How Many Wake-Up Calls Does The Democratic Party Need?
As the Democratic Party’s approval rating continues to sink, some in the establishment refuse to support Zohran Mamdani, and others outright attack him. They still haven’t learned their lesson from their failures in the 2024 election.
The latest YouGov/Economist poll found that 62% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Democrats in Congress, while only 30% have a favorable view. That is a 15-point drop in net rating since Trump took office.
Republicans who hold power while the economy worsens, world conflicts intensify, recession looms, and the national debt rises faster than last year have a 54% unfavorability and a 38% favorability rating. It is an impressive feat for the minority party to poll worse than the majority during a time of protests, uncertainty, and job loss.
The 2024 losses, the continuing drop in polls, and the rallying behind Mamdani are all telling the Democratic Party the same thing: It is time for a massive party shakeup.
Polls are just one point of data. Despite the low approval rating, Democrats will make gains in Congress during the midterms. This administration and Republican-controlled Congress have been a disaster. The economy has taken a turn for the worse. No matter what the Democrats do, the GOP will lose seats. However, polls can still provide us with a glimpse into what people are thinking and feeling, as well as highlight potential future risks.
YouGov maintains a list of Democratic politicians ranked by approval rating. Chuck Schumer, leader of the Senate Democrats, is ranked 38th with a 30% approval rating. That may be generous, given that a recent CNN poll had him at 17%, and another pollster reported Schumer’s lowest approval rating in their 20 years of data.
The currently serving congressional Democrat with the highest approval rating, and the only one above 50%, is Bernie Sanders, at 51%. Next was Elizabeth Warren, followed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (To be precise, Bernie Sanders is an independent who caucuses with Democrats and ran on the Democratic ticket for his presidential campaigns.)
It isn’t a coincidence that the top-ranked Democrats are progressives and socialists, or that a socialist just won the New York City Democratic mayoral primary. It also isn’t surprising that the current Democratic leadership ranks low. America desperately needs change. Progressives and socialists are the ones talking about it and fighting for it, while leadership is doing very little.
Schumer has essentially said that the best thing to do is nothing while Trump and MAGA make horrible decisions that hurt the country. That way, Democrats can gain power back after the damage is done. He wanted to run a victory lap because he had managed to change the name of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” at the last minute, even though the contents of the bill that would hurt millions of Americans remained unchanged. Beyond that, he occasionally goes on a safe network where he won’t be overly challenged to remind viewers that Trump is bad.
Bernie and AOC have been traveling the country, speaking out about the harm Trump’s oligarchy is doing to the working class. Bernie has also done interviews on a wide range of podcasts and YouTube channels, including those that supported Trump’s campaign. Bernie, like Pete Buttigieg, understands that is the only way to get your message to voters on the other side of the aisle in the modern silo’d political age.
Those who show a passion to resist MAGA extremism and a plan to help improve the lives of the middle and working classes have support and poll well. Those who make the same speech to the same cameras week after week about how we need to stop Trump, while continuing to fail to do so and offering no path forward, have little support. The public wants them gone.
The 2024 election should have been a wake-up call to the Democratic establishment. Whether it was because Democrats stabbed their own president in the back and smeared him until he ended his reelection campaign, or because voters felt the party hadn’t accomplished enough, or that people felt Democrats didn’t have a plan beyond “stop MAGA”, 15% of Biden voters from 2020 did not vote in the 2024 presidential election. That is over 12 million voters. They stayed home, either too angry or fed up to cast their ballot. Another 5% switched their vote to Trump.
The corporate-backed Democratic establishment needs to go. They’ve accomplished nothing, stand for nothing, and inspire nothing. When was the last time you heard a Democrat who isn’t a progressive or socialist seriously discuss improving wages, lowering the cost of housing, enacting universal healthcare, adequately funding Social Security, improving public education, or empowering workers? Those should be the core tenets of the Democratic platform, as liberals, progressives, and socialists can all agree to them.
Democrats attacking Mamdani shows that they’re out of touch and not listening. The Democratic Party does not need to be a hive mind forced to agree on all solutions. You can have one Democrat saying they want to address unaffordable nutritious food by creating co-op grocery stores, another say they want to switch the subsidies from sugar, oil, and corn to go toward small farms growing healthy crops instead, and still another can discuss free trade agreements to reduce the cost of everything not grown in the US.
Anyone who wants to restore the American dream for the working class while protecting our rights and Constitution should be welcomed on the left, even if their ideas differ from our own. If their ideas gain them a following and win elections, then Democrats need to pay attention and listen, rather than feeling threatened.
If you don’t like the change Mamdani is offering, then offer your alternative, see what resonates, and be ready to embrace compromise. Most importantly, be prepared to deliver. One thing is for sure: any politician not focused on the working and middle classes, not willing to hold corporations accountable, and not delivering on livable wages, healthcare, and affordable housing, has no place in the future of the Democratic Party.
Americans are fed up with how corporations and the wealthy have bought Congress to do their bidding, causing inequality to soar. Either accept that change is coming, or get run over by it, because the movement has begun, and it isn’t stopping. It is time for a major disruption in the Democratic establishment that leads to meaningful change in both the party and the country.
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econtoplines_RYbP7Ki.pdf
https://today.yougov.com/ratings/politics/popularity/Democrats/all
CEO Greed
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