I think your NYT piece is one of the better descriptions I've seen of how democratic backsliding can be reversed. The Wisconsin example is especially valuable because it moves the discussion from abstract anxiety to concrete action.
That said, I think there is an important missing piece.
The article focuses heavily on rebuilding trust between citizens through relational organizing. I agree that matters. People are far more likely to listen to neighbors, friends, coworkers, and community members than to political advertisements or national party figures.
But many of the voters Democrats need to win back have lost trust not only in other people, but also in the Democratic Party itself.
If Democrats want to rebuild trust, they must first grapple honestly with why it was lost.
For millions of Americans, especially outside major metropolitan areas, the last several decades did not feel like a story of institutional success. Manufacturing jobs left for China and other low-cost countries. Workers who once earned middle-class wages in factories often found themselves in lower-paying service jobs with less stability, fewer benefits, and fewer opportunities for advancement.
As communities weakened, opioid addiction spread. Families and local governments struggled with the consequences while many institutions seemed slow to recognize the scale of the problem and slower still to respond. Infrastructure deteriorated. Main streets emptied out. Schools and hospitals closed. Yet voters were frequently told that globalization was working, the economy was fundamentally strong, and the country was moving in the right direction.
Whether every policy decision was right or wrong is almost secondary. The more important political fact is that many people concluded the institutions speaking to them were no longer speaking for them.
Those voters did not abandon institutions. They concluded the institutions had abandoned them.
This is also why I am skeptical of explanations that treat these voters as permanently lost. Iowa offers a useful reminder. Barack Obama carried the state twice, including many counties that now vote overwhelmingly Republican. Those voters did not suddenly become different people. What changed was their assessment of which party understood their problems, took their concerns seriously, and could be trusted to deliver tangible results.
That is why I think Wisconsin's experience is so important. I witnessed part of that transformation firsthand. The success was not simply that Democrats organized more effectively, although they clearly did. It was that people increasingly saw evidence that participation could produce tangible results. Better schools, safer streets, functioning infrastructure, responsive local leadership, and fairer elections helped convince people that engagement still mattered. Organizing opened the door, but institutional performance helped keep it open.
Rebuilding trust therefore requires more than better messaging or more effective organizing. It requires visible evidence that leaders have learned from past mistakes, are willing to acknowledge failures honestly, and can deliver practical improvements in people's daily lives. Trust is rebuilt through performance, not slogans.
**Competence creates credibility. Credibility creates trust. Trust creates the possibility of persuasion.**
To my mind, rebuilding that chain has to begin early in the process. If institutional trust cannot be rebuilt, electoral victories are likely to be fleeting. The goal is not simply to win the next election. It is to restore confidence that democratic institutions can improve the lives of ordinary citizens and are worthy of their trust.
What happened in Wisconsin was an experiment by the Koch Brothers to serve as a model on how to subjugate an entire state and put it in the Republican's camp with spending money in the right places. And in the scheme of things the price was fairly cheap. They helped install Scott Walker as governor and they funded state legislature elections to flip the Wisconsin government to Red, and it worked better than they ever imagined in their wildest dreams.
The birth of the labor movement happened in Wisconsin, and it was a a part of the "blue wall" that consistently voted in Democratic candidates. It was a solid Blue State. The koch brothers ended that, and the chance happened white the state's Democratic party stood flatfooted. They were ill-prepared to counter in inflow of Koch Brother's money and the big numbers of right wing activist groups funded by the Kochs who flooded the state.
But now the tide is turning. People of Wisconsin see the Republican policies have failed them and the Republicans made their lives worse. The people of Wisconsin want to take the state in a new direction, the one that goes back to their roots of strong labor support and freedom for everyone.
Hi, Ben. Look forward to the book. Been doing trust-building, "highway deep canvassing" messages 5 rush hrs/wk since Aug. to 15k Asheville commuters/wk in advance of 8 wks of GOTV messaging after Labor Day. Best wishes, https://www.instagram.com/avl_sign_guy/
I have been a registered Democrat for over 50 years, but I now vote straight Republican because Democrats have decided that delusional males should have free access to any and all female-only spaces, sports, prisons, at their personal individual whim.
This is already the law in most blue states (though not Wisconsin!), and EVERY Democrat in Congress co-sponsors a bill to make it the law nationwide (the so-called "Equality Act").
This is an 80-20 issue. If you actually cared about democracy (literally, rule by the common people), you would be on the side of the 80%.
But you're not. And this is why Democrats will continue to lose to sociopaths like Trump.
So that's your single issue? Not rule of law, not democracy in the crosshairs, not Trump corruption and grifting ... rather, the occasional trans woman using a ladies' room and other such spaces is your deal-breaker. Stunning. Query how many true Dems would spit such vile invective as "delusional males." Do you know any trans people?
Democracy is in the crosshairs of your side: a large majority of the People are on my side. In a true democracy, that would decide the issue. So you don't actually believe in democracy, despite your bleating.
Yes, I know people who falsely believe they are of the opposite sex. In every case, that belief has destroyed their lives.
Women (and also men, but it's much more important for women) need, want, and deserve the rights to privacy, to dignity, to free association, rights that you would deny them.
I say fuck no to that.
And we haven't even gotten to the issue of pediatric "gender affirming care", which is pure medical quackery (I have read the original papers, you have not) that surgically mutilates over a thousand children per year in this country, and chemically sterilizes and de-sexes many thousands more. This is nothing less than an ongoing crime against humanity, a crime that is fully supported and enabled by Democrats in office.
And: these are not minor issues that the Democrats can deflect. According to a post-election analysis by the Democrat-aligned PAC Blueprint 2024, the #1 issue (out of 25) for swing voters was “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class”. This was the #3 issue for all voters (just behind inflation and immigration):
Your homophobia and perceived right to control others is apparently more important than people dying for lack of healthcare and the fact that you support a man who thinks North Korea has it right. You need therapy dude.
It is the transqueer movement that is homophobic: it tells kids who are starting to feel same-sex attraction that they were "born in the wrong body" and must change their bodies with drugs and surgeries. It is the worst form of "conversion therapy" ever devised.
Here are some organizations that truly support LGB people just as they are:
You don't even understand what government you are living under, despite your pretenses to expertise. The USA is not a pure democracy, as you assert. Rather, our form of government is a constitutional federal republic functioning as a representative democracy. People (including trans people) have constitutional rights, and you and your bigoted mob don't have the right to run roughshod over them. Now, if there are clashes of constitutional rights, say between the person who wants to use a rest room that aligns with their gender identity, and a person who feels that would invade their privacy, then we have to sort that out via the courts and our elected representatives. Some issues, like youth sports, are more nuanced than others. We can and do balance rights all the time. The answer is not to libel people as "delusional" and deny their rights based on nothing more than your belief system as a Reagan Democrat or Blue Dog or whatever kind of questionable Democrat you may claim to be.
What "rights" of trans people are being run over, exactly? Can you list them?
I do assert that women (and men) have the right to free association: to spaces, events, competitions, that are single sex. Every human society from the beginning of time has had single-sex spaces. Only now are some males asserting that they have the privilege to enter female-only spaces purely on the basis of their internal mental state. I utterly reject this as any sort of "right".
I never asserted that the US is now or ever has been a pure democracy. But in any system that strives to be worthy of that description, the representatives can and should be sensitive to the known views of the people. Reliable polling makes this easier than ever, but our representatives in both parties utterly reject it. What we have now are two ideological cults doing battle with each other. Neither gives a rat's ass about what the majority of the people want and believe.
Since when should the Federal Government stick its big nose into local athletic competitions and decide who can participate?
You anti-trans activists try to pass this off as wanting fair play, but don’t care a whit about fairness, you’re only interested in sports as a wedge issue in their Culture War. You go after defenseless trans athletes because they’ve got no protections and you anti-gay fanatics lost the battle against same sex marriage so you picked a new target transgender youth. Your’re playing the trans issues exactly like they did same-sex marriage in 2004.
But why are the anti-trams crusading against the LGBTQ+? Because they can’t do what they really want to do - attack Black women swimmers like Simone Manuel. Their ilk would be more than happy to try to cancel her due to her unfair advantage of having that “jungle blood”.
How about just pasting in your op-ed? The whole country doesn't have a sub to NYT and neither do I so as much as I'd love to read (especially after watching your interview on John Stewart) I'll have to pass...
Hello Ben! I look forward to reading your book. I think you would be very well received in Portland, Oregon at the largest independent bookstore in the world, https://www.powells.com/. I hope you add that stop to your book tour! Good luck!
No Twin Cities stop? Meanwhile, when is Ron Johnson's Senate seat up? You should run against him! He is a craven embarassment to WI.
Ben,
I think your NYT piece is one of the better descriptions I've seen of how democratic backsliding can be reversed. The Wisconsin example is especially valuable because it moves the discussion from abstract anxiety to concrete action.
That said, I think there is an important missing piece.
The article focuses heavily on rebuilding trust between citizens through relational organizing. I agree that matters. People are far more likely to listen to neighbors, friends, coworkers, and community members than to political advertisements or national party figures.
But many of the voters Democrats need to win back have lost trust not only in other people, but also in the Democratic Party itself.
If Democrats want to rebuild trust, they must first grapple honestly with why it was lost.
For millions of Americans, especially outside major metropolitan areas, the last several decades did not feel like a story of institutional success. Manufacturing jobs left for China and other low-cost countries. Workers who once earned middle-class wages in factories often found themselves in lower-paying service jobs with less stability, fewer benefits, and fewer opportunities for advancement.
As communities weakened, opioid addiction spread. Families and local governments struggled with the consequences while many institutions seemed slow to recognize the scale of the problem and slower still to respond. Infrastructure deteriorated. Main streets emptied out. Schools and hospitals closed. Yet voters were frequently told that globalization was working, the economy was fundamentally strong, and the country was moving in the right direction.
Whether every policy decision was right or wrong is almost secondary. The more important political fact is that many people concluded the institutions speaking to them were no longer speaking for them.
Those voters did not abandon institutions. They concluded the institutions had abandoned them.
This is also why I am skeptical of explanations that treat these voters as permanently lost. Iowa offers a useful reminder. Barack Obama carried the state twice, including many counties that now vote overwhelmingly Republican. Those voters did not suddenly become different people. What changed was their assessment of which party understood their problems, took their concerns seriously, and could be trusted to deliver tangible results.
That is why I think Wisconsin's experience is so important. I witnessed part of that transformation firsthand. The success was not simply that Democrats organized more effectively, although they clearly did. It was that people increasingly saw evidence that participation could produce tangible results. Better schools, safer streets, functioning infrastructure, responsive local leadership, and fairer elections helped convince people that engagement still mattered. Organizing opened the door, but institutional performance helped keep it open.
Rebuilding trust therefore requires more than better messaging or more effective organizing. It requires visible evidence that leaders have learned from past mistakes, are willing to acknowledge failures honestly, and can deliver practical improvements in people's daily lives. Trust is rebuilt through performance, not slogans.
**Competence creates credibility. Credibility creates trust. Trust creates the possibility of persuasion.**
To my mind, rebuilding that chain has to begin early in the process. If institutional trust cannot be rebuilt, electoral victories are likely to be fleeting. The goal is not simply to win the next election. It is to restore confidence that democratic institutions can improve the lives of ordinary citizens and are worthy of their trust.
What happened in Wisconsin was an experiment by the Koch Brothers to serve as a model on how to subjugate an entire state and put it in the Republican's camp with spending money in the right places. And in the scheme of things the price was fairly cheap. They helped install Scott Walker as governor and they funded state legislature elections to flip the Wisconsin government to Red, and it worked better than they ever imagined in their wildest dreams.
The birth of the labor movement happened in Wisconsin, and it was a a part of the "blue wall" that consistently voted in Democratic candidates. It was a solid Blue State. The koch brothers ended that, and the chance happened white the state's Democratic party stood flatfooted. They were ill-prepared to counter in inflow of Koch Brother's money and the big numbers of right wing activist groups funded by the Kochs who flooded the state.
But now the tide is turning. People of Wisconsin see the Republican policies have failed them and the Republicans made their lives worse. The people of Wisconsin want to take the state in a new direction, the one that goes back to their roots of strong labor support and freedom for everyone.
Not just the rich white Republican donors.
So I’d like to read your op-Ed but the link isn’t a gift article so those of us without a subscription are locked out
Hi, Ben. Look forward to the book. Been doing trust-building, "highway deep canvassing" messages 5 rush hrs/wk since Aug. to 15k Asheville commuters/wk in advance of 8 wks of GOTV messaging after Labor Day. Best wishes, https://www.instagram.com/avl_sign_guy/
So, can people who can’t afford the book get “the plan” too? If not, you’re part of the problem and profiting off it.
Most bizarre take I've read today in the era of libraries and podcasts, but, okay, ma'am. 😆
Just get it from the library if you can’t afford it. Libraries are great things.
I have been a registered Democrat for over 50 years, but I now vote straight Republican because Democrats have decided that delusional males should have free access to any and all female-only spaces, sports, prisons, at their personal individual whim.
This is already the law in most blue states (though not Wisconsin!), and EVERY Democrat in Congress co-sponsors a bill to make it the law nationwide (the so-called "Equality Act").
This is an 80-20 issue. If you actually cared about democracy (literally, rule by the common people), you would be on the side of the 80%.
But you're not. And this is why Democrats will continue to lose to sociopaths like Trump.
So that's your single issue? Not rule of law, not democracy in the crosshairs, not Trump corruption and grifting ... rather, the occasional trans woman using a ladies' room and other such spaces is your deal-breaker. Stunning. Query how many true Dems would spit such vile invective as "delusional males." Do you know any trans people?
Democracy is in the crosshairs of your side: a large majority of the People are on my side. In a true democracy, that would decide the issue. So you don't actually believe in democracy, despite your bleating.
Yes, I know people who falsely believe they are of the opposite sex. In every case, that belief has destroyed their lives.
Women (and also men, but it's much more important for women) need, want, and deserve the rights to privacy, to dignity, to free association, rights that you would deny them.
