BY STEVEN ROESCH
What helped Donald Trump to achieve victory in two presidential elections?
According to Norman Solomon, prolific author and co-founder of RootsAction.org, the warped nature of mainstream media’s political coverage was one of several factors.
Another factor was the Democratic Party itself.
Solomon elaborates on these claims in The Blue Road to Trump Hell, a compilation of his op-ed pieces from 2016 through 2024 as well as a closing consideration of “2025 and Beyond.” The book can be read online for free at blueroad.info/.
For Solomon, Trump’s rise to national prominence reflects something that’s been underway for a few decades: the growth of oligarchy in the United States.
Early on he quotes historian Walter Karp, who wrote almost 40 years ago that “the fact of oligarchy is the most dreaded knowledge of all, and our news keeps that knowledge from us.”
Nowadays, Solomon contends, billionaires and Big Finance wield even more clout than before, “while a propaganda fog diverts attention from their antidemocratic leverage.”
The coverage of Bernie Sanders during the 2016 election cycle provides an illuminating example for him.
At that time, many mainstream news organizations either gave him meager coverage or were consistently negative about his proposals. Media players who followed this playbook include CNN and MSNBC (now MS NOW).
For their part, corporate-friendly heavyweights like the New York Times and the Washington Post distanced themselves from Sanders’s criticism of major insurance firms, Wall Street, the oil industry and similar sectors.
At one point during the 2016 primary season, the Washington Post put out 16 anti-Sanders pieces in a mere 16 hours.
Such reporting practices are questionable given the popularity of many progressive proposals. Polling in 2018, for example, revealed that 59% of those surveyed supported a $15 minimum wage and 70% were behind Medicare for All.
Beyond such slanted news coverage, Solomon also examines the oftentimes undemocratic nature of the Democratic Party in recent years.
He cites Judith Whitmer, a former chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, who commented that operatives and consultants now have a firm grip over all parts of the Democratic National Committee. Rather than being an inclusive organization, it’s been captured by “a small circle of insiders who hold all the power by maintaining the status quo.”
During Biden’s reelection bid, the party froze rank-and-file Democrats out of the process.
No meaningful primaries were held. The Democratic base could never weigh in on its preference for the party’s primary standard-bearer.
Especially damaging to the Democratic brand was Biden’s unflinching support of Israel’s incursion in Gaza, a stance that he maintained despite warning signs on several fronts.
At one point, 17 Biden campaign staffers urged him to change course and pursue an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza. They reported that campaign volunteers were leaving en masse. The staffers had also encountered many individuals who were now hesitant to back Democratic candidates even though they’d always done so in the past.
Leading Democratic voices like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.) also consistently backed Israel despite the growing discontent of many voters they supposedly represented.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became aware of the extent of voter dissatisfaction in July 2024.
As Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson recount in Original Sin, their study of Biden’s quest for a second term, Pelosi heard something troubling from several friends and acquaintances. Their children were politically progressive, they liked Biden’s positions regarding such issues as climate change and abortion rights—and yet they planned to refrain from voting in the presidential election this time. It was something that Pelosi had never encountered previously.
Biden’s catastrophic debate performance in July 2024 also weakened the Democratic brand.
When Kamala Harris entered the fray as the Democratic candidate, she promised to continue Biden’s policy regarding Gaza if she were elected. NPR reported that her economic proposals were “largely aligned with the Biden economic agenda,” which likely disappointed those who backed more progressive policies.
Solomon’s dire portrait of the Democrats finds support in a New York Times analysis published in August 2025.
Its central message: “The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before they even go to the polls. Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections—and often by a lot.”
In total, the party lost 4.5 million voters in just four years, something that could well take years to recover from.
Of course, a growing number of voters have also been registering as independent or unaffiliated, diminishing the numbers for both major parties. But in recent years that spurt has primarily weakened the Democrats.
A December 2024 article in The Guardian sheds even more light on the party’s current dilemma.
According to some estimates, nearly 90 million Americans—about 36% of people of voting age—didn’t cast a ballot in the 2024 presidential election.
Some who opted not to vote were discouraged by the Electoral College system. They felt that since they weren’t in one of the critical swing states their participation wouldn’t matter at all.
Many, however, told Guardian reporters that neither major candidate spoke to middle- and working-class concerns.
And U.S. support for Israeli aggression in Gaza also played a major role in the calculations of many nonvoters.
To some observers, it might seem that Democratic successes in the past few months—such as Emily Gregory’s recent victory in a special state House election in Florida—signal a comeback for the Democrats in general.
The Times and Guardian reporting, however, indicates that such a comeback is far from a sure thing.
As some prominent Democrats now consider running for the presidency in 2028, it’s vital that they take such findings—and what they say about needed party reforms—to heart.
