Jacobin’s Sunkara: How Do We Build a Working-Class Politics?
How can the left win elections? Here are some clues.
I recently spoke with Jacobin magazine’s editor and publisher, Bhaskar Sunkara, about the magazine’s recent survey of American workers. The poll, conducted with the YouGov polling organization and the newly-formed Center for Working Class Politics, is important and insightful. It asked a wide range of workers about the rhetoric that moved them (and didn’t), about the candidates that appealed to them, and, yes, about the policies that could inspire them to support a left candidate.
The report’s sweep represents a Copernican shift from the Democratic consulting universe of the Mark Penn variety. The consultant crowd's slicing-and-dicing of voters into ever-smaller demographic groups (birthing, for example, the classic phrase “soccer moms”) reflects the divisive neoliberal thinking that has guided their party for many decades. This study segments the population in a more leftist manner: into workers, as opposed to those who prosper from their labor.
Toward a Left Politics
How do we advance a left politics in this country? We’ve seen Democrats’ approval ratings plunge in recent weeks, despite the popularity of their mildly progressive policies. This makes the questions behind the Jacobin survey even more timely: How do we build a mass workers’ electoral movement? How can we fight for a working class that’s made up of all races, genders, and other categories, when it doesn’t always seem to know what it wants?
Some leftist policies are already popular among working people. Lowering drug prices, raising the minimum wage, regulating or breaking up the big banks ... these all poll well. But other badly-needed policies, such as the demilitarization of the American empire or the nationalization of fossil fuel corporations, don’t yet enjoy widespread support.
That problem needs to be attacked, pincer-style, from two directions. We need to craft a policy agenda that will improve people’s lives. We also need to develop a better understanding of the ideas, rhetoric, and types of candidates that appeal to the broadest range of working-class voters. (That process is iterative, of course, as the two currents feed into one another.)
What the Survey Found
That’s where the survey comes in. As the report summary rightly notes, leftist victories in reliably Democratic congressional districts (think, the Squad) will not capture enough seats to enact sweeping progressive policies. As the authors write:
“For the kind of majority necessary to pass Medicare for All or any of the other big-ticket items on the social democratic agenda, progressive candidates will need to win in a far wider range of places. Until they do, their political leverage will remain sharply limited at the local, state, and national levels.”
What would that take? The report’s conclusions reinforce common sense. First, it confirms that “Working-class voters prefer progressive candidates who focus primarily on bread-and-butter economic issues, and who frame those issues in universal terms. This is especially true outside deep-blue parts of the country.”
It also finds that “Populist, class-based progressive campaign messaging appeals to working-class voters at least as well as mainstream Democratic messaging.” This is an important rejoinder to the perennial argument that Democrats must run conservative candidates in swing districts if they are to have a chance of keeping Congress.
Critically, it finds that “progressives do not need to surrender questions of social justice to win working-class voters, but certain identity-focused rhetoric is a liability.” Women and minority candidates were actually better liked than white candidates in most cases. There are rhetorical land mines to be avoided, however. The report adds, “Blue-collar workers are especially sensitive to candidate messaging — and respond even more acutely to the differences between populist and ‘woke’ language.”
Interestingly, the survey found that “working-class voters prefer working-class candidates.” Our electoral system makes it extremely difficult for working people to run for office. Most workers can’t go without an income for a year or two while they raise money and hit the campaign trail. The left needs to make it possible for working people to run for office. (The only organization attempting to do that, at least as far as I know, is Randy Bryce's Iron PAC.)
Progressive Love is Not Enough
Just being progressive isn’t enough, as much as we might like it to be. The survey found “little evidence that low-propensity voters fail to vote because they don’t see sufficiently progressive views reflected in the political platforms of mainstream candidates.”
It will take more than progressive rhetoric to drive turnout. This is where the dynamic between winning elections and crafting transformative politics comes into play. As Sunkara told me:
“Obviously, there's a (non-progressive) route for Democrats to win elections, because we've seen Democrats win election that way. We saw Biden take that route to win in 2020. But I would say that there's a route for Democrats to win even wider majorities potentially, by running on a stronger economic populist platform by adopting a lot of the rhetoric of a Bernie (Sanders) ... I'm not saying it's the only way, (but) for me, it's the only way, because my goal is a pro working-class politics that can transform America through a transformative program of Medicare for all, of good jobs, of basically building at the very least the rudiments of an American welfare state.”
The report and the Sunkara interview are well worth your time and attention.
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