Why Democrats keep stubbing their toes on the working class vote
David Leonhardt has done just about everything at The New York Times. Today, he writes “The Morning,” The Times’ flagship AM newsletter. Prior to that, he was an opinion writer, a reporter and a podcast host. He’s also won a Pulitzer Prize.
And now he’s written a new book, “Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream.”
Leonhardt’s book examines modern economic history through the ideas of the New Deal’s architects, labor leaders like George Meany and Walter Reuther; and their intellectual opponents, conservatives like Milton Friedman and Robert Bork.
As Leonhardt tells that story, he says the Democratic Party has made a politically risky leftward turn away from blue collar voters and toward high-brow, progressive culture warriors.
And he has a warning for Democrats: their recent successes may be an illusion.
At the heart of Leonhardt’s history of the rise and fall of the American Dream is a story about how Democrats ceded the loyalties of the working class to Republicans by not paying
