AMAC Exclusive – By Claire Brighn
Beginning in earnest with Donald Trump’s election in 2016, working class voters in the United States have fled the Democratic Party in droves, quickly eroding a once solid base of support for the party. Amid this seismic shift in the electorate, many elected Democrats and mainstream media pundits have over the past several months desperately tried to prop up this narrative of Democrats as the party of everyday Americans – even as the policies emanating from Washington have grown increasingly opposed to their interests.
Following the 2016 election, many in media circles seemed to believe that Trump’s performance with blue-collar and working class voters in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio must have been a fluke. Though 2018 was an electoral setback for Republicans in the House, 2020 quickly proved a continuation of the trend that began four years before. Analysis from The New York Times in 2020 on “The Two Americas Funding Trump and Biden Campaigns” found, for example, that in “ZIP codes above [the median household of $68,703], Mr. Biden outraised Mr. Trump by $389.1 million. Below that level, Mr. Trump was actually ahead by $53.4 million.” Additionally, the study also found that much of Biden’s “financial edge” came from deep blue states along the coasts – supporting the widespread perception of Democrats as the party of coastal elites. “The donations mirror voting patterns,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres noted at the time.
The reason why this shift is occurring is easy to see – on issue after issue, Democrats’ policies are hopelessly out of step with the experiences of working class voters. On day one of his administration, Biden took actions like canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and ending oil and gas leases on federal lands – policies favored by wealthy liberals, but which started a steady rise in energy prices that hit working class Americans particularly hard. Democrats’ $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” which was chock-full of woke priorities aimed at appeasing far-left activists, touched off an inflation crisis that has further devastated the financial lives of working class families. Instead of working to curb inflation, Biden and Congressional Democrats passed a bill dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act” that economists believe will do nothing but increase inflation, and which contains subsidies for electric vehicles and solar panels – more welfare for the wealthy. In just the past two years, every Democrat in Congress has voted for higher energy costs, ending coal, and unleashing an army of IRS agents on low and middle-income Americans.
Despite Democrats’ claims that these policies are targeted at working and middle class Americans, evidence suggests that the opposite is true. For instance, available data shows that 80% of electric vehicle subsidies end up going to individuals making more than $100,000 per year. A Wall Street Journal analysis of California’s push to switch to “green” energy sources, a plan similar to the climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, showed that while working class households saw their energy bills increase, wealthy households actually saw financial gain from the policies.
Additionally, though Democrats slammed the Trump tax cuts as “tax breaks for the rich” and insist that their tax plan would “make the wealthy pay their fair share,” real wages grew under Trump, and that wage growth went predominately to “workers at the lower end of the pay scale.” Meanwhile, an analysis from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that the tax code changes in Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act would result in an increased tax burden of more than $17 billion on Americans making less than $200,000 in 2023 alone.
Democrats’ struggles with working class voters are perhaps best captured in middle American states that were once reliably blue or purple but are now trending Republican. The state of Iowa, for instance, which for decades was “the reliable wind vane of American politics,” has all but totally rejected Democrats. Obama carried the state twice in 2008 and 2012, but Trump also won there twice – gaining ground in 2020 over 2016. Since then, Republican voter registration has almost doubled in the state, and Biden’s approval sits at a dismal 23%.
A similar story has played out in Ohio, which also voted for Obama twice, but which Trump won handily in 2020. Though Biden managed to carry Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota two years ago, these once reliable bastions of Democratic support are now toss-ups.
In all of these states, which have been at the epicenter of the decline of American manufacturing in recent decades, working class voters are driving this shift, undoubtedly in large part thanks to Donald Trump’s message of economic renewal and a return to American greatness.
In response, some Democrats have, to their credit, attempted to rebuild this base of support. A headline from The New York Times late last month asked: “How Can Democrats Persuade Voters They Aren’t The Party of Rich Elites?” In an apparent response, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio (D) wrote in an op-ed earlier this month, “We’re supposed to be the workers’ Party. Democrats must be that party again.” (Never mind the fact that Senator Brown has garnered a reputation as one of the most far-left members of the Senate and was a strong supporter of Democrats’ spending binge.)
But this outreach effort has proven to be little more than lip service to the actual needs of working class voters. Far from re-calibrating their policy agenda as working class voters abandon them, Democrats appear poised to double down on their embrace of elite interests and a far-left social agenda, one that is completely at odds with the traditional values of most working class families. For Republicans, this presents a golden opportunity – if they can follow Trump’s lead and continue focusing on the issues that matter most to these voters.
