Progressive Democrats are winning primaries (e.g., Angie Nixon, Abdul El-Sayed) by focusing on affordability for working families and rejecting large corporate and super-PAC spending, even when heavily outspent.

The author argues Trump’s overt favoritism toward CEOs and Wall Street has exposed corporate America’s prioritization of profit over average Americans, eroding the appeal of corporate-aligned Democrats.

This creates an opening for the Democratic Party to reclaim its identity as the party of working people rather than corporate interests, reversing decades of free-trade, weak labor protections, and campaign-finance choices that widened inequality.

Most discussions about the Democratic Party in this election cycle focus on the remarkable rise of progressive Democrats, such as Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who yesterday scored an upset win in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday. 

An equally big story is the remarkable decline of corporate Democrats. 

Some Democrats worry about this. My old friend Democratic strategist James Carville compares the current wave of progressive primary wins to progressive campaigns in 2016 — especially that of Bernie Sanders — that he believes fractured the Democratic coalition. 

“Bernie Sanders is the reason that Donald Trump is president,” the Democratic strategist said recently, claiming that Bernie’s primary challenge to Hillary Clinton convinced voters in battleground states that establishment Democrats were no different from establishment Republicans, thereby weakening her prospects in the general election.

Even if James is right about 2016 (and I don’t believe he is) his assessment is irrelevant now because we’re at a radically different point in American politics than we were 10 years ago.

The silver lining on the dark storm cloud of Trump and his detestable regime is that it has exposed the greed, venality, cupidity, and corruption of America’s corporate elite. 

Trump has allowed the CEOs of giant corporations and the titans of Wall Street to do whatever they want as long as they suck up to him. And he’s providing all sorts of corporate welfare to those who generously woo him — no-bid government contracts, exclusive licenses, tax loopholes, tariff exemptions, use of public lands, and permission to become even bigger monopolies. 

Trump has thereby unveiled a truth about corporate America that for many years has been hidden behind a soothing blanket of corporate PR bullsh*t about social responsibility, corporate charity, and “trickle-down” economics. 

That truth is the captains of corporate America are so rapacious that they’re willing to throw average working Americans under the bus to make billions more. 

Corporate avarice........

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