{"id":154,"date":"2026-06-29T00:05:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T00:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=154"},"modified":"2026-06-29T00:05:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T00:05:44","slug":"are-democrats-finding-their-spines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=154","title":{"rendered":"Are Democrats Finding Their Spines?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2221499058.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Are Democrats Finding Their Spines?\" title=\"Are Democrats Finding Their Spines?\" \/><\/div><p><\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" id=\"\">\n<div id=\"article-title-block_207a3caf408b417a428d2e5a0c203415\" class=\"article-title \">\n<div class=\"article-title__container\">\n<div class=\"acf-innerblocks-container\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-the-nation-dek article-title__dek\">\n<p>At an Open Markets Institute conference, economic populism was on the agenda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"ad-block ad siderail-ad float-r-w-3 break-r-4\">\n<p>                                    <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/advertising-policy\" class=\"ad-policy\" target=\"_blank\">Ad Policy<\/a><br \/>\n                                    <\/aside>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\n<p>Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen depart a briefing at the Capitol in Washington, DC, in June 2025.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"credits\">(Kent Nishimura \/ Bloomberg)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"is-style-dropcap\">The Open Markets Institute, a DC clearinghouse of antitrust policy and legal strategy, didn\u2019t lack for ambition in drawing up its convocation this year of political leaders, regulators, and writers attacking the powers of economic concentration. The gathering, hosted at an event space across from the grounds of the Capitol, was called \u201cThe Next American Revolution: Breaking Oligarchy and Making a New American Democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Institute director Barry Lynn welcomed the crowd to a daylong series of panels on the challenges of antitrust enforcement and its place in our political discourse, it soon became clear that the call for revolution was another invocation of the country\u2019s 250th anniversary; Lynn, like many of the later speakers at the event, reminded the crowd that anti-monopoly sentiment was front and center in the colonial rebellion against the British crown.<\/p>\n<p>Still, events outside the room lent a fresh currency to the rhetoric. The night before, a slate of three democratic socialist candidates <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/politics\/nyc-primary-results-analysis-mamdani-dsa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">swept into victories<\/a> over establishment-backed opponents in New York\u2019s primary balloting, spurring pundit speculation over the rise of a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/democrats-are-closing-in-on-their-tea-party-moment_n_6a3b52cae4b058c5d1c6213e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Democratic Tea Party<\/a>.\u201d And as the conference proceeded, President Donald Trump revoked his scheduled ceremony to sign Congress\u2019s new housing affordability measure, which sought to rein in equity funds from acquiring rental investment properties and driving up the cost of shelter. The housing bill had been the last hope for incumbent Republican lawmakers to claim during the upcoming midterm cycle that they were trying to measurably improve living costs for an electorate battered by inflation. In a heated meeting with GOP senators, Trump insisted that he wouldn\u2019t sign the measure until Congress also approved his pet bill to address the nonexistent scourge of election fraud, the SAVE act\u2014an already doomed piece of legislation that signals to disenchanted voters that Republican leaders care more about blocking ballot access than unrigging a top-heavy political economy. Placed alongside Trump\u2019s announcement that he \u201cdoesn\u2019t really think about Americans\u2019 financial situations\u201d in his purblind negotiations over the Iran War, the housing bill debacle gives the lie to the creaky fable that the MAGA regime will restore economic sovereignty to forgotten American workers. Small wonder that Lynn wound up his introduction by declaring that \u201cthe American people are in a revolutionary mood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Many of the ensuing panels likewise kicked off with speculations over the results in New York, and their broader meaning for an electorate increasingly fed up with both the Trump oligarchy and procedurally minded Democratic rhetoric that overlooks the material conditions behind America\u2019s sour political mood. Indeed, the challenges of aligning Democratic political strategy with the crusade against monopoly power in the economy are so pressing that the conference devoted two separate sessions to the question. And to a striking degree, the prominent Democrats speaking before the conference highlighted the same urgent need to reclaim the party\u2019s identity as the party of disenfranchised working people. