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By Les Leopold / Substack
I’m really starting to wonder about the political IQ of the Democratic Party. First, they did just about all they could to elect Trump in the last election. Letting Biden bumble towards a second term was nothing short of crazy, but then anointing Kamala Harris without a primary was even worse. She was, after all, the weakest Democratic primary contender in 2020 and she did not raise her profile as Veep. It’s difficult to rage against the autocratic Trump when you actively work to prevent your own rank and file from having any say about your candidates.
But that’s ancient history. These days the Democrats are again looking like political dummies by shutting down the government, giving Trump exactly what he wants. Didn’t he say he would lay waste to the deep state, on which he unleashed Elon Musk and his Doges right after the inauguration? And wasn’t eviscerating the social welfare programs, the New Deal and Great Society Democratic legacies, a prime objective of Project 2025? Doesn’t the shutdown give Trump endless opportunities to execute his nihilist vision of governmental social responsibility?
Help me out here: What is the Democrats’ logic? Granted, they had to show they had some backbone to their pissed-off base, but couldn’t they find something that was maybe not as dramatic but an actual deliverable for voters?
Alas, they were not about to develop a path to citizenship for hard-working undocumented immigrants who had played by the rules, even though polls consistently show nearly two-thirds of the public would support that.
Nor, God-forbid, were they going to call for the end of stock trading by members of Congress, a pledge they could have made unilaterally putting Republican lawmakers on the spot. Then again, many Democrats seem to wonder what’s the point of getting elected if you can’t get rich by trading on the job? (BTW, according to our Rust Belt survey, ending lawmakers’ insider stock trading is the most highly supported policy proposal of the 25 we tested.)
Instead, the Democrats have proven, once again, that they are really in it for themselves and their monied donors, defending what was the status quo—before Trump spoiled things. They are willing to shut down the government to protect Obamacare funding so that premiums don’t go up, which is a laudable policy objective, but isn’t anything new.
Isn’t it the goal of all this to win the midterms? Haven’t they read Machiavelli? It would damage Republicans if premiums shot up dramatically for millions of voters because of Trumps’ big, beautiful bill. Why save the Republicans from themselves, when it would soon be obvious to all that the GOP stole the premium subsidies to give more money to billionaires?
I’m not a political micro-guy. I’m not into the twists and turns of congressional maneuvers, bill mark-ups, and the like. I concentrate on big picture trends, like the working-class abandonment of the Democratic Party and the inability of most Democrats to embrace radical economic populism even what that’s exactly what voters want. So, I’m just trying to figure out how the shutdown will play out with voters. And the big picture isn’t encouraging.
Various polls show that about 60 percent of Americans blame President Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown. That sounds like a win, but about 54 percent blame the Democrats. Those numbers are not encouraging for a Democratic uprising next year.
If the Democrats can’t do better than shutting down the government to conserve a program we already have, they have no chance at all of bringing working people back to the party. That makes me think that the rise of Trump is not an aberration. His first victory, maybe. He did lose the popular count by almost four million votes. But the second one, where he won the popular vote, shows that the Democrats are a failed party, and we could be in for Republican rule for a long time to come unless our political efforts change.
Can the Democrats get out of this shutdown mess? It won’t be easy. If they capitulate, they will look like failures. If they persist, and win something, it’s not clear the public will give them any credit. Lives will be better for it, but the Obamacare tax credits people have now will keep on coming, which feels like no change at all.
Sorry for the bad news, but the good news is that working people really want a new political party. Working together we can make that happen, but it will take time to build. Meanwhile, it’s groundhog day as we watch one Democratic trainwreck after the other.
If nothing else, I hope this ongoing mess convinces progressives that the game is up. I know many still believe (hope, pray) that AOC and Mamdani will pull off a miraculous takeover, but wouldn’t it be prudent to have a Plan B?
There’s bound to be a lot of arguments and counterarguments, but that’s the point. We need a serious discussion about starting something new, instead of shutting down the discussion by saying it’s impossible. And if we allow working people to speak their minds, they will tell us it really is time to build something new, totally independent of the two parties. Here’s a bumper sticker to get us started:
Not Red, Not Blue: I’m a Working-Class Independent!
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Les Leopold
After graduating from Oberlin College and Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, Les Leopold co-founded the Labor Institute in 1976, a nonprofit organization that designs research and educational programs on occupational safety and health, the environment, and economics for unions, worker centers, and community organizations. He continues to serve as executive director of the Labor Institute and is currently working to build a national economic educational train-the-trainer program with unions and community groups.