Imagining a Better Democratic Populism

As Donald Trump extends the war in Afghanistan, fails to repair infrastructure, and joins congressional Republicans in pushing tax cuts that would mostly benefit the upper classes, the columnist Damon Linker believes that the Democratic Party has an opportunity to win over voters by giving them “a genuine populist option” in years ahead. “What would a more populist Democratic Party look like?” he writes at The Week. “It would embed its bold proposals for cradle-to-grave universal health care, free college tuition at public universities, and ambitious infrastructure projects in a galvanizing story of American citizenship and patriotism, sacrifice, and civic duty.”

There may be merit to much of what he suggests.

But “free college tuition at public universities,” or pouring more public dollars into a good consumed largely by the more would say, but what a responsible Democrat could say) if he or she wanted to win over a diverse spectrum of populist voters.