Cross-Pressured Voters are Unrepresented in the Democratic Party

There are no institutions dedicated to representing economically populist and socially conservative voters.

As Democrats begin to take stock of how they spent two years attacking Donald Trump as a threat to democracy only to see him emerge stronger than ever with unified control of Congress, the usual progressive versus moderate battles have begun.

The problem with these fights is that neither side truly has an answer about how to win back working-class voters.

Why? Because many working-class voters (and others) do not fall into the traditional progressive-moderate ideological templates. They are cross-pressured voters, desiring a mix of economic populism and nationalism along with socially conservative values that neither faction in the current Democratic Party fully represents.

On one side of the party divide, progressives want to ramp up the economic populism without confronting and purging their extreme cultural leftism and unworkable climate plans. For an example of this strategic drift, look no further than Bernie Sanders who ran a sharply focused class-based campaign in 2016 against the Democratic establishment and Trump only to turn around in 2020 to run on an intersectional cornucopia of “economic, racial, social, and environmental justice for all.” Likewise, the progressive movement went from pragmatic Obama-era policies on clean energy jobs and infrastructure to a wild-eyed Green New Deal proposal and increasingly over-the-top activism with apocalyptic rhetoric and themes like “climate reparations.” Same on civil rights and civil liberties. Progressive institutions moved from mainstream liberal positions guaranteeing equal rights and free speech for everyone regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, or religion to “structural racism and equity” models that actively pushed discrimination in the name of social justice. Open borders, drug decriminalization, de-policing—the list of bad ideas from the progressive movement that working-class voters dislike goes on and on.

To now say “turn up the populism” without first acknowledging and jettisoning these out-of-the mainstream views doesn’t fly and won’t bring back the black, Hispanic, and white working-class voters who have fled the Democrats in droves. Unfortunately, many solid left-liberal economic ideas never get a hearing with working-class voters because they too often come from cultural elites with strange beliefs.

On the other side of the party divide, moderate groups prudently want “common-sense” solutions and approaches grounded in reasonable rhetoric, pragmatic policies, and pluralistic values. All good electorally—and far better than progressive extremism. However, longstanding moderate groups should admit to themselves that they also acquiesced too much to the fashionable cultural leftism and climate priorities that took over the party brand in the past decade, along with pro-immigration policies that were unpopular with voters and a bevy of tax, trade, and spending priorities that mostly benefit well-off professionals and richer blue states and municipalities.

The moderate approach provides a stronger national brand for Democrats than its alternative on the left, but still works best in fairly affluent suburban and metropolitan areas rather than in working-class precincts. Something more will be needed to reach these voters.

Although the moderate faction still holds the upper hand in terms of winning in competitive districts and states—and includes a number of politically astute members attuned to their local communities—the moderate institutional infrastructure has not fully adjusted to the departure of the working class from the party by developing attractive economic and social policies clearly aimed at these voters.

What is the moderate agenda for the working class? No one really knows since we haven’t seen one work in recent years. For example, moderate Joe Biden’s mix of big government spending plus government-wide “equity” measures turned into inflation and misplaced priorities that cost Democrats tons of voters and eclipsed his smarter moves to shore up key industries and support good working-class jobs. Moderates do not want a repeat of what happened to the Biden administration politically by mixing unpopular progressive social and immigration policies with an economic agenda that fails to convince working-class voters that Democratic majorities help them.

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The Democratic Party is an unruly conglomeration of interest groups. No one faction has ever dominated the party for very long without pushback and adjustment from the other ideological faction.

The more difficult question for the party now is whether it can recognize that both of its main ideological models are insufficient for regaining the trust of working-class voters and rebuilding the historic party of the common man and woman.

One idea worth considering is to start up an American version of the “Blue Labour” movement that laid the groundwork for UK Labour’s electoral landslide in 2024 and its return to power after 14 years in opposition. Blue Labour founder and leader Maurice Glasman lamented the drift of his party away from working-class communities, and crafted an interesting mix of approaches out of Catholic social teaching and traditional labor activism that was place-based, pro-family, communitarian, patriotic, and socially conservative—like much of the working class itself.

Blue Labour was decidedly a British effort and a Labour Party-oriented intellectual and policy movement. But it had the right thematic approach and overall ideas that Democrats should consider as a model for better representing cross-pressured working-class voters who do not fit into either of their current progressive or moderate camps.

A Democratic Party version of the “Blue Labour” approach in America would likely include the following elements:

• Economic development in all regions—plus family security for all

• The dismantling of concentrated economic power

• Strong local communities and labor markets

• Secure borders

• Law and order

• Traditional values

• Love of country

As Democrats pick themselves up off the ground from their latest electoral drubbing, they would be wise to at least try some new institutional approaches to help flesh out an agenda and organizing model that better represents a huge bloc of working-class voters who feel the party does not reflect their lives, their priorities, and their values.

Otherwise, like the Labour Party’s long sojourn in the political wilderness, Democrats should prepare themselves for possibly 12 years of Trump-Vance rule and a full realignment of multiracial working-class voters into the Republican Party.