Claire Brighn is the pen name of a conservative researcher and writer with previous domestic and foreign policy experience in the Executive Branch.
We hope you've enjoyed this article. While you're here, we have a small favor to ask...
Support AMAC Action. Our 501 (C)(4) advances initiatives on Capitol Hill, in the state legislatures, and at the local level to protect American values, free speech, the exercise of religion, equality of opportunity, sanctity of life, and the rule of law.
Donate Now
We need a third party, so bad. Our HUGE government will eat us up and spit us out.
They don’t care…
The socialist/democrats obviously will stop at nothing to keep their power. They will continue to dole out the crumbs to special interest groups and what ever it takes to help seal a win. Only the politically blind will continue to vote for these tyrants. Their supporters are just as complicit in destroying our country as the sleazy morally corrupt politicians that lie through their teeth. If you don’t vote in November, YOU are part of the problem and don’t have the right to cry about how our country is going to the dogs. At this point we only have one shot left.
Yeah and when you ask them directly about what they are going to do about lowering the cost, I get either a non-answer or word salad comment even when I show them proof of the increase as already posted for the upcoming 2023 tax filing period as posted on IRS website. They are walking illusionists and think we don’t see reality.
Great article Claire, but we should all remember Lincoln,’s anecdote:
“you may fool people for a time; you
can fool a part of the people all the time; but you
can’t fool all the people all the time”!
The Democrat’s apparently never read this before!
The so called private sector independent working class ( DEPLORABLE AMERICANS) that are the backbone and pay all the taxes to allow these Marxist socialists to even exist, are the enemy of the progressive socialist leftist democrats. They paint all of us with a tainted brush and accuse us of doing exactly what they always do? If by now our country and all our hard working and family oriented Americans don’t realize what’s really going on it’s over. This entire destruction of our values and our constitutional rights are disappearing right in front of our eyes and we’re sitting here like nothing is wrong. This president is doing everything in his power to transform our country into a tyrannical government with a poison pen. They couldn’t care less about our laws and what’s supposed to be fair. To them the end justifies the means at ANY AND All COSTS! Weaponize our FBI ,DOJ , and then like a third world banana republic or communist regime lie, deceive and steal everything. This must be stopped and it’s only we the people who are the ones that can stop them!
Driving out the middle class by “seizing” our wealth, (taxing us to death!!) will eventually mean there will be nothing left for the demoncrats to steal. As of that time their party will cease to exist because they’ll have no motivation because there’ll be nothing of any value left to steal…
Then they’ll turn on the elite class and tax them to death! How stupid they are to side with these sleazy, lowlife Democrats! They’ll learn the hard way!
Capitalism worked in the U.S. until they started to ruin America by getting rid of our Major Corporations starting by destroying RCA Corporation which had jobs from factory all the way to executive area and fair pay, then it was the domino effect and we lost and still are losing 100’s of companies! Now, we have Predatory Capitalism and no jobs!
Yes. Plus, our American ingenuity, technology, and innovation have been given to the Chinese, mostly in the guise of lowering prices for the consumer. The net effect has been to destroy American dominance in the world economy. We have become fully dependent on China and Mexico for the production of goods that once were proudly stamped Made in the USA. President Trump was able to stop many jobs from being exported, but the current backward thinking administration has fully erased policies that were providing incentives for US companies to keep their workforce stateside.
Yes and it was that sleazeball Bill Clinton, that started it all with NAFTA! Then feeling superior, laid back and got a bl– job from Monica to relax his guilty mind! Then he had the audacity to say that was not sex!!!
He was true to Democrat form, do whatever you want and then lie about it!
Huge POS! It appears to run in all the elite Democrat party member’s families!!
New Jersey has the highest property taxes and over 60% goes to schools and we are a Sanctuary State. Property taxes are so high that you are actually buying your home from the State of NJ so when you are 65+ they are forcing you to lose your home and you don’t make any money selling your home because you have paid for it twice! Senior Citizens in NJ have no representation! Can someone say “Taxation without Representation”?
Keep voting Democrat you dummy, and it will continue for you and those other numbskulls that did the same!
Wait until Americans see what the left has done to Europe this winter. Millions may freeze to death.
Do not underestimate the extent of “woke” values among the white working class. Biden “won” by getting a larger share of white non-college men than Hillary did in 2016. Apparently, they bought into all that “beer buddy Joe” cr*p successfully marketed to them.
