Can Economic Populism Save the Democratic Party? - The Ezra Klein Show

[In It to Win It]

The “Democratic penalty” should scare the hell out of Democrats.

The Democratic Party brand has become toxic in certain parts of the country, especially with working-class voters. The Center for Working-Class Politics has actually measured this so-called Democratic penalty, and found it’s in the double digits in some Rust Belt states.

So what should Democrats do about it?

One theory says that Democrats were once economic populists and just need to be again. Another theory says that the working class feels left behind and looked down on by a Democratic Party that has moved sharply left on culture, on climate, on guns, on immigration.

Jared Abbott is the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, which has done a lot of research and polling on working-class voters. So I asked him on the show to talk through these theories and what it would take for Democrats to once again be the party of the working class.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. It's about who owns or has access to the means of communication

We're not being heard because most M$M is affiliated by the exact opposite of what we stand for.

[oldmanlynn]

5. This is 100% accurate

If Democrats wanna start changing the outcome start buying radio stations and TV stations in those red states and then start pushing real information factual information. Democrats have to speak louder and just as often about what’s really happening as Maga is talking about with fake information.

[mdbl]

2. How do you fix stupid?

It's difficult to navigate this idiocracy in which we live.

[SSJVegeta]

3. Not just the Democratic party. It can save America.

...if its not too late.

[oldmanlynn]

4. I think these people do not understand the power of the propaganda pushed by Fox News

The media has a large play in what these different people believe in and if you inundate rural areas with radio stations that are pro Maga with TV stations that are pro republican then what you end up having overtime is a shift to pro Republican. That is where the Democratic penalty comes in

If Democrats can’t figure out a way to have truth propaganda and get out truth information at a faster and louder pace than Republicans we’re gonna get beat by propaganda.

[In It to Win It]

6. They have an entire ecosystem

Particular is those small ruby red areas. If they don’t hear it on Fox News, they hear it in church. They hear it on talk radio in the car.

Then there is no one on the Democratic side in these areas challenging those messages. There is no Democratic Party presence in those areas and no Democratic organizing in those areas.

Their political media diet is angry anti-Democratic media, and there is no alternative political voice.