Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) sat down with Jon Stewart on his podcast recently, and touched on a broad range of topics, including the defining challenge for Democrats going forward: figuring out the party’s identity and messaging.
After all, the obligatory “Losing Party in Disarray” post-mortem following an election result is still in full bloom and absolutely relevant for the Democratic party.
Not only was Donald Trump the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years, but Gallup also recently noted that Republican party identification exceeded Democratic party identification for its third straight year in 2024.
More concerning for Democrats is that Gallup reported more Hispanics, lower income Americans, and black Americans shifting to Republican party affiliation, which mirrored Trump’s electoral gains in each of those demographics last year.
Those groups have been core to the Democratic base and the bleeding risks suffering a mortal wound. This ain’t paper cut stuff.
Of course, the media has been buzzing about reasons.
Some call the Democratic party increasingly “out of touch” (that’s a mild paraphrase), while even the most charitable readings is that the party has a messaging problem.
Stewart and AOC addressed exactly that issue in the interview, and AOC responded by urging that Democrats needed to position themselves as “a party of brawlers for the working class.”
Great slogan.
AOC:
“We need to be a party of brawlers for the working class, and we have turned into a party that caters…. to almost people who call themselves upper middle class but they’re actually kind of wealthy…. it’s this suburban kind of thing, and we’ve been chasing this affluent group and making all these little concessions and hoping working people don’t notice.”
Jon Stewart then asks for examples of those concessions, and while AOC actually put her thumb on the problem, as borne out by polling, her answer shows something to be desired: “I think the most famous one that comes to mind is Kyrsten Sinema doing the little curtsy when she voted down the $15 minimum wage, but it wasn’t just her. That was the most public expression of it, but there were a bunch of Democrats in the Senate behind her that also voted it down.
People are struggling so much right now. $15/hr is nothing. This was the demand 10 years ago…. what people hear when there are all these excuses about it like, ‘Oh, how’s it going to impact business’? – first of all, there are already dozens of compromises before it even gets to the floor’.”
She sort of drifts after that, and in doing so misses a prime opportunity to address the electoral problem (this isn’t an ideologically partisan site or take).
So let’s talk about what AOC actually did say and didn’t say it.
First, I don’t think anyone except political junkies (and Democratic junkies, in particular) remember Sinema’s move, and she’s disappeared from politics anyway. It’s not the best anecdote and it’s an old one, to boot.
But she’s absolutely right that Democrats are increasingly on the losing end of the battle for the working class and becoming the party of a wealthier demographic. Presumably, because Democrats are speaking to those voters, and not to working class voters.
For example, in the 2024 election, Kamala Harris lost among voters making less than $100,000/year, but won among those making more than $100,000.
Trump’s strongest socioeconomic group was those making $50,000-$100,000/year which spells “working class.”
The question is why?
Polling data suggests that it’s not because of the minimum wage issue, but instead, it’s because Democrats have been increasingly focused — optically and ideologically — on issues that appeal to wealthier, more liberal demographics and neglecting focusing on things that appeal to working class voters.
Penn State labor and employment professor Paul Clark had a great chat with NPR about the phenomenon recently.
Clark said Trump had “touched on some changes in terms of working-class voters prioritizing social and cultural issues — DEI and racial issues, the number of immigrants coming into working-class communities, transgenderism, guns, abortion. Trump has really become a part of working-class culture in this country.”
In other words, Democrats are losing the working class battle on issues where AOC and the party’s left wing is at odds with the working class: DEI, immigration, LBTQ+ issues, guns.
That’s a tough pill for Democrats to swallow. Many of those issues are non-negotiable and to abandon the fight over them would signify something close to surrender and deep moral crises of conscience.
There’s another issue Clark didn’t mention that I think plays a role, as well: Climate change.
For example, AOC’s high-profile effort behind the Green New Deal reflected the Democratic party’s focus on climate change. That particular issue doesn’t resonate with the working class, which “overwhelmingly prioritizes manufacturing over climate change.”
It’s not hard to see why.
