Why Kamala Harris Is Failing to Gain Traction With the Working Class | Opinion

After Vice President Kamala Harris was named the democratic nominee without a single vote of support from the people, I have been wondering one thing: What are her specific plans for addressing the malaise of the American working class?

This is a demographic that both parties are desperately trying to appeal to. While Republicans have seemingly gained much steam over the past decade with working America, Democrats continue to scramble to regain that which they’ve lost: a reliable working-class base. Yet after her DNC speech last week, I still don’t really know what Harris’ plans are or what her policy pursuits are going to be.

Here’s what I did learn from her speech: I know she is really optimistic about herself. I know she believes that the middle class should relate to her. I also know that she, like almost every Democrat and some Republicans, believes Trump is an existential threat to America—a tired, belittling tidbit in the ears of the millions of working-class Americans who support Trump.

I walked away from Harris’ speech feeling that the Democratic Party is so caught up in believing that all they need to do is relate to people that they believe they can escape the necessity of presenting fleshed out ideas or having plans to see those ideas through. But working-class folks are so tired of the pandering rhetoric. We want real, actionable ideas! We not only want to know that you understand our concerns; we need to have confidence that you will be able to work with us to address them.

From the working class to the upper echelons of society, people love seeing a public figure they can relate to. As a personal example, JD Vance entering the Trump ticket filled me with some real optimism—but not because he came up from working-class roots and had a childhood similar to mine. That alone means squat in my selection of public officials. It’s because in Vance I see pragmatic governance and policy that has a chance to percolate through a divided Congress that’s informed by the truths he and I share based on all we have in common. A related understanding of things without a productive mobilization of that understanding simply doesn’t matter.

Harris has put forward some policy ideas. She said she is going to pass a middle-class tax break that will benefit “over 100 million Americans.” But how does she intend to do this? Will it be done in a manner that avoids growing our ballooning national debt? Will this proposal be paired up with measures to protect American businesses’ growth? It remains a mystery. She simply stated that she is going to pass a tax break that will help people like me; that’s apparently all we need to know. I suppose the vast trust between American citizens and politicians today should be enough to keep plebians like myself from wanting further detail.

Harris also promised to take care of the border crisis, which would have been an appealing point if she wasn’t the person granted stewardship of the border as it descended into chaos. She promised to “bring back the bipartisan border deal” if elected, but to me, the person who let the fire rage at the border for years before legislation was ever pursued now promising to call the fire department once elected is a very unimpressive and empty promise. I want to see meaningful legislation enacted and a safe, streamlined and measured immigration process brought forward in our country. But if our experience with Harris is to be our guide, she’s not the person to do it.

Harris needs to appeal to conservative-leaning working-class citizens who are in Trump’s camp if she hopes to be elected. Yet her railing against Trump, accompanied by the phrase “We are not going back!” in response to Trump’s platform is indicative of a person who completely misunderstands half of the country. She belittles working-class Americans who view the past favorably from an economic point of view by doing this; many working-class folks remember, or have been told of, a time when desirable, living-wage jobs were widespread amongst those with or without a college degree, allowing families to have meaningful choices and secure existences. Harris wants to transform this economic nostalgia into something that is viewed as regressive and socially backward, ultimately diminishing our actual longings by portraying them as false ones.

I would challenge Democrats here: Do you really think half of the country’s nostalgia is centered around backward social norms or oppression?

I don’t know a single conservative in my personal life who craves segregation. I don’t personally know any conservative who doesn’t want women to have the opportunity to work and achieve a powerful and satisfying career. All of this gas-lighting by Democrats misses the mark and works to alienate their party from half of the country.

Do you want to know what most conservative, working-class people that I know want? Peace and meaningful choices. We want to be able to afford groceries and go on vacations. We want to be able to pursue a variety of jobs with powerful earning potential and lasting security. We want to be able to purchase a vehicle if the time to do so has come, instead of being walled off due to high interest rates. We want a leader who will work swiftly and aggressively toward global peace.

Personally, I want a leader who thinks highly enough of me to explain in some detail how they plan to address these very bipartisan and reasonable longings, instead of diminishing them.

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have now had their big national moments at their respective conventions. Despite Harris’ apparent belief that she can win working and middle America without communicating a clear path forward, her inability to do so will likely be the reason she fails to win our support in meaningful ways.

Skyler Adleta is an electrician in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.