January 7, 2025
It’s time to challenge the Democrats’ “business model.”
This year’s election left Democrats in a quandary. They clearly need new, ambitious proposals to help working Americans, but that would undermine the de facto “business model” that has guided their party for decades. Again it seemed that nothing would change.
As always, the left had no shortage of good advice for Democrats. Some commentators, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, have urged the party to remember the issues of the working class. In one interesting picture, Pete Davis proposed to revise the “civic structure” of the party through tools such as maps, membership cards and mutual aid.
“By combining local participation with centralized coordination,” Davis wrote, “national leadership and local membership could pass ideas, concerns, mandates, and marching orders back and forth.”
The problem is not the council; this is the target audience. Activists hate spending their lives begging an institution that has strong incentives not to listen. Time to stop talking about anything Democrats need to do and start talking about something on the left should do.
For years, the idea that Democrats have had any the plan would seem absurd. But the chaos ended in the 1990s, when the so-called “New Democrats” reorganized the party using a corporate-style plan. They certainly don’t call it a “business model,” but it exists. It helps explain some of the party’s most puzzling decisions — and its distaste for the left.
The “product” of the model is corporate government policy. Income from corporations and wealthy individuals (“clients”) is funding mega-millions of dollars — now billion-dollar companies, together with a wide superstructure of analytical centers, consulting firms and sellers. They employ thousands of people who, in turn, help shape the party’s direction.
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The model worked for a while. Democrats won the presidency and both houses of Congress in 2008, including a solid majority in the Senate. But in the end it cost them. The financial crisis of 2008 made it impossible to fully resolve the financial emergency and to please “customers” that disappointed working-class voters.
Deputies lost the House of Representatives in 2010, the Senate in 2014 and the presidency in 2016.
The business model also explains why the party has twice rejected Sanders, the most popular politician in the country. Sanders was an existential threat to the model. His economic proposals have undermined his “product” and his ability to raise large sums of cash from small donors has jeopardized his revenue stream. Better to lose now and then, even to Trump, than sacrifice the cash flow that funds “centrist” campaigns — and supports thousands of party operatives.
Sanders, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and other elected progressives have worked hard under Biden, making several high-profile appointments like Lina Hahn to the FTC and passing legislation that has exceeded expectations. But they paid a price for their loyalty. Like other elected progressives, Sanders and the head of the CPC Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) may have lost some leverage by endorsing Biden more than a year before the election, leaving them unable to effectively advocate for popular progressive ideas.
Now that is changing. Sanders openly challenged “big money interests and well-paid consultants.” He also praised working-class candidate Dan Osborne’s independent campaign in an interview Nationcalling Osborne’s bid for Nebraska senator “a model for the future.”
“If people can run in the Democratic primary and win,” Sanders said, “that’s fine.” Where it is more profitable to run as an independent … we should also do that.”
On his first day as the new CPC leader, Rep. Greg Cazar (D-TX) pounced in “billionaires”, saying the party should “reject some of the more corporate elements” and “re-emphasize core economic issues”. Notably, Cesar also criticized Biden for running for re-election, saying “it was clear that (Biden) needed to resign.”
Much of the leftist agenda remains popular. A large majority support a sharp increase in taxes for billionaires, millionaires and the accumulated wealth. Fifty-nine percent voters believe that the government is responsible for providing health care for all. Almost three quarters of them surveyed in 2022 believed the government should expand Social Security — something Joe Biden promised in 2020 and never mentioned again. And the left has always opposed corruption and money in politics – something voters of both parties despise.
Seventy percent of respondents Gallup expressed confidence in organized labor – far ahead of Congress and big business. Democratic and Republican voters are the same unfriendly financial institutions and large corporations.
There also seems to be a rudimentary thirst for solidarity. It’s not yet class consciousness, but could that change? Davis is on to something important with the “civic structure.” Left populists need a community or a movement.
The left must organize, but how? American history provides some clues. In the 19th century, as now, life was destroyed by inequality. Economic and technological forces were reshaping work, giving rise to progressive populist movements. Among their features, writes historian Ronald P. Formisano: they “emerge from the grassroots and gain a broad popular base of ‘ordinary people'”; they “demonstrate a concern with the downward redistribution of political or economic power”; and their “adherents . . . believe they have lost control of their lives.”
It is timely.
Walter Nugent studied the populist alliance of farmers and laborers and found that both were “traditionally anti-monopoly.” They shared the belief that “producers of goods, whether agricultural or mechanical, have a common interest.” Their alliance, writes Nugent, was “open (only) to those who ‘really worked,’ and closed to those who ‘lived by the labor of others.'”
In other words: they were the 99 percent.
The FDR era offers more examples of change from below. The New Deal was preceded by years of left-wing action, including Socialist Party campaigns that eroded Democratic margins, agrarian activism in farm states, and millions joining the “Townsend Clubs” to demand old-age pensions (which they got) and bank nationalization (and they didn’t). Labor actions included general strikes in Seattle and Minneapolis, the Harlan County War, and agricultural strikes in California. Unions initi 1856 hits with the participation of 1470 thousand workers only in 1934.
These movements formed the moment. It was their New Deal, just like Roosevelt’s.
The left also has a chance to revive the anti-war and nuclear disarmament movements of the 20th century. Key constituencies oppose this administration’s overt support for Israel’s actions, including 62 percent of Jewish votersand a campaign against wasteful military spending is likely to be well received among poor voters. Democratic insiders didn’t seem to understand that genocide was a moral red line for millions of voters.
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Is it time for a third party? Sanders says not, at least not yet. Socialist writer Karl Beyer disagreescalling for a new Left Party. Third-party and independent candidacies can be useful, although they face many obstacles at the national level. There will undoubtedly be more such companies, and successful ones. There will also be many instances where the Democratic Party will be the ultimate vehicle for the left’s agenda. Some activists may even take the example of the populists who created the third “People’s Party” but then merged with the Democrats. As Sanders suggests, this choice should be tactical.
But why limit the conversation to political parties? Direct action is still compelling. Lots of Americans supported the Occupy movement when it started. Two-thirds of Americans supported Black Lives Matter in 2020.
Mutual aid work is also effective, as in the case of the recent creation of a tenant union in New Haven to resist evictions by corporate landlords. Such efforts help individuals and communities while affirming that working people can fight back against the forces behind their daily misery.
A union of local groups could be one starting point. Another could be to build on existing groups such as Our Revolution and DSA.
It’s time to act and experiment. The time has come for local activism, new federations and coalitions, perhaps even a national umbrella organization of the left. It is time to look for ways to unite the “makers” of the 21st century, to create a new, independent network that will be free to act according to its own world. First of all, it’s time to confirm the opportunity.
There are many conversations, many avenues to explore. The first step for left-wing populists, however, is to unleash their imagination. Yes, the left must engage with many institutions, including the Democratic Party, but on its own terms, pursuing its own ideals and shaping its own unfettered vision of the future.
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