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Does the “Professional Class” Still Dominate the Democratic Party?

newrepublic.com · 2h · first reportShare

You can watch this episode of Right Now With Perry Bacon above or by following this show on YouTube or Substack . You can read a transcript here . Lily Geismer, a history professor at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, has argued in a series of articles and books that Democrats shifted after the 1960s from a party titled towards unions and the working class to one dominated by lawyers and a more technocratic mindset . She says that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in particular embodied this shift, with the former’s more centrist approach and the latter’s emphasis on his “smart” policies. Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Geismer says party is now caught between two impulses. Party leaders such as Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer practice the more incremental politics of Clinton and Obama. Pete Buttigieg has a technocratic ethos. At the same time, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, and Bernie Sanders are pushing a more populist, union-centered politics that echoes the New