More Democrats fear the party's image isn't just damaged – it's broken

  POLITICO Everyone agrees they lost the working class, but they’re deeply divided on where to place the blame — and what to do about it.

"Other Democrats, too, argue that where Trump has tapped into the frustrations of the working class in a way that feels organic, Democrats have come across as too erudite, to the point that working-class voters feel like they’re being talked down to."

"Democrats are having a full-blown identity crisis.

"Days after Kamala Harris’ defeat, the extent of their party’s failure is becoming increasingly clear. It’s bad enough that Democrats are still losing working-class whites, as they have in recent elections. Now, exit polls show blue-collar Latinos and some Black men, long a core part of the Democratic base, are abandoning the party, too, fueling electoral shellackings. Republicans flipped the Senate and are padding their majority. Democrats’ path to a majority in the House is narrowing. And Donald Trump won in what could only be described as a landslide in the modern era.

“ 'The Democratic Party needs to be rebuilt,” said Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “We have become a party of elites, whether we abandoned working-class people, whether they abandoned us, whether it’s some combination of all of the above.”

"In interviews with 16 elected officials, party leaders and strategists, Democrats from both wings of the party agreed they have stopped knowing how to talk to the working class, once the very core of their identity. But they were deeply divided on where to place the blame — and what to do about it. Just like Donald Trump’s victory did in 2016 — and in 2020, when he lost by a smaller margin than expected — his return to the White House is fueling a raging debate between the party’s progressive and moderate wings about where to go from here." ...