Democratic union chief says his party needs a ‘wake-up call’ after election loss

United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts Jr. hopes that the Democrats’ election loss can be the much-needed “wake-up” call the party needs to reach the “next generation.”

Roberts was one of several Democrats featured in a lengthy Vanity Fair article Tuesday about the aftermath of the 2024 election which saw President Donald Trump win the popular vote and sweep all seven swing states.

Based on the results showing Vice President Kamala Harris largely winning voters earning $100,000 or more, Roberts warned that could mean “the age of Democrats being able to present themselves as the party of the working class [is] likely over.”

“Union members voted for the vice president,” Roberts said, “based on what we’ve seen from the polls. But working people didn’t do that.”

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He added, “I’m a Democrat. I’m going to die one, because I’ve been one forever. But here’s the problem. What about the next generation and the next generation?”

The article’s author, James Pogue, described seeing clips of Roberts attacking the rich for dismissing manufacturing workers from places like the mining industry, a sentiment he’d begun feeling among Democrats.

“When you hear some rich person,” Roberts said, “some CEO, some chairman of the board, talk about the patriotism of their company, or the patriotism of their board, understand something: Forgive me for what I’m about to say, but that’s pure bullsh–. That’s what that is.”

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Pogue wrote that many senior Democrats “at least in private” consider Roberts and others like him as people who “cling” to “a lost world.” Roberts said these party members have trouble listening to the working class because they don’t interact enough.

“Democrats have needed a wake-up call now for some time,” he said. “And if there’s anything good that came out of this, I hope that they listen. At one time, everybody listened to me.”

Pogue appeared to agree with this idea, writing that the Democratic Party, the once “home of the outsiders,” has now become defenders of the status quo.

“[I]n an era when 60 percent of Americans believed our democracy needed major changes, it looked to many voters like this coalition represented a well-off and well-educated establishment interested in preserving a status quo many regular Americans had come to despise,” Pogue wrote.

He added, “Democrats, by dint of standing in opposition to a populist insurgency, had started to morph into what looked like America’s establishment.”