Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, admitted on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that criticism of the Democratic Party’s “over-the-top wokeism” is a “valid attack.”
Newsweek reached out to Warner’s office and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via email for comment on Sunday morning.
Why It Matters
The Democrats lost the House, the Senate and the presidency to Trump and his fellow Republicans in the 2024 election after they lost the House in the 2022 midterm election. In the wake of last November’s crushing defeat, Democrats have been re-evaluating their party, and some have even called for a re-branding.
A key attack from those a part of President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and other Republicans against Democrats is that they are too “woke.” Woke means to be aware of issues that affect our society, especially racial and social justice issues. It started to become more widespread in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. However, the word is now oftentimes misused, usually as a criticism for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning.
What to Know
“I think the Democrats’ brand is really bad, and I think this was an election based on culture. And the Democrats’ failure to connect on a cultural basis with a wide swath of Americans is hugely problematic,” Warner told Politico on Saturday.
He added: “I think the majority of the party realizes that the ideological purity of some of the groups is a recipe for disaster and that, candidly, the attack on over-the-top wokeism was a valid attack.”
When asked if Democrats can learn anything from how Trump does politics, Warner said his party needs to acknowledge the “over-wokeism,” adding, “Until you can make a cultural connection, I’m not sure people are gonna listen to you on issues.”
The senator also mentioned how fewer people consume traditional media and that “Trump was so ahead of his time on sorting that out with a huge reinforcing network of supporters, of followers. That’s extraordinary and Democrats have got a lot to learn from that.”
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What People Are Saying
Former Democratic Ohio Representative Tim Ryan said in an MSNBC interview in late November 2024: “Our brand is toxic in so many places, and it is like, ‘you are a Democrat?’ That’s the stuff we get in Ohio. We need a complete reboot. We need a complete reboot with the DNC. We need a complete rebranding.”
Ryan talked about the Democratic Party getting back to the idea that it is the party of the middle class. “White, Black, brown, gay, straight, man, woman, North, South. If you’re a working-class person, the Democratic party is for you,” he said.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, wrote in a statement in the wake of the 2024 election, “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
He added: “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well.”
What Happens Now
The DNC elected a new chair, Ken Martin, along with a slate of other new officers earlier this month.
Upon his election, Martin said in a statement, “The Democratic Party is the party of working people, and it’s time to roll up our sleeves and outcompete everywhere, in every election, and at every level of government — and I look forward to working with this next generation of leadership to build a Party to unite America.”
He added: “Today’s elections mark a new chapter in DNC leadership, and Donald Trump and his billionaire allies are put on notice: we will hold them accountable for ripping off working families, and we will beat them at the ballot box.”
