Which Way Left?
Populism has a larger role to play in the politics of the Left than liberals are willing to admit.
Ben Krauss at Slow Boring published a recent essay asking “Should Democrats be left-wing economic populists?” According to him: Kind of. But not really.
“It might be a part of the answer” he concludes, “but only a part of it.”
Krauss points to all the contradictions wrapped up in whatever “leftwing economic populism” might be. He’s right to notice that most voters, and this is no less true of working-class voters, maintain some contradictory policy preferences. In a word, they routinely indicate that they want more funding for infrastructure, health care, education, and certain social programs while also insisting that they don’t want to pay any more taxes. He’s also right that a “populist” agenda can rub against some progressive priorities, especially when it comes to cultural issues, moral values, immigration, and the environment.
Still, Krauss’ conclusion is misguided. A populism of the Left has a much larger role to play in winning a durable majority than he recognizes. In fact, it is already playing the role we at the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) predicted it would play.
The risk is not that too many Democrats will adopt too aggressive a populist stance but that (1) too few will be viewed as credible populists and that (2) their agenda will not be populist enough.
Credible Tribunes
The CWCP has long advocated for the Left to actively recruit and develop working-class candidates. We’ve argued that the labor movement is still the only real vehicle for doing this and that unions and political organizations should make concerted efforts to scale-up blue-collar candidate pipelines. One major reason for this is that these candidates are far more credible as populists than are standard-fare Democrats (who are almost all drawn from the ranks of lawyers and professionals).
Many of the candidates Krauss highlights as models are those connected to blue-collar life. Marie Glusenkamp Perez is a mechanic. Jared Golden left college to become a Marine. Marcy Kaptur is the daughter of an autoworker union organizer and grocer. Ruben Gallego, also a Marine, is the son of a single mother. And, of course, Dan Osborn, is a former industrial mechanic (who led a strike at Kellogg’s) and is currently an apprentice pipefitter. All these candidates were able to effectively rail against the political, cultural, and economic elite because they were rightly seen as coming from humble backgrounds and working-class social circles.
Krauss is right to worry about whether Chris Murphy “the lawyer and two-term Senator from Connecticut has the profile to authentically deploy the populist message that can win back the working-class.” But far from damning the populist perspective this only affirms it. Effective populism isn’t just a set of policies, or a rhetorical playbook, it’s also embodied in the candidates themselves.
Working-class candidates, unlike professional-class politicians, often organically embrace the “many shades” of populism that Krauss identifies. Effective populists combined rhetorical appeals that are not traditionally associated with progressives—immigration realism, criticism of burdensome government regulations, a moderate approach on cultural questions—with fiery condemnations of the corporate elite. Their ability to seamlessly blend these appeals is owed to their social proximity to working-class voters. These voters feel that the little guy is being ignored by politicians who cater to the corporate elite and Wall Street. At the same time, they see the same little guy getting shoved around by powerful bullies in government and the media.
Populist Economics is Popular
Krauss argues that it’s “impossible to neatly fit these positions into any particular economic paradigm.” This is overstated. Because Krauss equates economic populism primarily with the expansion of social programs he can’t see the coherence in the populist intuition. While it’s true that there “isn’t a single left-wing economic stance that tied them all together,” there is a rough throughline that runs between many successful populist candidates. For instance, Osborn, Golden, Glusenkamp Perez, Chris Deluzio (D-PA-17), and Gabe Vasquez (D-NM-2) are all champions of the Right-to-Repair Act. A bill that many on the progressive Left don’t even know exists (not one Squad member is listed as a co-sponsor).
The Bill epitomizes a strain of politics that is uniquely populist: an emphasis and celebration of self-reliance combined with a condemnation of the overweening power and rapacious greed of the corporate class. Moreover, it’s not a welfare program but legislation that would force corporations to behave in more socially responsible ways—in this case making it so that farmers could fix their John Deere tractors without being extorted by a dealership.
Policies like these, that challenge corporate elites and put more power in the hands of working people while acknowledging working-class skepticism of large spending programs, could make up part of a future populist agenda. And if championed by the right people it’s the kind of agenda that could help win a durable majority.
Anti-Elite Rhetoric Works
Beyond specific policies Krauss also questions whether attacking economic elites is a winning strategy. He writes, “Another core element of the economic populist project is capitalizing on the public’s supposed disdain for big business and wealthy elites. But here, too, the politics are a bit tricky.” Well, according to our analysis, it’s not that tricky after all. Indeed, using the same data that Krauss marshals to assess the performance of 2024 Democratic Congressional candidates, our analysis of candidates’ campaign rhetoric found that candidates who attacked economic elites the most performed substantially better than those who rarely went after elites or avoided attacking them altogether.
The figure below shows that Democrats who competed in Cook-designated competitive House races in 2024 and made frequent use of anti-elite rhetoric—like Marcy Kaptur, Josh Riley, and Matthew Cartwright—outperformed baseline expectations by nearly three percentage points more than candidates who steered clear of populist attacks on economic elites.
These results should hardly come as a surprise. A survey we conducted in Pennsylvania in October 2024 showed that voters in this critical swing state have extremely negative opinions of economic elites across the board—from pharmaceutical and insurance companies, to Wall Street and multinational corporations. When less than 15% of the electorate has a positive view of any given set of elites—be they in Congress or corporate boardrooms—it’s not a mystery why attacking them is a political winner.
Krauss is wrong to downplay the potential of populism. Democrats, in general, aren’t at risk of embracing too much populism. In fact, the danger is just the opposite: too few have embraced a true populism.
I’m sorry how it is “immigration realism” to vote for a bill that allows immigrants to be detained for being only charged with a crime. I think you need a more critical review of candidates that you’re upholding as a great examples. Just having a working class background doesn’t necessarily translate to good working class policies. Does Perez even support the Pro Act or Medicare for All? Let’s not be Hillary 2016 supporters here - pointing to studies that show more women in Congress lead to better family policies while ignoring the specific person and their views at issue here.
Obviously the actual danger is the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars of donor money that would go toward defeating populists if the party as a whole dared to take them on. This is the actual question at issue, why do we not discuss it?