This is a bit of a longer note from me, but I believe it’s the exact conversation we need to be having right now as Democrats. I recently sat down with the New York Times to talk about where America goes from here — and what Democrats need to do to win. You can read or listen to it here.

The discussion centers around a topic I have spent my whole career investigating: How the economy is rigged against hardworking Americans.

I wrote about this in my book, “The Two-Income Trap,” when I was a bankruptcy lawyer back in 2003. I was looking at why so many American families in the ’80s and ’90s found themselves in bankruptcy court. These families had done everything right, and then one of three things happened: they faced huge medical debt, experienced extended job loss, or had a death or divorce in the family.

The point I was trying to emphasize was that the American economy had shifted in a way that loaded the dice against middle-class families — even if they played by the rules. One unfortunate circumstance could send a family into bankruptcy. And that was fundamentally wrong.

This is a problem we should have solved long ago. And I’m furious we haven’t.

People all across this country continue to feel like the game is rigged against them. And they’re right. It is. The fact of the matter is that Donald Trump capitalized on this ahead of his 2016 run when Democrats did not. He wasn’t afraid to say that the game is rigged against regular Americans. He talked about how things are “rigged” every day.

Now, does he do anything to actually make that problem better? Absolutely not. He gains power, turns around to blame everything on immigrants, and makes the economy much worse for working people. And I’ll get to how we need to continue to make that clear.

But still, he knows this is an effective strategy. When he ran for president in 2024, he again recognized the pain that people are feeling and said he was going to make their lives better economically.

He even bragged that the reason he won the election was, “Because I promised on Day 1 to lower costs for American families.”

If we want to win votes, Democrats have to show that we get it, we have a plan to deal with it, and we are by God determined to deliver on it.

As a party, we may not agree 100% down the line on every issue. But the issue that voters tell us over and over and over and over again that they care about the most is the economy. They care about their homes. They care about their jobs. They care about their bills. They care about child care. They care about inflation.

Democrats must speak to the real economic anxieties that families are feeling right now, and have the courage to fight for the policies that will make their lives easier — even if pundits say it’ll never happen or if it bothers billionaires. This is one of the main reasons why Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral primary and is on his way to lead the city.

We have to articulate our values, and then we have to demonstrate that we really will fight like hell for them.

Not a nibble around the edge. Not a highly diluted version. A vision of big, structural change — and results.

We can’t push back on people who say they’re struggling because we looked at some spreadsheet that said people are actually doing okay.

No more “Hmm…” “Sure...” “Maybe a little bit…”

No more, “Yes, we want to make sure that everybody pays a fair share, but we don’t really want to talk about what the taxes are.”

No more, “Yes, we want to put a little more money into child care, but you know, a big package would be really expensive and the big donors don’t want to pay taxes.”

Democrats have also got to make clear: Donald Trump is talking the talk, but he is not delivering. We not only have to adopt a bolder economic message — we need to also call him out on his lies and failed policies.

We must emphasize that Donald Trump is NOT making life better for working people. He is giving free handouts to Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos by cutting health care.

That Donald Trump is NOT lowering costs. He is utilizing tariffs to get companies and leaders to suck up to him while costs get passed off to consumers.

That Donald Trump is NOT making us safer. He is terrorizing people. He is disappearing people in this country. He is tearing families apart.

Finally, we as Democrats — all of us together, including you — must retain the optimism that better things are possible.

We can dream big again. I want people to understand that the things they feel are out of reach — like housing, a good education, or a well-paying job — only feel that way because of a bunch of policies we put in place. What we have today didn’t happen because of gravity. It happened because of a bunch of choices we made as a country. And we could just as easily make different choices.

So that brings us to the choices we have to make right now. I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that Democrats make the right choices when it comes to our priorities and our economic policies.

And as for you, I know times are hard right now, and things feel scary. That is the point: Donald Trump and the Republicans want us to feel powerless, get tired, and give up.

But I need you to resist that urge.

I need you to believe in an America where you can change jobs and not have to worry about whether or not you could lose your health care.

I need you to believe in an America where you can have a baby and know that you won’t have to quit work to stay home, and that you will actually be able to get high-quality child care.

I need you to believe in an America that works not for a handful at the top, but that works for all of us.

If you can just feel the tiniest little spark of that belief, keep it alive, stay in the fight, and we actually could make this happen.

There’s a whole lot more that we discussed. You can read and listen to the full interview here.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth