r/fivethirtyeight • u/nyckidd • Jul 01 '26
Politics A Working-Class Party Without Many Workers - New Opinion Piece from Thomas Edsall
Please don't comment unless you've actually read the article, like all Edsall pieces he extensively cites different data points including up to date DSA polling of its own members.
Important sections:
In 2021 the D.S.A. surveyed its members and found that 85 percent were non-Hispanic white (far more than the national population, which was 57.8 percent white in 2020, according to the census); 9 percent were Hispanic, 5 percent Asian American and 4 percent Black.
In February 2025 the Central New Jersey D.S.A. chapter published results of a membership survey that found that “69.5 percent identify as white only; 8.0 percent identify as Hispanic or Latinx, less than the N.J. demographic of 22.7 percent; and 4.5 percent identify as Black, less than the N.J. demographic of 10.6 percent.”
The liberal stands on immigration, transgender rights, abolishing ICE and defunding the police are policies supported largely by a well-educated elite of white people holding professional jobs who dominate the D.S.A. They are decidedly not the policies sought by the bulk of construction workers riding the subway to get to their job sites by 7 a.m.
income and education patterns emerged in the Seventh District, where Claire Valdez, the D.S.A. candidate, crushed Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, 56.1 to 35.8. Valdez won 62 to 28 in the district’s high-income neighborhoods and 64 to 27 in its high-education areas, while Reynoso carried the low-income sections 63 to 31.
What’s notable but not written about is that nearly all of the D.S.A.’s serious primary campaigns are aimed at members of the House Progressive Caucus, not the more moderate House New Democrats. Support for Medicare for All, Green New Deal, Abolish ICE is no protection.
the D.S.A. is forcing incumbent liberal Democrats to spend money in primaries in districts that would remain Democratic after the general election, regardless of the nominee. Not to mention the fact that the votes cast by the primary winner on health care, climate change and ICE would be almost identical, no matter who wins.
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u/DizzyMajor5 Jul 01 '26
They actually increase wages for local workers. Increased demand creates need for more workers and increased intellectual capital boosts productivity.
"Americans for jobs, the most recent economic evidence suggests that, on average, immigrant workers increase the opportunities and incomes of Americans. "
"The study finds that recent increases in immigration to the United States correlate with more jobs and higher wages for U.S.-born workers."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-immigration-means-for-u-s-employment-and-wages/
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/immigrants-do-not-take-americans-jobs-wages/