I say fuck no to that.
And we haven't even gotten to the issue of pediatric "gender affirming care", which is pure medical quackery (I have read the original papers, you have not) that surgically mutilates over a thousand children per year in this country, and chemically sterilizes and de-sexes many thousands more. This is nothing less than an ongoing crime against humanity, a crime that is fully supported and enabled by Democrats in office.
And: these are not minor issues that the Democrats can deflect. According to a post-election analysis by the Democrat-aligned PAC Blueprint 2024, the #1 issue (out of 25) for swing voters was “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class”. This was the #3 issue for all voters (just behind inflation and immigration):
https://blueprint2024.com/polling/why-trump-reasons-11-8
So: support democracy and the large majority of the People who agree with me about women’s rights, or lose. Your choice.
And as a man trying to tell women what they care about, fuck off. I feel safer with my trans friends than any man like you.
Many women DO care about having single-sex spaces, and you have no right to take those spaces away from them.
💯 Mark. We do not consent. Have never consented to having our rights violated, and we will NEVER wheesht! 🏴 🇺🇸
Your homophobia and perceived right to control others is apparently more important than people dying for lack of healthcare and the fact that you support a man who thinks North Korea has it right. You need therapy dude.
It is the transqueer movement that is homophobic: it tells kids who are starting to feel same-sex attraction that they were "born in the wrong body" and must change their bodies with drugs and surgeries. It is the worst form of "conversion therapy" ever devised.
Here are some organizations that truly support LGB people just as they are:
https://lgbausa.org
https://www.lgbcouragecoalition.org
You don't even understand what government you are living under, despite your pretenses to expertise. The USA is not a pure democracy, as you assert. Rather, our form of government is a constitutional federal republic functioning as a representative democracy. People (including trans people) have constitutional rights, and you and your bigoted mob don't have the right to run roughshod over them. Now, if there are clashes of constitutional rights, say between the person who wants to use a rest room that aligns with their gender identity, and a person who feels that would invade their privacy, then we have to sort that out via the courts and our elected representatives. Some issues, like youth sports, are more nuanced than others. We can and do balance rights all the time. The answer is not to libel people as "delusional" and deny their rights based on nothing more than your belief system as a Reagan Democrat or Blue Dog or whatever kind of questionable Democrat you may claim to be.
What "rights" of trans people are being run over, exactly? Can you list them?
I do assert that women (and men) have the right to free association: to spaces, events, competitions, that are single sex. Every human society from the beginning of time has had single-sex spaces. Only now are some males asserting that they have the privilege to enter female-only spaces purely on the basis of their internal mental state. I utterly reject this as any sort of "right".
I never asserted that the US is now or ever has been a pure democracy. But in any system that strives to be worthy of that description, the representatives can and should be sensitive to the known views of the people. Reliable polling makes this easier than ever, but our representatives in both parties utterly reject it. What we have now are two ideological cults doing battle with each other. Neither gives a rat's ass about what the majority of the people want and believe.
Proud New England heretic here. We never consented. “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.” Oliver W Holmes Jr
Since when should the Federal Government stick its big nose into local athletic competitions and decide who can participate?
You anti-trans activists try to pass this off as wanting fair play, but don’t care a whit about fairness, you’re only interested in sports as a wedge issue in their Culture War. You go after defenseless trans athletes because they’ve got no protections and you anti-gay fanatics lost the battle against same sex marriage so you picked a new target transgender youth. Your’re playing the trans issues exactly like they did same-sex marriage in 2004.
But why are the anti-trams crusading against the LGBTQ+? Because they can’t do what they really want to do - attack Black women swimmers like Simone Manuel. Their ilk would be more than happy to try to cancel her due to her unfair advantage of having that “jungle blood”.
Since Title IX was passed in 1972.
"Trans" athletes are not banned, they are free to compete in the correct category: females in the female category, males in the male category.
I am a strong supporter of LGB rights, including marriage. See links to LGB rights organizations in my other comment.
Your accusations of racism are pathetic and sad.
So exciting. I have a ticket to see you in Cambridge in July.
IAbsolutey thrilled for you Ben. Don’t mourn, organize .
When are you coming to Atlanta?
Ben,
How about just pasting in your op-ed? The whole country doesn't have a sub to NYT and neither do I so as much as I'd love to read (especially after watching your interview on John Stewart) I'll have to pass...
Could you guys address the nepotism within the party? I saw this in CT with Cardona too. https://substack.com/@amy1364639/note/c-279615747?r=3i0cpn&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Hello Ben! I look forward to reading your book. I think you would be very well received in Portland, Oregon at the largest independent bookstore in the world, https://www.powells.com/. I hope you add that stop to your book tour! Good luck!
Thanks! Looking forward to it!