What Today's Working Class Wants from Political Leaders

Abstract

The exit of the working class from the Democratic Party is a long saga that began in the late 1960s and culminated in Donald Trump's takeover of the Republican Party with themes that resonated among working class voters. During this period, Democrats along with center-left parties through Western democracies who have encountered similar difficulties have struggled to understand the sources of working-class disaffection and to craft remedies for it. Two recent studies from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPT) have shed new light on these issues.