Confronting Capitalism: How the Democrats Abandoned Workers
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
It’s often said that the working class drifted away from the Democratic Party in response to cultural backlash and globalization. But what if the truth is more damning?
In this episode of Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber speaks with Neal Meyer, author of “The Democrats Embrace Dealignment,” from the latest issue of Catalyst. They explore how Democratic leaders — from Clinton to Obama to Biden — consciously distanced the party from its working-class base, paving the way for today’s political crisis.
Read the article here: https://catalyst-journal.com/2025/04/the-democrats-embrace-dealignment
Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, and published by Jacobin. Music by Zonkey.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Confronting Capitalism. I'm have been contributing editor Kale Brooks, |
| 0:22.3 | and I'm here as always with Vivek Chibber, a professor of sociology at NYU and the editor of |
| 0:27.0 | Catalyst, a journal of theory and strategy. How are you, Vivek? I'm doing very well, Kail. Thank you. |
| 0:32.2 | So we are just a little over 100 days into the current Trump administration. Are you sick of |
| 0:37.2 | talking about the |
| 0:37.7 | Republicans yet? You could say that, yes. If not, the Republicans, at least Trump. So I'm very |
| 0:42.6 | happy today to be changing subjects a little bit. Yeah. Well, so the audience is in luck, because today, |
| 0:49.0 | Vivek, as editor of Catalyst, will be speaking with one of his contributors from the most recent |
| 0:53.1 | issue of the journal, which you can access online or via the print issues. Catalyst will be speaking with one of his contributors from the most recent issue of the journal, which you can access online or via the print issues. |
| 0:57.0 | Catalyst Journal provides essential insights and analysis on contemporary politics, |
| 1:01.0 | and the new issue covers much of the aftermath from the 2024 elections. |
| 1:05.0 | For this episode, Vivac is joined by Neil Meyer. |
| 1:08.0 | Neil is finishing his PhD in Soci sociology at NYU and is a frequent contributor |
| 1:12.7 | to Jacobin. Together, they'll be talking about how the Democrats have not only lost millions of |
| 1:17.7 | working class voters over the past few decades, but actually engineered and propagated that |
| 1:22.0 | class de-alignment. Enjoy. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks. Neil has this terrific article on the Democratic Party and its |
| 1:33.9 | loss to Trump in the 2024 presidential elections. And I thought that today we could go over that |
| 1:39.7 | article and maybe go deeper into some of the issues that it raised. Yeah, that'd be great. |
| 1:43.5 | Thanks for the kind words. |
| 1:44.8 | Absolutely. |
| 1:45.5 | The article deserves it. |
| 1:47.0 | So let's start with this, Neil. |
... |
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