Pushing Democrats to move beyond resistance

[marmar]

Pushing Democrats to move beyond resistance
Rural Americans — and a Rural New Deal — could be the key to a new wave of economic populism

By Christopher D. Cook
Published December 20, 2025 9:00AM (EST)


(Salon) Although Donald Trump won a whopping 63% of rural American voters in the 2024 presidential election — up from 60% in 2020 — his approval ratings in the countryside are plunging amid the economic chaos and uncertainty caused by his tariffs, rising food prices and other concerns. Farmers are suffering huge losses even as their costs keep rising, and farm bankruptcies have increased by 56% from 2024.

Working-class Americans, another key source of Trump’s presidency, are struggling under the weight of soaring costs, layoffs and manufacturing job losses, and his evisceration of worker protections. Unemployment keeps rising, now at its highest since September 2021 amid the Covid-19 meltdown. Rural coal miners, many of whom voted for Trump, protested the president recently for failing to enforce black lung protections even as more (and increasingly younger) miners die from the disease. Many rural Trump voters have expressed buyer’s remorse over the Department of Government Efficiency gutting protections for public lands, parks, wildlife and other conservation enforcement.

Could these working-class and rural Americans be the key to toppling Trump’s reign of destruction — and delivering economic justice and equity? Could a movement of progressive populists, independents and rural communities go “beyond resistance” and help spur a new wave of economic populism?

....(snip)....

Bolstering this, a new autopsy report (authored by this writer) on the Democrats’ catastrophic 2024 presidential loss suggests the defeat came largely by leaning into corporate donor interests and abandoning working-class voters. The comprehensive report, published by RootsAction, urges the Democratic Party to “change course and embrace economic populist policies that inspire and help working-class Americans,” and “show voters that it has a spine and can stand up to corporate and big-money interests.” ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/12/20/pushing-democrats-to-move-beyond-resistance/

[marble falls]

1. The trick is to actually fight hard without becoming them.

[Scrivener7]

2. Yes. But everything in the plan is SO progressive. It seems excellent to me.

Really, it's just what we have always stood for, only it's being described in terms that the rural voter will understand. It's the PR spin we've needed for a long time, and none of our policies seem to be compromised at all.

I think they're onto something.

[slightlv]

3. It's time for progressive populism again.

FDR did it coming out of the great depression. We are currently in trump's great depression. I don't know if there's enough quarters listed or not to legitimize the tag, but it sure FEELS like it. Besides, you know there's reasons behind hiding all the business and economic reports... as in annotating a recession or a depression. Of course, trump is one of those idiots who will insist that if it's not written down in black and white, it's fake news. And even then, if it doesn't praise him to high heavens, it's still fake news.

If we had the economic reports, the business reports, the seasonal sales reports added to what we know and experience with our own two eyes and our pocketbooks, trump would be so far down in the polls the GOP would kick him out of there quicker than dirt, just so they could replace him with someone who could pick up where his "good" spells left off. Even without all these, I think it's only a matter of time before they try to replace him. I say "try" because he's not going to leave on his own, or easily. He's no Richard Nixon. At least Nixon had the shame a person should have and resigned when confronted by members of his own party. Who knows... maybe no one's confronted donno? Who'd want to confront him?! He throws such demented rage fits these days, he's as likely to throw a heavy bust at you as look at you. I'm betting he doesn't make it to the end of this term. Either death or dishonor will do him in. I don't care, one way or another. No... that's not right. I DO care. I want him to die. I want everything he plastered his name all over stripped of any inkling of the trump name. I want "trump" to mean what "Mud" means today. Who'd have thought we'd rehabilitate a confederate so trump could take over the name of dishonor.

[Fichefinder]

4. I'M RUNNING IN DEAD RED SUN CITY AZ, BUT I CAN'T DO IT ALONE!

A real progressive
marcgrahamforaz.com
I'm not to proud to ask for help!