A progressive strategist has accused former President Barack Obama of steering the Democratic Party away from its populist roots, pushing the party to cater to elites and abandoning the working class. In a report from The Hill about progressive lawmakers’ “existential crisis” following the 2024 election of President-elect Donald Trump, the strategist argued that the party’s shift toward Silicon Valley and college-educated voters set the stage for the return of populism — and Trump’s success.
“I don’t know exactly when Democrats lost their comfort with populism, but I don’t think it was because Trump picked it up,” the anonymous strategist told The Hill. “I think Trump picked it up because Democrats gave it up during the Obama years, when they started chasing Silicon Valley money and Obama wanted to appeal to college-educated people who think populism is icky and uneducated.”.
The strategist’s comments reflect growing discontent among many progressives, who argue that the Democratic Party’s increasing alignment with wealthy elites and suburban, highly-educated voters has alienated the working class, particularly in the Rust Belt and other traditionally Democratic regions. The strategist contended that under Obama, the Democratic Party embraced a technocratic, elitist approach that ignored the economic anxieties of working-class Americans. This shift, according to the strategist, was marked by an air of condescension, where the party began to view the working class as out of touch or even undesirable.
Since Trump’s 2016 victory, and especially following his second presidential win in 2024, prominent progressives have criticized the Democratic Party for its failure to prioritize the needs of working-class voters. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long championed economic populism, notably argued after Trump’s win that “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
“First, it was the White working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well,” he added, lamenting the party’s failure to address the concerns of these groups.
David Axelrod, a former advisor to Obama, pointed out a significant decline in working-class support for the party in the 2024 election. In an interview with CNN, Axelrod highlighted that the only group the Democrats managed to win among were those earning more than $100,000 a year, a demographic that does not reflect the broader working-class base that once formed the backbone of the party.
“You can’t win national elections that way,” Axelrod said, acknowledging that the Democratic Party’s shift toward a more affluent, college-educated constituency has alienated large segments of the working class. He added that many voters perceive the party as condescending, with a sense of elitism that undermines its populist message.
James Carville, another Democratic strategist and longtime party insider, has similarly admitted that the Democrats lost touch with the economic concerns of ordinary Americans, particularly the middle and working classes. Writing in a New York Times op-ed, Carville argued that Trump’s ability to secure the middle-class and low-income vote was central to his 2024 victory.
“We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is, and it always will be the economy, stupid,” Carville wrote. “Mr. Trump, for the first time in his political career, decisively won by seizing a swath of middle-class and low-income voters focused on the economy. Democrats have flat-out lost the economic narrative.”
While Democrats have focused on issues like climate change and social justice, they have not been able to offer a coherent, persuasive economic platform that addresses the frustrations and needs of voters who feel left behind by globalization, automation, and the decline of traditional industries.
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“A progressive strategist has accused former President Barack Obama of steering the Democratic Party away from its populist roots, pushing the party to cater to elites and abandoning the working class. ”
He made all the promises that we wanted to hear in order to get elected but the only one he kept was to “Fundamentally change America” for the worst.
The Obomination imported millions of Muslims to the USA but failed the Citizens of this great county.
He destroyed our economy.
He has worked behind the scenes ever since as one of the corrupt Globalist Establishment Elite leaders.
I agree. Obama and his ” going to fundamentally change the United States of America” was the real start and indicated to me he is a communist. He once commented that the Constitution stood in the way of his ideas on redistribution.