the things we can do to make the Opportunity Economy real for our people in an earlier post on this blog.  If we fail to build on what Biden and Harris have done, the working-class alienation that has fed Trump’s power will remain, and another populist demagogue will surely emerge to attract the votes of the alienated and to threaten the survival of our democratic, political system.