What Democrats Need to Learn From Donald Trump

Thoughts on Election Day, 2024

Today, a few swing voters in a few swing states will elect an American president. Most of these voters have not graduated from college — and most voters without a college degree will vote for Donald Trump. 

I have no use for Trump. Those who know him despise him. He is by far the most treasonous, anti-American, bitter, and criminal presidential candidate in our history. He would appease our enemies and weaken our democracy, economy, norms, and institutions.  

But like it or not, Donald Trump will earn the vote of 70-80 million Americans today. He is one of only six people in history to be nominated to the Presidency three times. He has completely reshaped the Republican Party and American politics. 

Trump’s secret power is his skill at mobilizing large numbers of working-class (non-college) voters, often by reminding them what they resent about liberal college-educated professionals. 

Liberal college-educated professionals run the Democratic Party. We hold most of its elected offices. We decide which issues get attention. We promote abortion rights, alternative energy, and democracy over issues that matter more to non-college voters. We advocate for DEI, Palestinian statehood, affirmative action, and “LGBTQI+” or “Latinx” causes that are low priority for mainstream Democrats who sit out the primaries. At our worst, we embrace all things “anti-racist”. We look down on law enforcement. We take a benign view of drug use, illegal immigration, and property crime. Trump could not ask for a softer target.

Thanks to the “diploma divide,” working-class voters now drive electoral outcomes in many states. In 2016, Trump won every state below the national average for college degrees except Maine, Nevada, and New Mexico. Clinton won every above-average state except Kansas and Utah.

Democrats rarely carry non-college voters anymore. Exit polls suggest that Obama won 45% of non-college voters in 2008 and 44% in 2009, but Hillary Clinton only won 28-29% in 2016. Biden won 32-33% in 2020. How Harris does with this group today (especially with working-class women) will determine whether she wins.

Whether or not Democrats prevail today, we need to learn some lessons from Donald Trump.

• More beer, less wine. Two-thirds of the adult US population and sixty percent of voters do not have a college degree. To sustain any majority coalition, Democrats need to place the well-being of non-college voters at the center of our agenda. This requires more beer Democrats and fewer wine Democrats.

• Ignore the rich. Trump rarely criticizes rich people, even though many of them are Democrats. Part of this, of course, is that he likes to present himself as rich. But importantly, he understands that non-college voters rarely interact with rich people. They are more likely to respect than resent them. But non-college workers see college-educated professionals every day. They see them at work – often as managers. They encounter them in our healthcare, education, and legal systems. And they are frequently not impressed.

  In contrast, Democrats are obsessed with rich people, even as the party attracts them in large numbers and relies on them for funding. Some prominent Dems argue that billionaires should be illegal. Many advocate for wealth taxes on the ultra-rich. This resonates emotionally, whether practical or not. This obsession does not speak to many non-college voters.

• It’s the kitchen table, stupid. If outstanding economic results won elections, Democrats would win today easily. After all, the US economy is now the envy of the modern world. We have had the best job market since the 1960s. Stock prices, wage growth, consumer sentiment, ACA enrollments, oil and renewable energy production, new business starts, and worker participation rates are all up nicely. Inflation, rents, mortgage rates, crime, murder, and gas prices are down. Our investments in infrastructure, green energy, and semiconductors will strengthen America, and speed up the energy transition. They will create new opportunities for decades to come.

  But working-class voters remember post-COVID inflation that cost them dearly. They recall that prices rose 18% during Biden’s first three years in office, vs 6.2% for Trump. It’s not social media-induced pessimism when 43 percent of voters tell ABC News they are worse off financially under Biden. Only 13 percent say they are better off. Median household living standards improved under Trump before the pandemic. Half of all voters tell CBS News that they expect to be better off if Trump wins.

• Anti-poverty programs do not win working-class voters. Many college-educated Democrats support higher minimum wages and increased child care and health care subsidies for workers whose wages are in the bottom quartile. It shocks some that working-class voters have nonetheless fled the Democratic Party.

  These programs do not address the concerns of the median US household: an electrician and a clerical worker who earn $80,000/year. They may not be thrilled to see neighbors who earn half that amount receive benefits that they do not.

• Talk straight. Trump lies, complains, and meanders – but he never complicates. He is direct. It comes off as straight talk that many blue-collar voters value, especially men.

  When I gave a complex explanation to my boss at the Machinists Union, he would ask, “How would a machinist say that, Marty?” Bill Clinton would admonish us that “strong and wrong beats weak and right” (Hillary did not take this to heart).

  Democrats need to embrace straight talk without imitating Trump's authoritarian tendencies. Ask how a machinist would say it. And keep a sense of humor.

• Honor citizenship. Trump understands that American citizenship is one of the few privileges that working-class voters enjoy. Many of these voters resent immigrants who crash the party. In polls, they support legal immigration, especially of skilled workers. They welcome those doing jobs that native-born workers do not want. They are happy to send out plenty of invitations – but they do not want people to enter the country uninvited. Trump exploits this by declaring immigrants violent and vile and arguing for mass deportation.

  Democrats should fight to admit immigrants on a point system that rewards skill, English, and a willingness to help revive troubled communities. We should make a big deal out of citizenship ceremonies – including celebrating high school students who pass the same civics exam as immigrants as a condition of high school graduation.

• Abundance. Affordability. Accessibility. Trump trades on resentment and zero-sum thinking. In contrast, Democrats can attract working-class voters with an abundance agenda that reduces the cost of housing, food, training, health care, and energy by increasing supply, not subsidizing demand. We can attack federal barriers to housing construction, starting with pointless environmental rules.

  Democrats can promise to break up food processing monopolies in meat, grain, dairy, beverage, and packaged foods. We can offer to match state investments in public colleges and universities that do not increase tuition and tax credits to companies that provide accredited apprenticeships. We can negotiate prices on more prescription drugs using advanced market commitments. We can talk about cheap energy instead of green energy because they are the same thing.

I very much hope that as you read this on Election Day, Donald Trump is losing and will vanish quietly from the political scene. I have no confidence that this will happen. Trump has reshaped our politics fundamentally — and mostly for the worse. By mobilizing large numbers of non-college voters, however, he has laid down a challenge that Democrats should eagerly accept. Democrats, not Republicans, must become America’s working-class party.