Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris handily, winning the popular vote alongside every swing state. How did this happen? How did Trump pull off such a definitive victory?
Trump’s victory is viewed by many as a product of the discontent of the American working class. Many feel left behind by the political and wealthy elite. And the failure of the Democratic Party to engage with and support the working class is a factor in the recent rise of anti-establishment sentiments, many of which Trump took advantage of. If the Democratic Party had put more resources towards supporting and listening to the working class, the election results could have turned out differently.
In order to understand the Democratic Party’s role in Trump’s rise to power, we must analyze what the Democratic Party did during the Obama Presidency. Winning the 2008 presidential election and a majority in both houses of Congress, the Democratic Party had complete power. What did the Democrats accomplish with this power? Analyzing these years could give us a better look into how the party ended up where it is today. Let’s look at a few of the most important crises facing us today.
Health care. The most notable thing to point to would be the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). While a definite improvement, allowing some poor and elderly people to access medical care more cheaply, extending family care to young adults up to age twenty-six, and ending the exclusion of people for pre-existing conditions, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Many working-class Americans still live without adequate healthcare. People go from paycheck to paycheck, worrying if a surprise medical expense will push them over the edge. While helping some, the ACA does not provide support to a huge part of the American people.
Worse, it functions through private insurance companies. These businesses have no motivation to actually help people, instead, they kill thousands by denying medical coverage to make more profit. The profit incentive inherent in predatory insurance companies allows working people to be overcharged for simple medical procedures, costing, for example, entire savings on ambulance rides and medical tests on top of paying large amounts for necessary medication. An interesting point regarding the ACA is that many of the ideas behind it were heavily pushed for by the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank, infamous today for Project 2025. From a critical perspective, the Democratic Party passing the ACA was a band-aid solution. If this is all the Democrats could accomplish with control of Congress and the Presidency, how are working people going to be convinced that the Democrats are a party that will help them?
Prisons and Police. During Obama’s presidency, the prison industrial complex grew stronger and the murder of Black people such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown led to mass protests and unrest. One cause of these murders is the increase of a militarized police force, which overpolices poor and black neighborhoods, leading to mass incarceration, while the legacy of slavery, segregation, and redlining create mass poverty in the Black community. Modern-day exploitative practices like predatory loans, as well as landlords charging high rents for poor tenets (see Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond), keep Black communities poor. These poor neighborhoods are then over-policed, leading to mass arrests and denying many people in these communities upward mobility due to their criminal record, continuing the cycle of poverty and over-policing.
What did Obama do to combat police brutality and exploitation in Black communities? He began a process to eliminate private prisons during the last few months of his presidency, which was undeniably a good thing to do. However, only 8% of incarcerated people are being kept in private prisons(9) and Obama did nothing to solve the issues of a violent and militarized police force.
Black Lives Matter. How did the Democratic Party leadership respond to protests sparked by the police murder of George Floyd in 2020?Keep in mind that most of the big city mayors that sent out the police to beat and tear gas and arrest protesters were… Democrats!! Later, some Democrats backed mild police reforms, but they generally went nowhere or were immediately shot down. Again and again, the fundamental evils of this country rear their ugly heads. And again and again, Democrats scrap together a mild response that does nothing to address these problems. Even if the Biden administration was able to get his police reforms passed, it would not have solved the underlying issues causing this violence. Only through a complete demilitarization of the police, and refocusing funding on policies that lift up black communities. Through attacking continued economic segregation, as well as reforming police and prisons to end the cycle of poverty they create. Making the blow of the baton softer is not a long-term solution. Fundamental changes need to be made to the justice system. To solve systemic problems you need systemic solutions.
Housing and poverty. Having a home is a fundamental need, just as necessary as food or water. Under the Obama Administration, homelessness went largely unaddressed. Although homelessness did drop slightly from around 644,000 in 2008 to around 549,928 in 2016, it has since risen back to around 653,104 people. These statistics show the failure of the Obama Administration to put a dent in homelessness, with the housing crisis only worsening.
Owning a home has become increasingly unrealistic for Millennials and Gen Zers. Millions of Americans’ needs remain unaddressed. In 2008, at the start of Obama’s presidency, around 39.8 million people were below or at the poverty line. In 2016, it grew to 40.6 million. If we take into account population growth though, poverty decreased by about .5 percent, which is about as successful as throwing a pebble into a river to divert its course. The high levels of poverty in America make renting a home difficult for many people, let alone actually owning one. Once again, the Democratic Party in power did not change much to truly help the working class; in reality, there were eight years of milquetoast reforms and lackluster policy. With little to no tangible change in the lives of working people, it is not much of a surprise that many turned towards more radical solutions.
After analyzing some of the downfalls of the Obama administration, it is clear that many working-class citizens were done with the political establishment. On both the left and the right, populist candidates were rising to the forefront. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were gaining massive support. This is evidence that the recent failures of the Democratic Party pushed people to search for more radical solutions.
