rodoheel
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I do think Dems can win back working-class people, but I think the reasons they can and will win back working-class people have less to do with Dem messaging than they do with what happens under Republican control of the federal government. If and when Trump and Musk break the economy, and the lives of the working poor continue to suck, they'll yo-yo back to Dems. And then when Dems can't fix everything Trump broke in four years they'll yo-yo back again.
I also still don't really agree with your takeaway from the election. I'm not even sure it's accurate to say that economic populism was a core part of Trump's message. The most populist part of his message was that he would lower consumer prices. That corresponded to the fact that people's perceptions of the economy were overwhelmingly tied to inflation. No one cared that wages were up, that hiring was strong, or anything else. They punished Dems for inflation - never mind that the inflation was very plainly a global post-COVID phenomenon and that the Biden admin managed inflation better than anyone else did. But other than lowering prices, the rest of Trump's economic message was just core conservative rich guy shit - lower taxes, lower regulations, etc. It certainly wasn't pro-union or pro-worker. That's not populism. You could also say that there was a veiled economic message in his appeals on immigration and DEI - "hey low-wage white guys, we'll deport all the illegals and force companies to stop hiring women and blacks so then all the jobs will be yours again." That's the exact sort of identity-focused messaging you say doesn't win elections - but it pretty much did just win an election, for Republicans. Their message to conservative white guys was "you are the victims; everything has been taken from you, and we're gonna take it back and give it to you" and it was very successful.
Ultimately Republican economic messaging is always based on the fairy tale that they can just push one magic button (usually "reduce government spending") and every economic indicator will improve at once. They always claim that they can produce an economy with more American manufacturing, higher wages, and lower prices. This is, of course, complete bunk. You literally cannot do all of those things at once. The third is in direct conflict with the first two. Republicans have failed, time and time again, to deliver on their economic promises, and they will fail again with Trump. But it isn't clear whether voters even care that Republican economic promises are pie-in-the-sky fantasy, and it is very obvious that people don't want to be told the truth about the economy. They don't want to confront that they can choose lower prices or higher wages, but not both. You say NAFTA was a disaster for the working poor, and certainly it hurt the US manufacturing sector, but it also delivered the low prices that everyone clearly wants.
People want the 1960s economy (or what they think the 1960s economy was) back. They want to walk out of high school and into a middle-class job that requires no further education and can still provide them with a house, two cars, and a comfortable lifestyle. But that economy is not coming back. 5 coal miners can do the work that 150 used to do. The manufacturing jobs that we lost are not going to be replaced in anywhere near their same numbers. A 10% or 25% tariff isn't going to make it affordable to make all our clothes and consumer goods in the US or create 15 million manufacturing jobs. But that's what people want to believe. They want to believe it's easy. And Republicans are more than happy to tell them it's easy. If your argument is that Dems should do what Pubs do and lie to voters about the economy, and make absurd promises that can never be kept, I guess that's one approach.
