“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said the morning after the election.
“First it was the white working class, and now it’s Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic Party leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
“In the coming months, those of us concerned with grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious discussions. Stay tuned,” Bernie said.
It’s time for the Democratic Party to take stock and heed the warnings that progressives and working class Americans have been raising for years.
Bernie founded Our Revolution to take on corporate power, elect progressives, and transform the party — which is exactly what we’re going to do in 2025 as fight back against Trump every step of the way. Chip in to the resistance here.
Our Revolution made more than 5,000,000 voter contacts into the battleground states — door knocking, calls, texts, emails, and more — flipping many folks who weren’t planning to vote for VP Harris — but it wasn’t enough.
For weeks, Our Rev Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese spoke out to the AP and NPR about the campaign’s dangerous strategy to court Republicans at the expense of the base, as our surveys and voter conversations revealed a worrying motivation gap for Harris.
“We were seeing clear evidence that buddying up with the Cheneys and parroting conservative talking points rather than leaning into a strong, populist economic message was turning off voters,” Joseph told the NYT.
“We sounded the alarm,” he said to Axios. “But the party wouldn’t listen. They took the base for granted. People were voting their self-interest, which is their pocketbooks. Trump had an economic story, though flawed, while Harris’ narrative was vague.”
That’s why Our Revolution “aggressively worked to engage these voters on issues like job creation, wages, housing and health care to close the narrow margin,” Axios reported. In the end, just 5% of Republicans voted for Harris — less than voted for Joe Biden.
The Times asked Joseph who Democratic Party would blame if they lost, and we already knew the answer:
“As they always do, the establishment will blame progressives instead of taking a serious look in the mirror and acknowledging their failure to lay out a clear vision for addressing the very real economic pain folks are feeling,” Joseph said.
Like clockwork, Bernie is being attacked by corporate Democrats for pointing out the obvious. Joseph summarized it well when he told Axios: “Voters want a leader who will take on corporate interests to improve their standard of living. The struggle is real, whether you’re Gen Z or a laid-off factory worker.”
Now, more than ever, we must transform the Party to be more democratic and responsive to the working class in order to beat back Trump and rising rightwing authoritarianism. Help us build our network of organizers and make sure we are prepared for 2025. Thank you.