The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
Hasan Minhaj, a prominent progressive comedian and commentator, once made an incisive criticism of the progressive movement.
“[Trump] was a factual liar, but emotionally honest … progressives sometimes can be factually accurate, but emotionally dishonest,” Minhaj said.
Furthermore, Minhaj attributed the success of past key Democratic figures to emotional honesty. But I — and perhaps the electorate — find that progressives today struggle with this balance. There may be too much focus on moral and ideological correctness, causing the alienation of voters that the movement claims to champion.
This very real disconnect has already had real political consequences. Gallup polling after the 2024 election found that 45 percent of Democratic voters wished for the party to become more moderate. This is an 11 percentage point increase from 2021 polling, leaving proponents of a more liberal Democratic party in the minority.
In the face of this shift, I still notice frequent tests of moral standing when talking with progressives, from pointed statements about viewing but not reposting a political Instagram post to gauging support for former Vice President Kamala Harris, who was largely considered by progressives as too moderate to be morally acceptable.
This continuous emphasis on the moral backing and projection of one’s political views may provide substance to a wider criticism of progressives — that they come off as morally superior.
Frequently asked questions by progressives about President Donald Trump following the 2024 election include, “How could someone vote for Trump with his hate toward LGBT+ people,” “How could any woman vote for Trump” and “Why vote for Trump’s economic policy when his economic policy is so flawed?”
Many progressives continue to grapple with these questions, but others perceive them as condescending, arguing the subtext is that the Trump voter is stupid or bigoted. And while Trump’s rhetoric and policy initiatives do threaten LGBTQ+ people, his views on abortion are dangerous and 16 Nobel prize-winning economists decry his economic policy, there is a privilege in having the stability, time and education to engage deeply with these issues — something progressives often fail to acknowledge. It is not difficult to perceive this as moral grandstanding.
Take a hypothetical woman from Georgia — where I’m from — who works two minimum-wage jobs in a state where the minimum wage is $5.15. She works 60 hours a week and is a single mother of two children. She could not afford to go to college. Her time not working is spent caring for her kids, driving them to tutoring, cooking meals and more. She voted for Trump.
She liked his laser-focused message that he would put more money into her pocket — money that could mean a better life for her children, and maybe even give her a couple more hours of leisure time a month.
Does this woman have time to study the economic nuances of tariffs? Or rather, would you, in her position, spend your free time reading economic policy?
This voter’s priorities are obvious: make money to afford living. Yet, progressives implore her to vote for ideals distant from her, all having little to do with keeping her lights or stove on.
And do not be dissuaded by the hypothetical; these working-class voters are real and shifted overwhelmingly right this past election, with Trump winning 51 percent of the electorate with household earnings under $100,000 — a 17 percentage point gain from 2020.
Minhaj’s claim that progressives can be emotionally dishonest speaks to a larger issue: progressives have lost touch. They cannot get past their moral positioning on every issue, often overlooking the educational and economic privilege underlying their ideals. This alienates voters with more immediate, practical concerns, whose priorities and feelings are elsewhere.
For progressives to grow their movement, affect change or even simply regain their losses, they must reconsider who their movement serves, and whether they are unintentionally pushing those people away.
Harry Walton is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and a columnist for The Eagle.
This article was edited by Quinn Volpe, Alana Parker and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Olivia Citarella, Emma Brown and Nicole Kariuki.
