Out of the Ashes

The fact is Trump does pose a serious threat to many groups, including immigrants, communities of color and trans people. He has also trained his sights on journalists and left-wing organizers, especially those in the movement for Palestinian liberation. And his far-right coalition aims to strip away abortion access, use the military to go after anyone the White House deems a political opponent and lavish tax breaks on the wealthy, all while further immiserating working people. 

These groups will face the brunt of the reactionary policies pushed by the incoming political order, and they were failed by a Democratic Party establishment that took the mantle as defenders of the current system — a status quo that is intolerable to vast swaths of the population. Our current democracy allows billionaires to buy elections and an unelected Supreme Court to overrule reproductive freedoms. Even when it comes to Democratic Party primaries, current rules allowed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to spend historic sums, donated by corporate tycoons, to unseat progressive Squad Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).

It’s hard to argue your party is the standard bearer of democratic principles when a rigged system goes unchallenged and undemocratic practices are the standard. 

Democrats once positioned themselves as the party to reform unfair rules, roll back the role of money in politics and create more direct democracy. These messages were not prominent this campaign cycle. While voters consistently said the economy was their top concern, the Harris campaign refused to take up a clear, economically populist message — or offer any break from the Biden administration, which voters blamed for what they saw as a country heading in the wrong direction. 

When Democrats won back power from a Trump-led GOP in 2020, they were handed a clear mandate: bring real material relief to working people. At the time, I wrote for In These Times that ​“Trump will be leaving more carnage behind in his wake than many thought imaginable just a few years ago. Undoing it — by using government as a vehicle to improve people’s lives through redistributing wealth and power downward — is the only way to make sure we don’t wind up with a future monster like Trump who’s even worse.”

It turns out it’s Trump himself who’s back, and it’s largely because Democrats squandered a historic opportunity to transform the U.S. economic system by reining in unchecked capitalism to benefit the working class. After putting in place a Covid-era social safety net that radically reduced poverty and increased economic security, the Biden administration allowed it all to go away while also backing down from a massively popular and ambitious domestic agenda to increase public programs and social spending. 

Millions of people have now fallen through the tatters of that safety net, and many voters placed responsibility for inflation and corporate price-gouging with the party in power. Food insecurity is through the roof, homelessness is rising at an astronomical rate, consumer and household debt is exploding, rent and mortgage rates are starkly on the rise, and Democratic elites and their allies in the mainstream media told voters the economy was humming along just fine. 

These legitimate economic grievances were the tinder Trump set ablaze. 

Rather than running on a bold redistributive agenda and naming clear enemies — billionaires, Big Pharma, corporate executives, predatory financial firms — the Harris campaign eschewed populism for moderation, taking Republicans and super rich financiers out on the stump.

On the border and immigration, the Harris campaign mimicked much of the rhetoric and policy from the Right. And, by continuing to unconditionally back Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, the campaign turned off much of the party’s base.

In response to this monumental defeat, some commentators have urged Democrats to further cast off the very groups most threatened by the Trump administration, especially trans people and undocumented immigrants, arguing Republican attacks around these issues caused the party’s losses. Such a response isn’t just cruel; it’s misguided. Democrats continued to bleed support from the working class this election, a trend that has continued over a decade and one that must be reversed if the party hopes to compete at a national level. Class dealignment — broadly, when voters stop supporting parties that traditionally represented their class interests — is a very real phenomenon, and one that will continue to sink Democratic campaigns that don’t win over disaffected voters at the lower rungs of the economy. 

The work of politics is largely about winning people over to your ideas, not solely responding to public opinion. If pro-Palestine activists, trans and immigrant communities are being demonized by the Right, it’s the job of an opposition party — which claims to represent the working class — to stand with them, not kick them out of the tent. As British socialist thinker Stuart Hall wrote after Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1987: ​“Politics does not reflect majorities, it constructs them.” 

For pointers on how to build a majoritarian working-class coalition, Democrats can look to the labor movement which, at its best, models a form of economic democracy in which workers exert at least some control over the decisions that affect their lives. Most workplaces exist as tyrannies where bosses hold all the power, but unions allow members a seat at the table to negotiate and provide tools to deliberate strategies to improve conditions. 

The United Auto Workers (UAW) illustrates what this dynamic can look like in action. After democratically electing reform leadership in 2023, the UAW went on strike against the Big Three automakers and won. Now, the union is organizing new shops and growing membership, even in the notoriously anti-union South. Under the leadership of President Shawn Fain, the UAW has been unafraid to name clear enemies in entrenched corporate power and greed; defend members from attack, regardless of their identity; and pursue transformative, pro-working-class policies, such as a 32-hour work week. There are clear lessons here for a Democratic Party now in the political wilderness. 

The second Trump era promises to bring new attacks on civil and human rights, labor law, the entire regulatory apparatus and, yes, democracy itself. But there will also be openings to organize, bring together new formations against a far-right Republican Party and build left-wing political power that captures the imaginations of working people. Since Election Day, we are already seeing participation soar in groups like the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. These groups, among others — like tenants unions and coalitions that bring together labor and social justice movements — can help serve as vehicles for collective action.

In 1938, the year that saw Kristallnacht in Germany, Jewish Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch penned an article titled ​“Pessimism,” five years after he fled Nazi rule. In it, he offers a helpful framework for navigating our current moment: 

The struggler belongs on the side of the light; light in general has the quality of not being suppressed in the long term. On the contrary, it has grown after every oppression; people cannot stand the denial of freedom … the enemy has a right to pessimism: as his ultimate total truth. For us, it is a partial element, indispensable for deliberation, useful for defense. With it, however, optimism comes into its own and, as the situation matures, achieves sufficient victory. 

Learning from how America put Trump back in power is critical to mapping a way out. Politicians who assail fascism but then smile next to its harbinger are part of how we got here. It remains true that people cannot stand the denial of freedom, and that’s what’s on the menu. Cohering opposition and organizing together are the recipe not just to resist, but to win.