Whether or not they can continue to win this way through subterfuge and outright fraud remains to be seen. Much has been written about the drift of Hispanics away from the Dems, as it seems they identify more as working class than Hispanic lately.
Further out, the Republicans will be more successful if they can prioritize peace and prosperity, and let the Dems stand for pronouns, plastic straws, and Palestinians.
This is exactly the right challenge. Since President Trump has been actively listening to candidates and endorsing the Law & Order America 1st candidates, they have been winning in most cases. It looks like the Republican party is following his leadership. There are elites who look down their noses at these candidates and their voters, but they seem to be a small group.
Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage. They do everything they can to stop workers from organizing unions, their only way to counter the power of the bosses. Republicans represent the capitalist class, whose only interest in the workers is make them labor longer hours and work harder for less wages. The right wingers con the white workers into hating the Black workers, immigrants, gays–anyone but those really responsible for their impoverishment, the super rich capitalist class.
Capitalism works! Think it doesn’t? Travel to communist countries. The rich are at the top (oligarchs), the rest of society drags bottom. Wake up, Michael!! Your reality of a Demoooocrat society will soon be here!!!!
Funny, democrats currently run both houses of Congress and there is a democrat POTUS, and yet none of them are discussing raising the minimum wage. But they’re happy to send billions to gangsters in Ukraine. My God, the democrat base is just a pack of buffoons.
And all the new age robber barons and most US billionaires are democrats.
No other economic system has lifted as many people from poverty than has capitalism. It can be ugly without limited, but necessary, government imposed regulations; however, it works because it harnesses the “greed” factor present in the overwhelming majority of people worldwide. (Not everyone is the altruistic, humanitarian socialist that you appear to be.) As for myself, unless and until and improved alternate and truly viable economic engine comes along , I’ll remain unapologetically pro-capitalist.
Baloney!!!!!
Democrats control everything. What have THEY done about the minimum wage and unions?
Nothing!
Republicans did just the opposite and the minorities did very well under Trump, but they were too stupid to recognize it!
Republicans understand economics, moron.
Unions acre responsible for the deaths of industry; hey, pay that dude who turn’s one screw-%80 of the time the WRONG way-over $100k or we’ll strike. And don’t forget the Green crap.
Oh yeah, twas the right who inserted the hyphen that divided America. No scum, that was you lefties.
Please, leave OUR country and try Myanmar, try North Korea Burt leave US alone.
Yeah , just remember Obamacare and how it ravaged the working man.
What the Republicans ever do to help thee 99 % ?
We believe in helping ourselves.
Well played, sir. Well played indeed.
Are you going to turn down Medicare ?
Ronald, Medicare is owed to those that have paid into the system through the collection of FICA taxes from their employer. Medicare, however, is for those who have not paid into the system and receive their healthcare from the benefit of others.
Having been raised in a union household (my father was a labor official in one of the nation’s biggest unions) I know how it used to be – Democrats good, Republicans bad. Now however, Democrats in general and liberals in particular mock and despise the working class. I see it all the time. Just read the comments on any news site – Republicans are stupid, uneducated, trailer-park trash. Get a job in IT, man!
The Democrats have become the party of people who work in industries, such as finance, media, law, academia, consulting, etc., whose workforces tend to be entirely college educated and which have little reliance on blue collar workers. The Republicans have become the party of people who work in industries such as construction, agriculture, resource extraction, logistic, manufacturing, etc., business that do need a blue collar workforce. The executives of these firms also tend to be Republican, so the alignment of blue collar interests with those of management sometimes chafes a bit, but a mutual interest in survival will tend to bring you together.
The Democratic pitch to the working class that we want you to stop doing your current jobs but we’ll try to put you all to work installing solar panels and windmills doesn’t seem to be working all that well.
Why are ONLY White children taught to “embrace” racial diversity as they become minorities in Europe and ALL the lands their ancestors fought & died for with blood, sweat & tears?
For thousands of years they fought & died to defend their lands for their beloved White children.
But now the anti-white tyranny is destroying the White race by flooding EVERY & ONLY White countries with MILLIONS of non-whites and FORCE assimilating them.
That’s White Genocide!
Diversity means the final solution to the White problem.
Democrats have abandoned common sense. They will destroy our country to stay in power.
TAX REVOLT !!!!!
“Democrats Have Abandoned the Working Class”
Sounds like a headline from 1994.
earlier than that. remember the Reagan Democrats.