The fallout from Donald Trump’s post-election victory is mounting, as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Bernie Sanders debate whether Democrats are doing enough for working-class Americans.
Opinion polls showed For the first time in decades, Democrats received more support from those in the top third of income earners than from those in the middle and bottom thirds.
This continues a trend that began after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. Since then, Democratic support has declined among the poorest third while rising among the wealthiest.
On Wednesday, Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, expressed his regret over the election results and delivered a sharp rebuke of the Democratic Party.
“It is not surprising that a Democratic Party that has abandoned working-class people will find that the working class has abandoned them,” he wrote in a statement. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they are right.”
Then in Interview with New York Times Pelosi, published on Saturday, denied that the party had abandoned the working class and suggested that Democratic House candidates were outperforming and maintaining control of that chamber.
“We are the Kitchen Table, the party of the working class in America,” she said.
Pelosi also responded to Sanders, saying he “did not win” and that while she respects him, she “doesn’t respect him when he says the Democratic Party has abandoned working-class families.”
She pointed out that during the era of Joe Biden, whose most important achievements in domestic policy were sponsored by Pelosi through the House of Representatives, Democrats helped the working class while Trump approved tax cuts in his first term that mostly helped the rich.
On Sunday morning talk shows, Sanders doubled down on his criticism of the Democratic Party. during Interview on NBC Learn about journalismHe said the working class has a right to be angry given widening income inequality, the lack of guaranteed health care for all, high rates of child poverty, the elderly living on low incomes, and a campaign finance system that allows billionaires to “buy elections.”
When asked about Pelosi’s response, Sanders noted that Senate Democrats had not prioritized legislation to raise the minimum wage, make it easier to join a union, or expand the pool of taxable income to pay Social Security benefits.
“If you’re an ordinary working person, do you really think the Democratic Party is going to go into battle and take on powerful special interests and fight for you?” he asked. “I think the overwhelming answer is ‘no,’ and that has to change.”
Sanders added that Trump at the same time acknowledged the workers’ pain and offered a “very crazy” explanation that made immigrants the scapegoat.
“Democrats need an explanation, and that explanation is corporate greed and the power of the billionaire class,” he said.
In addition to low-income Americans, Trump has seen growing support from Hispanic voters, blacks and women, who have traditionally been key Democratic voters.
Pollster Frank Luntz identified a group that included race, gender and class, saying voters paycheck to paycheck handed Trump the White House.
“If you’re a paycheck-to-paycheck voter who struggles every week or every month, you’re more likely to think about and actually vote for Donald Trump than at any time since Ronald Reagan in 1984,” Luntz said. Nation News After the elections.
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