Heilemann claims Trump captured Bobby Kennedy’s coalition Democrats abandoned

MSNBC analyst John Heilemann, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, admitted the president has put together a working-class coalition that should make the Democratic Party jealous. 

During a panel discussion on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, panelists talked about how the Democratic Party has failed to truly reckon with why Trump has consistently won over so much of the working-class even 6 months into his second term in office.

“Certainly Democrats have struggled to handle Donald Trump, but they’ve even been worse at sort of identifying themselves and pitching a message going forward. A few exceptions. We know we see the crowds that Bernie Sanders and AOC have drawn, but as you speak to members of the party, you know, what are they saying here?” Morning Joe co-host Jonathan Lemire asked Heilemann. “Because some of the Democrats I’ve talked to are frustrated that – Even though they’re still doing it, there’s a party right now is still consumed with the past and not looking for the future and a new message.”

“It is true and also not true that Democrats – and when I say Democrats here, I don’t mean the party, but liberals, the left, the left of center, whatever – aren’t part of the cultural conversation,” Heilemann suggested. While he said there are multiple major conversations occurring in the country, Heilemann offered one key reason why so many Americans feel alienated by “mainstream” culture.

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“One of the reasons why the cultural conversation on the right has gotten so much traction is because of the fact that the left, the Democrats, whatever you want to call them, has been seen as dominating the mainstream cultural conversation for so long. Who controls Hollywood? Who controls the media? You’d have to be kind of nuts to think that the mainstream media and the mainstream entertainment establishment in America isn’t largely left of center.”

The Democratic Party, he said, is now having to reckon with how it alienated so many of the very same working-class voters that propelled Trump’s victory once again in 2024. 

“Right now, somehow the Democratic Party finds itself in a place where it is no longer the home of working Americans, largely,” he said. “And if Bobby Kennedy, the coalition that Bobby Kennedy was trying to put together in 1968 before he was killed, that coalition of working-class Whites, working-class Latinos, working-class African-Americans, that coalition has been put together more effectively by Donald Trump than by anybody in the Democratic Party. That’s a huge problem.”

Then-Republican presidential nominee, President Donald Trump holds up a fist at a campaign rally at the Santander Arena on November 04, 2024 in Reading, Pennsylvania.  (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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Heilemann reiterated his point that “Bobby Kennedy’s coalition is being put together by Donald Trump more than by any of our leaders,” and asked, “How do we fix that problem? What does the Democratic Party have to do to become what it, in many respects, what it was at its most effective over the course of the last 40, 50 years?”

Heilemann argued that where such conversation occurs, it is only happening at “the most performative level.”

“You hear Democrats all across the spectrum saying, ‘We need to change, we need root and branch reform. We need to moderate. We don’t need litmus tests anymore.’ We have Elissa Slotkin, who I really like and respect, but who is out there saying, ‘Well, we can’t be woke and weak anymore.’ No one is talking about what that actually means.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) speaks on stage during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 22, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)  (Chip Somodevilla)

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