Working-Class Blues? Why Are Working People Abandoning the Democrats and What Can Be Done About It?
A Zoom Conversation with Les Leopold '69, Director of the Labor Institute
Working people, who do the hard work that makes our country run, have suffered fifty years of stagnant wages and a declining standard of living. Working people know the system is rigged against them and they blame the political establishment for failing to do anything about it.
Les Leopold ’69, Director of the Labor Institute, in his new book The Billionaires Have Two Parties, We Need a Party of Our Own tackles this problem and offers a novel approach – build a new working-class political organization that concentrates on Red America. To skeptics who roll their eyes and curse Ralph Nader for tilting the 2000 elections, Leopold argues that in the 130 congressional districts where the Democrats repeatedly lose by 25 percent or more, there is no spoiler problem—there the Democratic Party barely exists. Les also presents evidence that working-class alienation has little to do with Democratic Party “wokeness” and everything to do with job insecurity. He argues that a new approach to working-class politics is needed if we are to move the country away from demagogues. And he contends this can be done without weakening the Democrats in November and in 2028. In fact, it could strengthen the Dems by showing the wisdom of running more working-class candidates.
Join us as the DC Club continues the conversation to examine the elections of 2026.
Les Leopold ’69 co-founded and currently directs The Labor Institute, a non-profit organization that designs research and educational programs on occupational safety and health, the environment and economics for unions, workers centers and community organizations. He has authored a number of books including Wall Street’s War on Workers; Defiant German, Defiant Jew; Runaway Inequality; How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Financial Elites Get Away With Siphoning off America’s Wealth; The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It; and The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi. Les graduated from Oberlin with a degree in Government and earned an MPA from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.
