Ronald Brownstein: Can blue-collar Democrats win back blue-collar
Progressive policy ambitions meet practical realities as Americans weigh costs and consequences.
Sam Forstag’s text chain sounds like a support group for a party that just noticed its own reflection. A bunch of Democratic House candidates swapping notes on how to talk to blue-collar voters. That says more than any poll.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Sam Forstag recently joined a text chain to better keep up with a few friends. There’s nothing unusual about that, except Forstag’s texting buddies are a group of Democratic candidates for the U.S. House who share one unusual characteristic:
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Sam Forstag’s text chain sounds like a support group for a party that just noticed its own reflection. A bunch of Democratic House candidates swapping notes on how to talk to blue-collar voters. That says more than any poll. When you need a group chat to figure out how to speak to the people who used to be your base, you’ve already lost the argument.
Brownstein’s piece treats this as a tactical puzzle. It isn’t. Working-class voters watched Democrats spend years calling them bigots for wanting secure borders, then telling them their energy jobs should be sacrificed for a climate agenda. Those are not messaging problems. They are contempt problems. The candidates in Forstag’s text chain might talk about fracking and union wages now, but they’re running with the same national party whose loudest voices still treat ordinary workers as obstacles.
What’s amusing is the idea that voters won’t notice. These are.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.