The Biden Administration’s governance model exposed a decades-old tension between two competing economic visions within the Democratic Party. One seeks to reinvigorate American manufacturing, strengthen unions, and challenge monopoly power through regulatory action. The other looks to maintain and strengthen the party’s ties to corporate America and Wall Street. The unifying glue of fear of Trump, it was thought, would hold this incoherent and less-than-sturdy alliance together in 2024. Harris’s loss should put such delusions to rest.

Democrats need to make a decision. They can either continue their decades-long accommodation of billionaires and corporate interests or embrace a genuine populist agenda that directly challenges concentrated economic power. It is not possible to govern as the champion of both working people and oligarchs. As Pennsylvania Representative Chris Deluzio put it, there isn’t a “win-win” when it comes to the interests of big corporations and working people.