The Democrats refused to engage with the clear rise of populism. They abandoned Bernie for the staunch neoliberal Hillary Clinton. Clinton is a pure embodiment of the establishment. Her candidacy promised more of the same ineffective reforms that plagued the Obama administration. Despite her many flaws, the Democratic Party completely backed her. With Bernie out of the race, Trump was the only candidate who spoke to those disaffected by mainstream politics. While the Democrats doubled down on the narrative that everything was fine, Trump rallied support by pointing to the broken system. He lacked any strategies or policies to fix it, but the fact he was addressing the system’s faults in the first place was enough to gain enough votes to win. Democrats did and continue to deny that how our country is currently run is inherently flawed. They continue to deny that massive changes need to be made. Democrats instead campaign on ideas of small reforms and marginal improvements to people’s lives. The Democratic strategy of putting bandaids on bullet holes does not work.
So if the Democrats are so ineffective, then why did they win in 2020? The simple answer is that Trump’s policies did not work. Or at least they did not work to benefit the working class. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) greatly increased the wealth of the rich while leaving working people further behind. He also harmed workers by attacking regulations that protect workers’ pay, costing workers on average seven billion a year. He waged an unsuccessful trade war with China. He attacked women’s rights through attempts to hinder abortions as well as weakening Title IX and weakening attempts to enforce equal pay. On top of all this, he cut environmental regulations and passed policies harming working-class immigrants. While the Democrats still refused to move from their establishment positions the harm from the Trump administration was fresh. And Trump’s failures, combined with his murderous response to the pandemic, were just enough to push Biden over the top in 2020.
2025. Now here we are again. Neither party helps the working class. And while the Democrats retreat even further from even the veneer of anti-establishment populism, the far right gains more ground. In 2024 Trump was able to win the popular vote, something a Republican has not been able to do since 2004. Without a strong populist left, Trump and the far right can fill in the space, employing policies that further harm the working class. If this trend continues, the far right will only grow in America, availing itself of bouts of power before being reined in by establishment Democrats, only to come back stronger and more radical after another Democratic administration fails to help workers.
As long as they keep their head in the sand on the necessity of fundamental changes to our current economic and political system, things will only get worse. “Trumpism” will not go away after Trump becomes too old or dies. Because it was not Trump that created “Trumpism”. It was the millions of desperate Americans looking for some form of change. Trump merely had the charisma to fill a position that would exist no matter what. Any liberals still holding onto the idea that things will return to “normal” after Trump leaves the political scene are going to be very disappointed. You cannot leave the material conditions of society the same and expect suddenly that things will be different. After Trump leaves, someone will simply take his place.
If the Democrats were interested in combating Trump then they would address the material conditions of the millions of struggling working-class Americans that caused his rise in the first place. People can’t afford to buy a home, they can barely afford rent. They can’t afford the medical care they need. They lack adequate education and social services. Millions of Americans are locked away in prisons more than any other country in the world. Lowering people’s taxes by 5 percent won’t fix this. Radical change is needed to help the people of this country. These issues need to be addressed and are continuously ignored or have ineffective band-aid solutions placed on them. As democrats refuse to address these issues Trump steps up.
In this article, I’ve talked a lot about how the Democrats have refused to address the material issues that caused a far-right candidate like Donald Trump to take office. But why don’t they attempt to implement affordable housing? Prison reforms? Or universal healthcare? We know policies that work. Integrating poor and rich neighborhoods has been shown to improve poor children’s economic conditions later in life. Subsidizing public housing increases income for people who benefit from it when compared to those in the private sector. Universal healthcare is proven to be cheaper and provide better care. Yet they continue to refuse to implement or even advocate for these policies on a national level. Why?
One likely reason for this is that it is not in their economic interest. The corporate donors of the Democratic Party would be harmed by genuine attempts to elevate the working class.
Because those same donors are benefiting from the worsening conditions of the American working class, many rich families who support the Democrats are worried that attacking homelessness will harm their property values. When Kamala Harris was still Attorney General of California she fought tooth and nail against a Supreme Court ruling which forced California to release prisoners to stop overcrowding. Reducing prison populations meant losing a cheap way to get things like firefighters. In 2022 Biden imposed a contract on rail workers when they threatened to strike. The elite of the Democratic party directly benefit from the exploitation of the working class. This is why they will not push for genuine help for the working class. The Democrats positioning themselves as “progressives” stifle support for the real left while their support of the exploitation of the working class pushes people towards anti-establishment, and populist positions. This is then filled by the far right.
The Democratic party is no friend to working people. This much is clear. Their support for systems of exploitation has led to the rise of radical reactionary forces. From this analysis and others, the Democratic Party has consistently shown that they will support pleasing their wealthy donors rather than helping the working class, every time. Their talk of being anti-Trump rings hollow. They say he is going to destroy democracy, yet they have shifted towards his positions on policies like immigration and climate change. When all is said and done they will peacefully transition power over to him. As much as they decry and denounce him, it is their policies that allowed him to rise to power. Trump is the Democratic Party’s creation. Now they have to live with him. It will be up to the working class to get rid of him.
