Over the past six years, I’ve raised tens of millions of dollars for the Democrats. I’ve given thousands of hours of my mind, heart, and soul to get Democrats elected, as a Democratic fundraising consultant for federal Senate and House candidates and Left-leaning national organizations.But my work with Democrats started in high school, when I was an alternate-delegate for Hillary Clinton. Later, I interned on Barack Obama’s campaign. Most recently, I volunteered at last month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Initially, I was thrilled to attend this rite of passage for every political operative. But once there, wandering amidst the glitz and glam, imbibing the gloss and schmaltz of it all, I couldn’t escape a sinking feeling. I felt submersed in a hollow chamber whose mottos were “Brat summer” and “Joy”—totally out of touch with regular, every-day Americans and their pressing needs; instead, the most elite people in the world chanted in unison that “We’re not going back!”
I found myself feeling disenchanted, lost, sad, and alone.
The author at the DNC in Chicago.
As someone who has given her life to Democratic politics, it was devastating. But if I’m being honest, it wasn’t totally surprising.
I grew up a long ways away from the glitz, glamor, and ostentatious wealth I’d become accustomed to seeing in and around Democratic politics. I’m from the Heartland, near Kansas City. My family floated between working poor and middle class. My parents were divorced, and neither has a college degree. As is the case with many American families far from the Acela corridor, my mom’s yearly income determined if I would live in a house, apartment, or mobile home, if I would attend decent schools or the worst in town. On top of that, I was born with a rare genetic lung disease that made me chronically ill my whole life. As a child, I experienced firsthand health insurance denials, putting intense pressure on my family’s finances.
My family background is messy. But there was one constant: Many of my family members are proud construction workers and lifelong union members. I grew up believing that the Democrats were our party.
Fast forward to today, and many of those same family members are no longer Democrats. They feel the party has changed, left them behind.
At the DNC, I couldn’t help but think about my family. Every time the elites chanted “We’re not going back,” what I heard was, “We’re not going back to the party your union family members used to vote for.”
Looking back now, I realize that my dissatisfaction grew slowly, bubbling just beneath the surface for a long time. In 2017, I started raising money for campaigns, working fancy fundraisers hosted by wealthy financiers, billionaire heiresses, and corporate CEOs, many of whom gave to Democrats and Republicans equally. I led candidates through hours a day of soullessly dialing up rich people and begging them for money. Not only do candidates spend most of their time talking to the rich, but the only path to elected office is to be rich, or to know lots of rich people.
Here’s the thing about donors: They have niche policy issues they care about that seldom reflect the needs of people back home. Democrats love to decry money in politics when it comes to the Koch brothers or Elon Musk, but the billionaires who support Democrats are given a total pass and have a huge influence over policy.
At first, I naively thought the system was broken. But now I realize, it isn’t broken; it’s doing what it was designed to do, which is to keep working class people from true representation. That is the point, a feature, not a bug.
US producer/actress Oprah Winfrey speaks on the third day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 21, 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris will formally accept the party’s nomination for president at the DNC which runs from August 19-22 in Chicago.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Of course, this occurs in the Republican Party, too. But Democrats are bigger hypocrites about it.
These realizations pushed me from moderate Democrats to progressive candidates who rejected corporate PAC money, embraced a higher minimum wage, endorsed universal health care, and criticized the Party’s corporate wing. But when you’re working with progressives, you get a front-row seat to how the establishment beats and batters candidates out of step with the party line.
So my progressives lost. A lot. And it was always to the same old, tired playbook of dark money from super PACs pouring in, or major Democratic arms like the DCCC and DSCC putting their thumb on the scale, endorsing the anointed candidate early instead of letting the people choose. This is how they blocked Bernie.
But even the progressives are part of the problem now. They were once focused on policies that improved people’s lives, promising to be unbought and uncompromisable. But after the summer of 2020, that rhetoric all but faded away. They’ve become compromised by the social justice language and divisive identity politics that now dominates the entire Democratic ecosystem.
Perhaps the most shocking of all is how the Democrats have embraced Bush-era foreign policy to become the party of war. Instead of rebuilding the working class communities that have been hit hardest by their neoliberal trade policies, they’ve spent $175 billion funding the war in Ukraine.
It was the cherry on the cake that Vice President Kamala Harris has been proudly touting an endorsement from Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney!
Here’s the sad truth: The Democratic Party has lost its way entirely. They mostly speak to the college educated, the urban and affluent, in their language. Their tone is condescending and paternalistic. They peddle giveaways to the college-educated like student loan forgiveness plans that disproportionately help their base, snubbing the majority of the country without a four-year degree, and then offer no tangible plans for true reform.
I moved to San Francisco from Kansas City a few years ago, and the attitudes I have since encountered have further cemented my beliefs. I’ve literally had people laugh in my face as they called my home state “dumb-f**k-istan.”
When I went to the DNC last month, I was truly hoping to be re-inspired, to feel the same love for the party I felt as a teenager when I pounded the pavement for Barack Obama. I can still recall the immense joy I felt after he won, running into the street with hundreds of other people to dance to “Thriller.”
But instead of giving me back that feeling, the DNC was where it finally hit me: It’s impossible to unsee what I’ve seen. I can only go forward.
I’m not going back.
Evan Barker is a former Democratic campaign operative, campaign finance reform advocate, and podcaster. You can follow her on X @evanwch.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
