The 2024 presidential election is over, and for the first time, Donald Trump won the majority of the American popular vote. What does this mean for the Democratic party?
Though Trump won with just 1.5% of the vote over Vice President Harris, this election cycle signals that the Democratic party is losing the base they once depended upon – the working class. If the Democrats are going to survive the current Republican trifecta, they must find a strategy and plan that can “Make the Democrats Great Again.”
Decades ago, support for the democratic party was embedded into the American working class. Dr. Carl Snook, a Political Science Lecturer at Kennesaw State University, explained when they began drifting away, saying, “Around the time of Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party moved away from giving a primarily lower middle-class message of ‘we’re going to get you jobs and more money for your jobs’ to being the kind of ‘learn to code party.’” Snook continued, “They became a party of wealthy elites.”
How can a party who has now lost the trust of the American people earn it back? To Dr. Snook, it means connecting with the people they lost.
“If I were the Democrats I would listen. Somewhere out there, there’s a group of people who voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but then just last time they voted for Donald Trump.”
Finding the spark between America’s working class and the Democrats means first finding what made the last one die. In a time of crisis, people do not want a party who appears timid and unable to create solutions. The Democrats lost the American people because the Republicans offered what they couldn’t – change.
Whether or not Trump will keep his promise to fix working classes issues through tariffs, deportation and changing the names of landmarks, he ran on populist platform outside of the traditional campaigns to which people are used to. The Democratic party cannot continue to position themselves as the “lesser evil” centrist party. Moving further and further right to trail behind the Republicans, hoping to pick up the few straggling voters they left behind is a tactic that has proved unsuccessful.
In looking for this rare breed of democrats, they pushed away the voters that built the party. The Democratic party must combat this quasi-populist right-wing extremism by having the guts to move further left. The country is divided, and there is a space in politics for a left-wing party. The American people did not collectively decide to move further right but were instead pushed there when the Democratic party failed to give them any semblance of a good alternative to Trump.
How could this shift to a better Democratic party begin? Dr. Snook believes the most important thing for the Democrats to start with is to ask the people what they want.
“Go to the person who’s trying to make ends meet.” Dr. Snook continued, “The Democrats have a lot of money, and they should really be asking tens of thousands of people in focus groups.”
Dr. Snook also believes that they should “run a wide-open primary in 2028” instead of deciding who is next in line like, the monarchical system that the original Americans were trying to escape. This could enforce the message that the Democratic Party is a party for the American people, not the wealthy elite.
Ultimately, this tactic could clear grounds for a genuine left-wing party that America has sorely lacked. Instead of being afraid to lose the center vote, it is beyond time for the Democratic Party to prove it is the true advocate for the working class it claims to be. it is time the Democratic party reinvents itself as the strong, working-class party it currently pretends to be.
“There’s always going to be a cultural divide, and I think sometimes you have to be willing to lose voters to gain voters.” Dr. Snook said.
Now, the Democratic party must decide if they want to return to being a voice for the working class or continue being the Republican party’s center-right “socially liberal” counterpart.
