Democrats Hate Their Own Party. The People Can Take It Back.

At a recent rally at U.S. Steel in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump stood in front of a row of workers in hard hats and safety vests and proclaimed, “We’re right now on the verge of passing the largest working class tax cuts in American history.” He framed his “Big Beautiful Bill” — a massive tax cut for the wealthy — as a blue-collar blessing. 

The sleight of hand is classic Trump, and what makes his appeal to voters enduring. “The Republican Party is building the multiracial working class coalition that the Democrats have always said that they want to build,” says David Sirota, founder of The Lever and a former Bernie Sanders speechwriter. 

This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Jordan Uhl speaks to Sirota and politics reporter Jessica Washington about how Trump has successfully used culture-war grievances to win over working-class voters, and why the Democratic Party continues to hemorrhage support.

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The episode also features Ilyse Hogue, the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America and the co-creator of a new $20 million project called Speaking With American Men, or SAM. The initiative aims to understand — and win back — young male voters who’ve drifted to the right. “ A lot of what we heard from people is that they feel invisible to the Democratic coalition,” she says. 

The plan has sparked skepticism, but Houge says the data is clear: “We’re losing young men of every race, ethnicity, educational background, and economic class in every state we looked at.” 

“ Trump is constantly trying to exploit and demagogue any issue,” Sirota explains, “and really ramrod any issue into a culture war battle where he portrays himself as the Archie Bunker defender of middle America — silent America’s values — and portrays Democrats as mostly interested in talking about advocating for and protecting those who are not part of so-called middle America.” 

According to Hogue, voters SAM have spoken to say, “ They want affordable housing. They want access to health care. They actually feel like Democrats can’t get it done.”

Sirota believes it’s not just lack of faith in their ability to get it done. “The average rank-and-file Democratic voter does not like the Democratic Party, does not like the Democratic leadership,” says Sirota. And that, he argues, is an opening for change.

Washington, who has covered the SAM initiative and broader trends in the Democratic politics, points to a central and persistent contradiction. “You can’t serve two masters,” she says. “You cannot serve the donors and the voters simultaneously. You cannot serve the average American and the person who has $100 million in the exact same way.” 

If Democrats want to stop hemorrhaging support, particularly among disillusioned voters and younger men, they’ll need to do more than tweak their messaging. They’ll need to pick a side — and start naming villains. As Sirota argues, “ Economic populism is not just the government will strengthen or make more robust the safety net, but that the economic powers and villains in the economy will be limited in their power.”

You can hear the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.