My column today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Bruce Ledewitz: A Democratic people’s platform that could defeat Donald Trump

Special to the Post-Gazette

Mar 10, 2025

4:30 AM

The Democratic Party — my party — must be the most inept political organization in history. The first six weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency have been a cavalcade of catastrophes, yet the Democrats have hardly made a dent in Trump’s popularity.

Consider Trump’s record so far.

Trump’s bad record

He has indiscriminately fired thousands of federal workers but has not shown that he can deliver federal government services effectively. The measles outbreaks and near miss airplane events are not his fault but they remind people that firings have consequences.

Trump’s actual tariffs and threats of more tariffs have frozen investment, stalled the markets and slowed economic growth. So far, we were better off economically under Joe Biden. Worse, the expectation of tariffs has increased inflation expectations, which, because they can be self-fulfilling, have worsened actual inflation. That is a lot of damage in six weeks.

Trump’s Ukraine policy has aligned America with Russia and North Korea against our traditional allies while his coerced minerals deal exposed him as both greedy and inept. All this has alarmed Taiwan.

Plus, he has proposed deporting millions of Palestinians so he can build a resort.

So far, so bad.

So what? Though his popularity has slipped some, if the presidential election were held today, Trump would win again.

For 10 years, Democrats have said in effect, “Trump is dangerous and we are not Trump.” That is not addressing the popular dissatisfactions that sent millions of voters to Trump in the first place and continue to do so.

Trump won because ordinary people concluded that the system was not working for them. These voters want decent jobs that allow them to build some wealth and a system that justifies the hope of a better tomorrow. If they had that, they would not be so anti-immigration.

Granted, Trump is not delivering. But he remains popular because he is perceived as aware of these demands and trying to meet them.

The Democrats need a platform that addresses the concerns of ordinary people. And all Democrats need to sign and run on this platform — think of it as a reverse of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract With America.

Here are three items that should be in that platform.

Taxes, wages, credentials

One, no tax cuts until the budget is balanced. Have you heard the story about the Republican doll? You wind it up and all it does is cut taxes.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that interest payments will total $952 billion in fiscal year 2025 and that amount will only rise in the coming years. Yet the Republicans are poised to enact a massive tax cut that will not benefit ordinary people. It will overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations — as tax cuts always do.

This is the same thing Republicans did the last time Trump was President and it was not popular then.

To be fair, any opposition to tax cuts should be tied to limiting spending to be effective in reducing the debt. But who said politics is fair?

Two, raise the minimum wage to $15 and expand it to include everybody. Trump is proposing to exempt tips from taxes. Why not just pay restaurant workers a fair wage?

The biggest reason for today’s economic inequality is that, for the past 40 years, gains in worker productivity have enriched investors through dividends and stock buy-backs rather than going into higher wages.

During the decades after World War II, worker productivity and wages rose at approximately the same rate. But since the 1970s, the connection between productivity and pay has been severed. From 1979 to 2024, average hourly compensation in America increased just 29.4% in real terms while worker productivity increased 80.9%.

We can change this. A higher federal minimum wage will help push up wages for all workers.

Three, no academic credential requirements in hiring without a showing of business necessity. Most Americans lack a college degree. But businesses routinely list some kind of degree as a precondition for good-paying jobs. Many of these degree requirements are unnecessary. Businesses use them as a short hand for basic skills instead of allowing applicants to demonstrate those skills.

This situation is known as credentialism and it locks millions of Americans into low-pay jobs when they could easily fill better paying jobs. Credentialism is one reason that upward mobility in America has declined.

A business necessity test would force businesses to show that any credential requirement is actually related to the job opening. Most businesses would drop such requirements rather than try to meet that test.

Making ordinary life better

These three items are simple and obvious ways to make life better for ordinary people. They do not require increased government spending or large bureaucracies. If Democrats make these three pledges and push Republicans on these three items, the American people will see which political party is actually the party for the people, which party is actually populist.

This is how a healthy political system responds to an upsurge in populist agitation—not by condemning the people as racist and misogynist, but by asking, how can we do better?

Bruce Ledewitz is a professor of law at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. His previous article was “The Supreme Court will step up and Trump will back down.” The views expressed do not represent those of Duquesne University. First Published: March 10, 2025, 4:30 a.m.