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough simply to be opposing everything that Donald Trump does,\u201d said Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who along with his Connecticut colleague Chris Murphy, the conference\u2019s keynote speaker, is now touted as a potential 2028 presidential candidate. New York\u2019s results vindicated \u201cthe candidates who believe that we have to go beyond Trump and recognize that the status quo before Trump was already broken,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe have much deeper issues to address, including the concentration of wealth, of economic power and political power.\u2026 We can\u2019t just tinker around the edges. We need fundamental change.\u201d Van Hollen went on to endorse Medicare for All, far-ranging campaign finance reform, an end to the filibuster, and an overhaul of the tax code to support struggling workers and fund the mitigation of climate change.<\/p>\n<p>Murphy, for his part, presented a sober diagnosis of the country\u2019s mounting anomie, drawn from his just-published book, <em>Crisis of the Common Good<\/em>, and highlighting the \u201cinextricable link to the structure of our economy and the way people are feeling about the way they interact with the economy and our democratic crisis.\u201d Both lawmakers seemed to be testing out stump pitches for the 2028 cycle, and it qualifies as undeniable progress for such disparate thematic appeals to be grounded firmly in the tenets of left economic populism.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the sessions on Democratic strategy made it clear how far Democrats are from reconstituting the party as a persuasive and credible force for populist economic justice. Even as Kamala Harris inherited a strong antitrust record from the Biden White House, her 2024 campaign struggled, and ultimately failed, in its efforts to land a straightforward populist message. \u201cIn the 2024 cycle, we were screaming from the rooftops,\u201d about the centrality of economic fairness in the campaign, recalled consultant Evan Roth Smith of Slingshot Strategies. \u201cAnd Harris would react in context in an extraordinarily chickenshit way.\u201d Smith went on to explain that such failures feed directly into the widespread public perception that Democratic candidates simply aren\u2019t serious or trustworthy bearers of basic populist appeals. A recent set of large-format polls conducted by his firm employing \u201cnatural language, a low question count and open-ended questions\u201d targeting up-for-grabs independent, swing, and disenchanted GOP voters, asked what kept them from voting for a Democrat. \u201cThe number-one word was \u2018spineless,\u2019\u201d Smith said. \u201cPeople were sounding the same all across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"current-issue-block_4d7f07c573efb0c5ff365aceb0550e86\" class=\"current-issue  float-l-w-2\">\n<h4 class=\"current-issue__title\">\n                    Current Issue<br \/>\n            <\/h4>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/issue\/july-august-2026-issue\/\" class=\"current-issue__cover\"><br \/>\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/cover0726-1.jpg\" alt=\"Cover of July\/August 2026 Issue\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s less a problem of message-tweaking, he went on to explain, than of deep-seated ideology. \u201cThe Democratic Party made its peace with capital in like the last 20, 30 years. If you\u2019re the center-left party, you\u2019re supposed to be adverse, if not openly hostile, to capital.\u201d For Democrats to gain real traction in this political climate, the prescription is simple, he said: \u201cJust declare war on capital. That, I think, will return the confidence that we\u2019ve seen erode in studies we\u2019ve done of partisan Democrats\u2014not just swing voters and independents.\u2026 And it doesn\u2019t really matter if you win those fights. The fights have to be better chosen and louder; they have to break more norms and garner more attention.\u201d A key proof of concept, he suggested, is the pending Michigan Senate primary, where Abdul El-Sayed is breaking away from a pack of establishment-anointed rivals with a simple Mamdani-style pitch for sweeping affordability reforms, Medicare for All chief among them.<\/p>\n<p>Another Democratic disconnect was reflected on stage: For all the conference\u2019s salutary focus on the need to recover the power of workers as the party\u2019s organizing mission, the event\u2019s roster didn\u2019t include any representatives from labor unions. The closest anyone came was former union leader Dan Osborn, an independent Senate candidate in Nebraska, who explained how his experience in union organizing informed his political ambitions. Unions had played a key role in the New York primary results, and El-Sayed has benefited from getting the endorsement and grassroots support of the United Auto Workers. Yet most speakers evaluating the New York results stressed the (effective) organizing work of the Democratic Socialists and the outsize personal charisma in the campaign. Texas Representative Greg Casar, the head of the House Progressive Caucus, harked back to Franklin Roosevelt\u2019s rousing 1936 nomination speech before the Democratic National Convention, with its forthright excoriations of \u201ceconomic royalists\u201d and FDR\u2019s declaration that he \u201cwelcome[d] their hatred.