A big win for Democrats? Not unless you assume that most votes for the Democratic candidates meant more to their voters than just a rejection of Trump, which is doubtful. A poll released days before the election showed public approval of the Democrat party at 28 percent. It’s pretty clear, as well, that things haven’t changed since Democrats lost the last presidential election because working-class voters abandoned them. They did so because they thought the party had ceased to represent their views, and they had good reasons to think so. They saw the party as controlled by an elite – a college-educated elite – that seemed more concerned with environmental problems and the welfare of gay and transgender people than the struggles of working people to live decent lives. They also saw that the average age of a Democrat in the House of Representatives was 58, that half of all Representatives are millionaires, and that 96 percent of members of Congress have at least a 4-year college degree. They knew that the Democrats had made no effort to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hour, and many states (including Idaho) still used that rate despite the fact that, given inflation, it isn’t a living wage. Trump promised them at least a lowering of the cost-of-living and a shakeup of the status quo that would benefit them. He betrayed them, of course, and expanded his betrayal by his actions once he was elected.
The working class now faces a Republican party that has been enslaved by the president, and the president turns out to be a friend only of the wealthy, who is determined to eliminate every governmental program that provides help to the poor. No wonder voters took the opportunity to repudiate Trump in the most recent elections.
The question is: who can ordinary working-class Americans turn to? The two-party system, as they see it, has failed. Neither Democrats nor Republicans understand their plight or are focused on helping them. Isn’t that why some forty-two million Americans qualify for help by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is not what one might expect in what is so often called “the richest country in the world”? Moreover, in 1963, the wealthiest American families had 36 times the wealth of families in the middle of the wealth distribution. By 2022, they had 71 times the wealth of those families. America’s richest 1 percent of households averaged 139 times as much income as the bottom 20 percent in 2021. As of 2025, the top 1 percent of Americans controlled 30.8 percent of the country’s entire net worth, compared to 22.8 percent in 1989. Today, the top 10 percent of Americans now hold over two-thirds of the country’s wealth; the bottom 50 percent holds less than 4 percent of the country’s net worth. Is that the “equality” that America boasts of?
A two-party system only works if those two political parties, together, recognize all the genuine needs of the population and try, each in its own way, to take those needs seriously and formulate political plans and principles that address them. Unfortunately, our two parties have, at least in the eyes of a great many Americans, failed to do so. Since political polarization began, the parties have become increasingly doctrinaire and rigid. The Democrat party has ceased to be what it once boasted of being: a “big tent” that welcomed all kinds of members with all sorts of political aims and interests. And, because in politics money is the name of the game, it now seeks out rich, liberal donors and attends to what they think the party should focus on.
The whole idea of representative bodies like the House of Representatives is that its members do what the name “representative” suggests: convey to each other what each member’s constituents need and want, and formulate ways for the government to assist in dealing with those needs and wants insofar as they are seen to be legitimate and worth addressing. No Representative should behave as though, having presented his/her political viewpoints and been elected, they are free to obey the demands of their political party and ignore the wishes of those who elected them (as all Republican representatives have done). The problem is that it’s the party that supported them, gave them money to win their seats, controls what committees they will serve on, and whether or not they will win re-election when their allotted term of office is over. It now seems that members of Congress owe more to their parties than to the people who elected them.
If there is anyone elected to a political position in the recent elections who illustrates the degree to which political parties have failed to welcome or even tolerate members who don’t obediently conform to all their doctrines, it’s Zohran Mamdani, now the next mayor of New York City. Mamdani ran as a Democrat, but the Democrat who is the minority leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, never publicly supported his campaign. There was no room in the tent for someone who described himself as a socialist Democrat. Why not? Doesn’t the party accept a spectrum of liberal viewpoints? Doesn’t it recognize that a Democrat elected in Idaho probably will not hold all the same views as a Democrat elected in New York City? Surely what’s important is that Democrats all reject rule by a dictator and advocate for government policies that recognize the right of Americans to receive help from the federal government when they need it. Wise up, Democrats. Show working people that your party cares about them.
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