Here’s a thought experiment for you: imagine two starkly different hypotheticals for the 2020 campaign. In #1, Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee, and she is running under the banner of “White Men Suck.” Her plan is to create a coalition of minorities and white women to sweep away the white patriarchy. In #2, Bernie Sanders is the nominee, and his slogan is “Vive la Revolution.” His approach is to bring white and minority working class people together to overthrow Wall Street and the other bastions of capitalism and create the socialist Jerusalem.
On paper, these coalitions could represent a majority of American voters. How do they work in practice?
Both of them lose, bigly. Harris loses because minority turnout is predictably low, and white women, sickened by her constant complaints about “white privilege,” hold their noses and break for Trump. Sanders loses because a large majority of white working class men simply refuse to stand by their minority comrades and sing Kumbaya.
The point here is that the Democratic Party can’t afford to be just a class-or an identity-based party. It has to be both, and something more, to win on a national level.