From contributor Stephanie Wade

Let’s talk about your intentions, Mr. Buttigieg. I am a trans woman, a teacher, and a veteran trying to find protection and comfort in this dangerous moment. Yet, your suggestion that the election of Trump is an aberration shows a level of complacency that’s untenable. That we should ‘wait for the midterms’ to act is farcical. This ‘let’s just get back to the good old days of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’ is inane. You’re suggesting we go back to when things were getting worse for poor, working class, and middle Americans. Professionals, technocrats (like you, Pete), and especially the very wealthy (billionaires) did exceedingly well under Clinton, Bush, and Obama. But everyone else, the large majority of Americans, got economically screwed.

Because Democrats and Republicans represent two sides of the same corporate capitalism. As a class, Democrat elites show ‘progressive’ leanings but they have no courage or convictions. They come from upper middle and wealthy backgrounds and few have ever struggled financially (or even been in a fist fight). Democrat leadership has consistently appeased and compromised their way into being Republicans-light for the past 50+ years.

Sure, Democrats have talked about fully funding social security, making healthcare affordable, keeping American industry from off-shoring, reducing housing costs, making the tax code fair…etc. But EVEN WHEN THEY HAD TRIFECTAS (congress, senate, presidency) did they take any serious action?

NO!

Social Safety Net: Saving Social Security is as simple as erasing the wage cap so that wealthier people help fund the dignified retirement of those who made them rich (It’s Social Security INSURANCE after all, created to help those in the risk pool who don’t get the breaks). A few Dems in Congress have talked about it. But did they actually DO ANYTHING?

Healthcare: When the Dems had BOTH houses and the PRESIDENCY, the best they could achieve was Obama Care, a republican plan created by a conservative think-tank ,The Heritage Foundation, for Mitt Romney to implement as Governor of Massachusetts. Why didn’t they push through universal (single-payer) healthcare when they had the chance? Or even just make that the opening position so that Republicans had to fight against a far more generous, progressive system? Because their wealthy donors said hell no.

Off-shoring Industry: NAFTA? Globalized free trade and trade normalization with China? This was a Republican wet dream initiated by Reagan then Bush Sr., but wasn’t signed until the “new Democrat” Bill Clinton who embraced Republican trade policies. The elitist administration continually supports for industry over the American people evidenced by defining the status of “the economy” by the growth of the stock market rather than real lives.

Housing costs: Where were the Democrats during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis? The Leftist Democrats wanted to Nationalize the banks in return for bailout which would punish the guilty bankers and leave the tax payers and honest investors whole. Instead we bailed out the rich people who were the architects of the catastrophe and did almost nothing for the innocent working people who suffered massive job and housing losses. Even the paltry sums allocated and promised for regular folks weren’t distributed.

Fair Tax Codes: Because of the wealthy elite nature of the Democratic Party, this hasn’t been more than a talking point for the Dems since FDR.

I could go on and on. What about (private) charter schools and the general defunding of education, a paltry increase in the minimum wage (which should be approaching $25 by now to stay current with it’s original value/intent). Complete lack of support for unions and union protections. The Dems have done fuck all for us.

So when working class people go for an abhorrent populist who wants to TEAR DOWN THE ENTIRE SYSTEM (especially when you mix it with white Christian nationalist hatred’s to guarantee an unshakable white, hardcore base) don’t act surprised.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no political nihilist, I get that Trump/MAGA is dangerous and that the complete destruction of the rule of law is bad. But I also know that we need a whole new class of leaders to fight it. The inability of the Democratic establishment to recognize and respond in 2020 to the clarion call of issues that got Trump elected in 2016 led to the abject failure in 2024.

And here is where I get to you, Pete, and Sarah McBride too. I’m supposed to love you because you are technocratically competent, non-coup loving Queer people. But you are still the same weak, vacillating Dem establishment that has sold non-elite Americans out for the past 50 years. Especially now that you both have given up on defending LGBTQ+ rights (“trans-rights light”) post the 2024 election.

It’s not just that my life is quite literally threatened when the only party that even pretends to support my right to exists starts to waffle, it’s that IF THE TWO HIGHEST RANKING QUEER OFFICIALS IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES WAFFLE ON QUEER RIGHTS . . . NOW, IN OUR MOMENT OF GREATEST NEED . . . HOW CAN I BELIEVE YOU’LL FIGHT FOR ANY KIND OF REAL CHANGE IN AMERICA?