Former Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh is the latest high-profile Democrat to opine about what’s wrong with the party and what its future should be.
Speaking on an episode of “The People’s Cabinet” — a podcast hosted by Dan Koh, Walsh’s chief of staff during his mayoralty and as labor secretary — Walsh criticized the Democratic Party for lacking a clear message and being out of touch with the concerns of everyday people.
When asked by Koh why Democrats are losing among working class voters, the former Boston mayor responded: “As a party, we don’t have a message. I think everyone’s trying to figure out how to respond to this administration today, but I don’t think we learned from the first four years of the Trump administration how to respond to it.”
“President Biden was a bridge,” Walsh, who was labor secretary under Biden, continued. “People thought it was going to be a bridge to the future, [but] it was a bridge to another Trump administration.”
At multiple points during the 50-minute interview, Walsh — currently the executive director of the National Hockey League’s players’ union — expressed his desire to see congressional Democrats spend more time listening to constituents and less time drumming up partisan media spectacles in Washington.
“They’re holding hearings and beating up people in hearings,” he said. “They should be out in the community talking to people, not town halls, they should be out like in coffee shops and other places talking to people.”
Walsh said members of Congress are “the most connected to the average person” when they first run, so he encouraged them to “go back to your first race” and think about the issues voters wanted them to solve.
“You’re elected to represent people,” he said. “You’re not necessarily elected to represent a point of view.”
The average American is not concerned about “the big picture issue items that we’ve been talking about for the last four years, like student loan debt,” he said. Instead, their focus is on day-to-day economic issues.
“Most people aren’t thinking about student loan debt because their kids can’t afford to go to college,” he said.
Alienation caused by “the woke stuff” is also part of the party’s issue, Walsh said.
“People make up a decision to do something, whether to use the pronouns or whatever it might be, and like, all of a sudden the whole world has to do it,” he said. “If you don’t do it, you’re wrong. That’s where the problem comes into play. If somebody doesn’t want to describe as he/him, they shouldn’t have to. And if somebody wants to, they should be able to.”
Elected officials, he said, should be making an effort to meet “disgruntled” voters on the extreme ends of both sides of the political spectrum where they are.
“They might yell at you, but that’s OK. You get paid to get yelled at. You get paid to take crap from people. That’s your job as an elected official. It’s not all roses and love,” Walsh said. “They’ll eventually appreciate the fact that you came and spoke to them.”
When asked for his take on the 2028 presidential race, Walsh said “both parties are going through the same thing”: trying to figure out their future.
“I think that civility is going to have to be part of this conversation,” he said. " What are the issues that are going to be important to us the rest of the 21st century?"
Julian E.J. Sorapuru can be reached at julian.sorapuru@globe.com. Follow him on X @JulianSorapuru.