Why both the Left and the Right are failing American workers

Working-class voters had high hopes that Donald Trump would help them out economically: Inflation and the economy were top priorities for Trump voters in 2024.

These voters have seen the fading of the American Dream first-hand: Over 90% of Americans did better than their parents in the decades after World War II, but only half born in 1980 will.

Why? A major reason is that employers pocketed workers’ fair share of productivity increases. Wages used to rise when productivity did; if that had continued, workers’ wages would be 43% higher than they are today. 

You won’t hear about this from President Trump. Instead, his villain is foreign trade, and his solution is to use tariffs to bring back blue-collar jobs. But tariffs won’t work quickly, because onshoring means building new factories, which takes years. And it may never happen. 

Meanwhile, tariffs threaten to take away the only real benefit workers got from globalization: cheap Nikes, T-shirts, and party favors. To add to that, the Trump administration is DOGE-ing away stability at the Veterans Administration and Medicaid, which middle-class and rural Americans rely on. 

In short, the right isn’t doing right by Lunchpail Joe and Jane.

But neither is the left. Instead, it’s obsessing nonstop about Trump’s flouting of democratic norms — that’s all progressives want to talk about. Defense of democracy was a top priority for those who voted for Kamala Harris, but way, way down for those who voted for Trump.

The left also wants to talk about how DOGE is firing government workers, making professionals’ jobs unstable and nerve-wracking. 

Welcome to our world, say non-college voters. Thirty years ago, sales personnel at Macy’s had full-time jobs with benefits. Today, associates worry constantly about whether they will accrue enough hours to pay the rent, in jobs that typically lack health insurance.

As a result, many workers without degrees are working all kinds of hours. 

A 38-year-old construction worker described the impact on family life: “People can’t get or stay married because it takes so much effort to survive. My ex-fiancée said, ‘You’re never around.’ But I was working to get a better life for us. No one has time for their kids. It’s the American Nightmare.”

DOGE is placing college-educated professionals where workers without degrees have been for decades — worried sick about how they’re going to support their families. Don’t expect workers to care. 

In earlier eras, the left was focused on good jobs for blue-collar workers and universal programs to ensure stability for the middle class, like Social Security, Medicare, and VA home loans and college benefits. In the 1970s, the focus changed to prioritize issues of greater concern to liberal college grads: environmentalism, racism, and sexism.

As political priorities changed, so did “feeling rules” that set the parameters of our heartstrings. A good lefty should feel angst about climate change, the poor, LGBTQ+, racism, and immigrants. But blue-collar Americans who vote for Trump? They’re deplorable. 

If you care deeply about people disadvantaged by race, gender, and country of origin — but ignore class disadvantage — then people disadvantaged by class will seek solace by flocking to those who channel their anger. In both Europe and the US, those who flock to the far right are middle-status voters in routine jobs, holding on for dear life and just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A reality check: Democrats have generally done better for working people than Republicans. Obamacare is only the most recent example.

The Trump administration has cut funding to programs that underlie the stability of middle-class Americans, like the VA and Social Security, creating overly lengthy wait times.

This is what the left should be focusing on, not the defense of democracy. Americans who feel they’ve been screwed for the last 40 years feel democratic institutions haven’t delivered for them.

If Democrats are seen as defending the status quo, they won’t win over non-college voters who feel like the status quo isn’t working for them. And nearly two-thirds of Americans lack college degrees. Without them, Democrats can’t win elections.

Here’s the bottom line. My message for Republican powers-that-be is a question: Does the current business climate, rife with chaos, instability, and the corrosion of both democratic norms and the US credit rating, really work for you? If you’d prefer a more orderly political and business climate, you need to deliver a stable, middle-class future for Americans without college degrees.

My message for Democratic powers-that-be is also a question: Do you want to win elections? If you do, you need to change policies and feeling rules to deliver both economic stability and respect for non-college voters. Because if you don’t, what you now see is what you’ll get. 

There’s your coalition out of this mess.  

Joan C. Williams is director of the Equality Action Center at UC Law San Francisco and the author of “OUTCLASSED: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back.”