By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-08-07 17:37:07 | Updated at 2026-08-07 18:59:17
1 hour ago
Four Senate Democrats told their colleagues in an Aug. 5 memo that campaigning against President Donald Trump and promising to lower costs will not win back working-class voters unless Democrats also name the corporations and wealthy individuals they say are rigging the economy.
The memo, addressed to “interested Democrats,” was signed by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“If Democrats are going to be the party of working people, we have to prove that we can be trusted to unrig the system by confronting the elites who are doing the rigging,” the senators wrote.
“It may feel safer to avoid these conflicts with an agenda that tries to please every powerful interest where the fight is defined solely against Trump, and that might work for now if Trump’s unprecedented corruption continues to drive his popularity to record lows. But the only way to build a large and durable working-class majority is to be the party that fights for workers and citizens against the billionaires and corporations holding them down.”
The White House did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment on its characterization on Friday.
The new memo builds on a Jan. 12 memo from the same four senators, which argued that the party’s “anemic response” to the “rigging of the economy in favor of the ultra-wealthy” had cost Democrats credibility with working people.
That earlier memo largely made its case through polling. It cited a Century Foundation survey of 1,425 registered voters, finding that more than 8 in 10 working-class voters back policies curbing corporate influence, including breaking up monopolies and barring Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes.
“Bland policy proposals—without a narrative explaining who is getting screwed and who is doing the screwing—will not work,” the senators wrote in January.
The new memo lays out four of the senators’ own efforts as models, and says the range of subjects shows any Democrat can adapt the approach to their own constituents.
Schiff’s section focuses on data center construction and electricity costs. It cites U.S. Energy Information Administration figures showing that U.S. power demand reached its highest recorded level this summer and says the coming year will mark the largest four-year growth in demand this century.
The memo describes his Energy Cost Fairness and Reliability Act, which it says would require data centers to bring their own power generation, shift the cost of grid upgrades to the companies building the centers, and direct the Department of Energy’s national laboratories to study grid reliability and report to Congress.
Voluntary industry pledges, such as those proposed by the White House and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rulemaking, are not sufficient, the memo says.
Smith’s section addresses agricultural consolidation. The memo says the war in Iran drove up diesel and fertilizer prices in spring 2026, that some farmers paid 40 percent more for fertilizer than a year earlier, and that the world’s largest ammonia producer saw quarterly revenue rise 20 percent to $1.99 billion in the same period.
It describes an April roundtable Smith held with farmers and agricultural business owners in Minnesota’s least populated county, on the state’s western border.
Warren’s section covers Social Security. The memo says she joined Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) in launching a rapid-response “War Room” after the federal government and the Department of Government Efficiency
institutedstaff reductions at the Social Security Administration.
It points to a New York Times op-ed Warren wrote with Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) calling for lifting the payroll tax cap, which the memo says a majority of Americans support.
Murphy’s section describes the Let Kids Play Act, introduced with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), and other co-chairs of the House Monopoly Busters Caucus.
The memo cites a report that states youth sports is now a $40 billion industry with costs up over 40 percent in five years, and that the bill would define “vulture practices” such as stay-to-play travel requirements, bar private equity funds that use them from youth sports, and require them to divest holdings and refund fees to families.
The memo also cites the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which became law earlier this year and included the first federal restriction on private equity purchases of single-family homes.
The housing act was negotiated by Warren with Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and House Financial Services Chairman French Hill (R-Ark.), and passed both chambers by wide bipartisan margins.
The White House endorsed the bill, and Trump issued a proclamation calling it the most comprehensive housing legislation in the nation’s history, then declined to sign it, saying on Truth Social that he was protesting the Senate’s failure to pass the SAVE America Act. The housing bill became law on July 11 without his signature.
Several of the other efforts highlighted in the memo have also drawn Republican support.
Warren’s payroll tax cap proposal, also cited in the memo, was written with Moreno. In March, she introduced a bill with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) requiring data centers to report their energy use, an issue the memo assigns to Schiff.
