Midwest Dispatch: Populism Gone Wrong

Donald Trump nearly won Minnesota on his path to the White House, striking a blow to the state’s long-standing reputation as a proving ground for progressive policies—especially under Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s two-term leadership as governor.

Progressive policies did take hold in Minnesota under Walz, especially during his second term as governor. Democrats have held all three branches of state government since his 2022 reelection, feeding Walz a steady stream of pro-family, pro-child legislation to sign. Minnesota now has paid family leave, free breakfast for every child in public school, and abortion rights that have been codified into the state’s constitution.

But the Harris-Walz ticket barely carried the state and the win appears to have done little to help swing neighboring Wisconsin back into the blue category it once occupied. This is what I am struggling to understand in the aftermath of the November 5 election.

I tend to agree with the conclusions of organizations such as the Center for Working Class Politics (CWCP), a research outlet with ties to Jacobin magazine. In a study published on October 24, the CWCP concluded that the “soft populism” of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign was likely to fall flat with working-class voters who are in fact eager to hear more about how they’ve been left behind by today’s globalized and deeply unequal economy.

Rather than tiptoe around the edges of a populist message that does little to offend or cast blame, as the CWCP report found Harris was doing, the researchers argue that her campaign should have embraced a more full-throated takedown of elitism and corporate greed that moved beyond the traditional boundaries of Democrat versus Republican.

She did not do that, of course. For weeks on end, voters heard about the Harris campaign’s vision of an “opportunity economy” that likely fell on deaf ears for those struggling to just get by. It’s hard to get dreamy-eyed about climbing the corporate ladder, perhaps, when you’re having a hard enough time making rent or paying for groceries.

There is something soulless about Democrats occupying the kinder, gentler face of corporate greed and individual wealth-building as opposed to passionately rallying behind publicly funded health care, child care, and affordable housing.

A majority of the more than 1,600 Pennsylvania voters surveyed by the CWCP responded positively to messaging centered on economic populism and would have likely embraced a more strident calling out of political and economic elites, had the Harris campaign been willing or able to do so.

Here’s the rub, though. Many of these more populist policies have been put in place in Minnesota in recent years. The Walz administration implemented the North Star Promise which provides free college tuition for students from lower income families, and in June of this year, just before he became the vice presidential nominee, he announced a new program offering public support for on-the-job training opportunities. 

The Biden Administration has also arguably invested more than most previous administrations in job-based training programs for industries ranging from construction to semiconductor manufacturing. These actions are designed to lift up workers who may not have a college degree, but Biden has seemingly received little credit for this and other economic initiatives.

It is impossible, perhaps, to pin this election loss on whether or not the Harris-Walz team effectively or believably appealed to working class voters. For one thing, articles detailing how close Harris is with ultra-wealthy elites like Laurene Powell Jobs probably did the candidate no favors. But then again, Trump appears more than willing to hand over key government responsibilities to billionaire Elon Musk.

My thoughts go to two distinct but closely connected places: education and misogyny. Democrats and Republicans alike have embraced neoliberal education reform schemes for decades, with little to show for it except a trail of misused federal dollars and destabilized public school systems.

Schools often function as the center of a community, especially in rural areas, but for too long federal policy has centered on the defunding and consolidation of traditional public schools in favor of “school choice” plans built around standardized test scores. Amid a zealous pursuit of elite-driven education policy, communities from the city of Chicago to the state of Arizona and beyond have witnessed school closures, teacher shortages, and shrinking taxpayer support.

When the purpose of school is to get children to college using rigid and inflexible measures, I would argue that we are more likely to end up with disengaged, low-information voters who feel left behind.

Then, of course, there is the fact of Harris’s gender. And her race. We should not minimize the grip that misogyny and racism still hold on our country, from the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 to the recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden. 

The underlying theme here is power. Democrats like Harris, or even Walz, can nibble away at the edges of populism, but not while simultaneously building an economic vision around the wishes of wealthy Wall Street advisors, as Harris reportedly did. 

Until then, we will clearly be left to the wolves represented by Trump and J.D. Vance and their embrace of grievance-driven bro culture. They are “weird,” as Walz famously pointed out, and now they’re in charge.