\u201d Yet that performance\u2014and the broad New Deal coalition backing it up\u2014was also a show of union power, in the wake of the landmark collective-bargaining provisions of the 1934 Wagner Act. In a day\u2019s worth of bracing discussions of the democratic distortions wrought by a top-heavy political economy, it was striking that the chief messengers were elected officials, former federal regulators, academics, consultants, pollsters, policy wonks, and journalists. For the Next American Revolution to take root as something more than a conference name, it seems like a key starting point should be for workers to be calling more of the shots.<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" id=\"article-end-\" class=\"article-end \">\n<div aria-hidden=\"false\" id=\"article-editor-note\" class=\"article-editor-note-1 tn-editor-none-module\" data-nosnippet=\"\">\n<div class=\"article-editor-note-blocks\" id=\"editor_note\">\n<p>With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink about Americans\u2019 financial situation,\u201d millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-\u201cd\u201d populist ideas\u2014not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Nation<\/i> elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court\u2019s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.<\/p>\n<p><b>We can play this critical role because of support from readers like you. This June, we\u2019re raising $20,000 to power <i>The Nation<\/i>\u2019s independent journalism in the run-up to November\u2019s immensely consequential elections.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s in our power to build a more just society, and your support at this critical moment brings us closer to that bold vision. I hope you\u2019ll donate today.<\/p>\n<p>Onward, <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"\\&quot;font-size:\" background-color:=\"\" rgb=\"\" var=\"\" color:=\"\">Katrina vanden Heuvel<br \/>Editor and Publisher, <i style=\"\\&quot;font-size:\" background-color:=\"\" rgb=\"\" var=\"\" color:=\"\"><span>The Nation<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-end__authors\">\n<div class=\"article-end__author\">\n<h5 class=\"article-end__author-name\">\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/authors\/chris-lehmann\/\">Chris Lehmann<\/a><br \/>\n                    <\/h5>\n<p>                                            <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lehmannchris\" class=\"article-end__author-twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/>\n                            <default:svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"17\" height=\"14\" viewbox=\"0 0 17 14\" fill=\"none\"><br \/>\n\t<default:path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M15.2054 3.54558C15.2122 3.6951 15.215 3.84463 15.215 3.99527C15.215 8.58792 11.7194 13.8834 5.32683 13.8834C3.36455 13.8834 1.53779 13.3083 0 12.3221C0.271606 12.354 0.548252 12.3702 0.828257 12.3702C2.45677 12.3702 3.95536 11.8147 5.14483 10.8829C3.62384 10.8543 2.34085 9.84963 1.89844 8.4692C2.11068 8.51008 2.32797 8.53136 2.55253 8.53136C2.87006 8.53136 3.17695 8.48936 3.46815 8.40984C1.87772 8.09008 0.680414 6.68501 0.680414 5.00273C0.680414 4.98705 0.680414 4.97305 0.680414 4.95793C1.14858 5.21833 1.68452 5.37514 2.25461 5.39362C1.32219 4.76921 0.708415 3.7063 0.708415 2.5006C0.708415 1.8633 0.879778 1.26633 1.17882 0.753361C2.89302 2.85621 5.45395 4.23887 8.34249 4.38392C8.28313 4.12967 8.25233 3.86423 8.25233 3.59206C8.25233 1.6729 9.80861 0.117188 11.7278 0.117188C12.7274 0.117188 13.6301 0.539436 14.2641 1.21425C15.0559 1.05913 15.8002 0.769041 16.4716 0.370873C16.2118 1.18289 15.6602 1.86386 14.9428 2.29395C15.6462 2.20939 16.3159 2.02235 16.9392 1.74626C16.4739 2.44292 15.8842 3.05557 15.2054 3.54558Z\" fill=\"#666666\"\/><br \/>\n<\/default:svg><br \/>\n                        <\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-end__author-bio\">\n<p>Chris Lehmann is the DC Bureau chief for <em>The Nation<\/em>\u00a0and a contributing editor at\u00a0<em>The Baffler.<\/em>\u00a0He was formerly editor of\u00a0<em>The<\/em>\u00a0<em>Baffler\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>The New Republic<\/em>, and is the author, most recently, of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mhpbooks.com\/books\/the-money-cult\/\"><em>The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Melville House, 2016).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script type=\"804f5c8b73ebd676cd6036fa-text\/javascript\">\n\t\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n\t\t{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n\t\tif(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n\t\tn.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\tfbq('init', '233793277040432');\n\t\tfbq('track', 'PageView');\n\t\t\t\t<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At an Open Markets Institute conference, economic populism was on the agenda. Ad Policy Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen depart a briefing at the Capitol in Washington, DC, in June 2025. (Kent Nishimura \/ Bloomberg) The Open Markets Institute, a DC clearinghouse of antitrust policy and legal strategy, didn\u2019t lack for ambition&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2221499058.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[214,215,216],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-democrats","tag-finding","tag-spines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}