The Movement and the MathRebuilding the Working Class

Trump isn't an aberration but a consequence. Voters are dropping out of the political process or swinging erratically between the parties in elections as they try to find someone who will "shake things up." Democrats who are giddy at the prospect of a wave election will be disappointed if they fail to understand what happened in 2016 and the need to do things differently. Unless Democrats promote real solutions to the economic problems faced by working families and communities, they won't win in states where a significant number of white working-class voters are needed for a majority. This belief is based on the last fifteen years of organizing in working-class communities by Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO that I helped found in 2003. Since the 2016 election, we've talked with 300,000 voters to understand their attitudes, concerns, sources of information, and what approaches and arguments they find persuasive. Here's what we found.