Can the Democratic Party build a micro-level politics?

In the three weeks since the election, Democrats and progressives have been analyzing what went wrong for Kamala Harris' campaign. A significant part of this postmortem centers on the issue of dealignment — the erosion of Democratic support among working-class voters, a group that Bernie Sanders successfully rallied just a few years ago.

Left-leaning commentators overwhelmingly agree: the Democratic Party's failure to appeal to a diverse working-class demographic was decisive. "It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” as Sanders himself put it.

One prominent factor cited is inflation’s impact on voters. Although the Biden administration touted economic growth, many people still struggle with rising costs for essential goods such as  groceries, health care and housing. About 45 percent of Americans report feeling financially worse off than they were four years ago. Analyst Tim Barker argues that this election reflected class dealignment rather than any new alignment: “Perhaps the safest thing to say is that the working class, as a class, didn’t do anything.”

If non-voters were a party of their own, they would have won states like Nevada and Arizona, the popular vote, and even the electoral college. It's also essential to note that class is not solely about income but encompasses relationships, race and identity. No matter how it’s parsed, the Democrats lost significant support among key demographics, including Latino men, a group many pundits will blame — or credit — for Trump's reelection.

Moreover, in some ways, Republicans outmaneuvered Democrats at their own game of identity politics. Even while Trump surrounded himself with billionaires and pledged to cut taxes on the wealthy, his rhetoric and message seemed more aimed towards working people, even though his policies will subvert this message.

While the pick of Tim Walz as Harris’ running mate was intended to contribute to the party’s everyman image, Harris was not able to convince people she was of and for the people. Some of this may be attributed to intrinsic sexism but it doesn’t explain everything. Her inability to connect with certain demographics suggests deeper issues within the Democratic Party's outreach strategies and policies.

Observers note that the current dealignment also stems from decades of neoliberal policies that have dismantled working-class institutions. The Democratic Party, once the champion of labor unions and civic engagement, has for many come to embody an elitist national identity.

As union membership dwindled, so did one of the few democratic avenues that brought people together politically and gave them a real stake in governance. This erosion leaves many viewing the Democrats as the party of the past, clinging to a status quo that has done little for ordinary citizens.

Conversely, and also to many, Republicans constitute the party of resistance, as voters relish or ignore its debased heterodoxy, which seemingly offers a different path from this liberal status quo, which has given them little to nothing.

Critically, the Democrats failed to present a compelling, community-focused vision of the future. Instead, their campaign bore the weight of a national, establishment image that strived to avoid controversy while failing to inspire.

Trump, conversely, engaged with community-level politics — albeit through a fear-based lens, often directed against immigrants. He used the specter of crime and economic competition from immigrants as a rallying point, which  resonated with people because it addressed their lives at a local level.

If Democrats are to regain lost ground, they must address community-level concerns and shift their messaging on immigration. Harris' speeches often mirrored a subdued version of Trump’s fearmongering, at times endorsing stricter security and even alluding to the need for a wall. Campaign ads emphasized her role as a "border state prosecutor," underscoring a policing stance rather than an integrative one on immigration.

The line between national security and nationalism blurred, and Harris' campaign at times appeared to validate the notion that immigrants are competitors for American jobs. This approach ignored immigrants' economic and cultural contributions to the United States, both historically and in the present.

Contrary to alarmist claims, immigrant labor is essential to the U.S. economy. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute found that immigrants — whether as workers or business owners — contributed $4.6 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2022.

The Congressional Budget Office reported similar findings: “when immigrants move to the United States, the economy grows. That doesn’t mean fewer jobs, it means more jobs…. Study after study shows there is no fixed number of jobs in the economy. Immigration creates opportunities that benefit U.S workers too.”

Claims that immigrants are stealing jobs and causing lower wages for U.S workers distract from weak labor laws and deregulations that challenge workers’ rights to belong to unions and to collectively bargain.

Shifting American perspectives on immigration will likely require more than a change in the Democratic Party’s rhetoric. But embracing pro-immigrant messaging could serve as a vital step, not only for economic and ethical reasons but for political survival.

The Republican strategy of instilling the fear migrants were going to steal Americans’ jobs was successful not only because of racism, whether covert or explicit, but because it demanded people think about politics as something that affects their towns. The Democratic Party needs to similarly conceive of a civic form of politics as something that involves and addresses people’s everyday lives.  

Historically, unions have been a primary vehicle for mobilizing the working class. Union membership today is down to around 10 percent of the workforce nationally, about half what it was 40 years ago — a drastic decline that reflects both a lack of union appeal and policy environments that disempower workers. Though Biden’s administration did more for organized labor than recent predecessors, it didn’t spark new union memberships. Recruitment is the responsibility of unions, but stronger labor policy could help people see unions as a politically viable and effective mechanism.

Building stronger labor protections could make unions more attractive, helping to restore them as a channel for civic engagement and political power. Unions bring together people in similar fields and localities, uniting them around common interests. Ideally, unions work to advance these collective interests, offering members a stake in something greater than themselves. To re-energize unions would mean reigniting a politically active working class across a range of demographics.

Such a shift might require the Democratic Party to reckon with its role in supporting neoliberal policies that hollowed out the middle class. Democrats must realize that it wasn’t just a broad “working-class” demographic they lost — it was a failure to mobilize a micropolitics that can speak to peoples’ diverse experiences.

Such a shift would reclaim politics from the national stage, reshaping it as a matter of everyday concerns and power dynamics among the people we encounter in daily life — including, of course, immigrants.