With Trump’s historic victory on November 5, the neoliberal era – the era that promised a marketplace for everything and a solution for nothing – seems to be witnessing its slow, painful death. Trump’s victory, though rhetorically toxic, was the right-wing’s response to the inevitable collapse of a system that could no longer deliver for the people it promised to serve.
The Democrats, however, failed to offer any meaningful alternative. Trump’s movement scapegoated the wrong people, fomented division, and undermined social cohesion, but it was, in its own way, a coherent vision – if not for everyone, then for enough.
In 2016, the Democrats did everything in their power to suppress the one figure who could have credibly led the left through the death throes of neoliberalism: Bernie Sanders. I was there, on the ground, canvassing for Sanders and working at his New York headquarters, witnessing the party’s manoeuvres up close and personal. Sanders was not merely a candidate – he was the embodiment of left-wing populism, born from the failures and betrayals of neoliberalism. His rise wasn’t just about policy; it was about confronting the entrenched power structures that had hollowed out the American dream. Sanders’ vision of economic justice, rooted in class struggle, was a genuine alternative to the political establishment, and it resonated deeply with a broad coalition: working-class voters, Latinos, disillusioned youth, and the so-called ‘Bernie Bros’ – including Joe Rogan.
These very demographics – so loyal to Sanders in 2016 – swung to Trump last Tuesday in greater numbers than ever before, handing him his historic victory as the 47th President of the United States. Yet, in 2016, when given the choice between the two populist figures, these crucial voter blocs decisively broke for Bernie. Sanders’ populism wasn’t a passing fad; it was a genuine challenge to Trump’s populist appeal, grounded in a classical understanding of what it means to be ‘left-wing’ and to reject the establishment.
The party elites, led by Hillary Clinton, made a fateful decision to double down on identity politics as their primary weapon to defeat both Bernie Sanders and, ultimately, lose to Trump.
The left’s sudden fixation on ‘wokeness’ and identity obsession wasn’t some organic ideological surge – it was a deliberate, tactical manoeuvre orchestrated by Clinton and her allies. The goal was to create a narrative that eventually painted Sanders as racist and sexist because his politics were rooted in class, not in the language of identity.
This wasn’t just a failure of tactics – it was, as history has shown, a surrender to an unelectable position. The Democrats, in trying to outflank Sanders with a new form of ‘wokeness’, failed to realise they were setting themselves up for political ruin. It wasn’t the base of the left that embraced this obsession originally; it was the Democratic establishment who saw populism rising within the party, felt the tides of change, and chose to kill it by turning Sanders into a scapegoat.
Clinton understood there was a populist anger out there, a hunger for change that could not be ignored. But rather than embracing it, she co-opted that energy and twisted it into something more palatable to the establishment. She didn’t just position herself as the more electable candidate; she positioned herself as the ‘true’ left – the champion of the ‘new’ left that was more concerned with identity than with economic justice. This was the beginning what would become the ‘Great Awokening,’ where Clinton famously declared that breaking up the banks wouldn’t end racism – and by extension, wouldn’t solve sexism or other forms of oppression. She reduced Sanders to a single-issue candidate – one whose only concern was the economy – while opening the door to a distorted narrative of what the left should be.
By 2024, with the political advantage once gained from Trump’s mishandling of Covid in 2020 now fading, the compromises the Democrats had made in 2016 had left them in a self-inflicted predicament, attempting to reconcile a pro-business, deep-state, neo-conservative agenda with the demands of the new ‘woke left’.
Since 2016, the Democrats have been trapped in the futile task of reconciling a crumbling neoliberal agenda with identity politics, all while refusing to confront the death of neoliberalism itself. Their failure to acknowledge the widespread collapse of popular support for neoliberalism – particularly among key demographics in their former voter base – and their active sabotage of Sanders’ vision for a new path forward, has played a pivotal role in Donald Trump’s political resurrection. His comeback, the most remarkable in modern history, was built on the left’s failures.
For the Democratic Party to reclaim its integrity and purpose, it must undergo a radical transformation – one that confronts the ghosts of its past compromises. No longer can it remain a vessel for corporate interests, the military-industrial complex, or the shadowy influence of deep-state elites. To be true to its roots, it must reconnect with the working class, reignite the fight for economic justice, and revive the ideals of liberty, equality, and free speech. These were the ideals that once infused the party with life – first in the 2008 promises of Obama that soon faded, then again in the 2016 promises of Sanders – before they were extinguished and suffocated. To find itself again, the party must look not forward, but inward, rediscovering the genuinely progressive values – not the hollow, performative ‘Wokeness’ – it once claimed as its own.
♦ Chaiy Donati is a Byron Bay local with a degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Queensland. He is a former President of Queensland Young Labor, former National Political Organiser for the Transport Workers Union and seasoned Political Organiser in the ALP since 2007. Donati worked on the 2016 Bernie Sanders Campaign in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently the President of the Mullumbimby Brunswick Valley Branch of the ALP.
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