Going green has meant “going jobless” for many working class voters in the midwest and felt like “going broke” for working class voters across the country who are ill-equipped to afford the significant up-front costs associated with the transition to a more sustainably clean energy policy.
So to tie this with AOC’s comment on the minimum wage — how many people making minimum wage really want to sacrifice more of their flimsy paycheck to help the save the environment?
The fact is that most environmental regulations designed to make things more sustainable carry financial burdens that the working class simply can’t handle.
If Democrats want to become the party of brawlers for the working class, they’ve got to figure out how to square that with their climate objectives.
The environmental issue is one of just many.
Most working class folks are far less concerned or even ideologically opposed to other key Democratic talking points like rights for transgender folks or consternation over what might be happening in Gaza.
In fact, relative apathy to those issues remains a broad phenomenon, as well.
In the 2024 election, only 7% of voters ranked climate change as the most important issue facing the country, and Harris won the group by 80%.
The harsh reality for Democrats is that climate change was the issue they did best on, while Trump won by 24% on the top issue among Americans – the economy and jobs, and by 77% on the second most important issue to Americans — immigration.
In other words, on the issues that resonate most with Americans, Trump and Republicans dominated Democrats.
Meanwhile, Democrats scored best on the 3 of the 4 issues that were least important to Americans — Gun policy, racism, and climate change.
Rating importance of an issue doesn’t necessarily mean that Democrats were on the wrong side of the ledger, electorally.
It just meant that most Americans were in line with Republican views on the most important issues to voters.
That leads to an uncomfortable truth for Democrats.
The more Democrats talk about climate, identity, and foreign policy, the less time they have to talk about popular issues that work in their favor like health care (where Democrats had a 57% advantage).
There’s an opportunity cost here.
For every minute spent Dems spend brawling with the rightwing online over climate, pronouns, and Gaza, they’re missing the chance to brawl over issues that favor them with working class voters.
It’s not smart electoral politics.
AOC didn’t address this phenomenon, and a lot of folks on the left have been quiet on it, as well. They acknowledge their shortcomings with the working class, but struggle to identify the reason behind it.
Dems have to understand how difficult it will be to win back the working class unless they become a less ideologically pure party. They don’t necessarily have to abandon their ideology, they just have to emphasize more popular elements of the party’s platform.
Republicans caught onto their own problem with this.
Donald Trump recognized the bad politics of abortion for him and most of the party adjusted towards the center, stripping the party of its strenuously pro-life language in its official platform in 2024 and remaining quiet about abortion in the 2024 election.
That was a massive political concession and calculation.
The vast majority of Republican activists still maintained pro-life views, but were willing to downplay an electorally losing issue for success.
Can Democrats do the same? Or would it be too great a betrayal to their conscience?
Democrats should recognize that emphasizing issues that don’t resonate with Americans means more losing elections ahead.
AOC could be one of those leading the charge here, thanks to her influence and working class background.
2028 TAKE-AWAY: As noted here before, AOC has unbelievable political potential at the national level, thanks to the power of her personality, her common touch, her ability to personally connect with voters, biography, and the online influence that the convergence of all those things have brought.
That makes her one of the party’s most exciting rising stars.
And even though she’s young, she’s only two years younger than JD Vance, and suggestions that 2028 can’t be her time based on youth sound familiar to the criticism that Barack Obama was too young for 2008.
Nevertheless, Obama was agile enough politically to emphasize the economy in 2008 and downplay issues that wealthier Democrats cared about. Much like Bill Clinton.
Can AOC do the same?
Regardless, whether AOC listens to what working class voters said in 2024 (and have said for quite some time), she’s going to be a huge player in a presidential primary. Either as someone who endorses or someone who runs.
If she runs, the massive question is whether she’d be politically savvy enough to govern a primary campaign that ideologically gives her the flexibility to credibly move to the center in a general election.
Based on her answer to the “brawling working class” question, it’s unclear she’s at that point.
[Photo: Ocasio-Cortez on the Daily Show Podcast].
