This fiery evangelical pastor offers a blueprint for Democrats’ revival in Trump’s second term

The Rev. William Barber, the prominent Black spiritual leader who supported Kamala Harris, suggests a way forward for left-leaning Americans who are struggling in the wake of the election.

The high price of bread and eggs doomed her. Nope, it was raw racism and sexism. Well, maybe she should have gone on Joe Rogan’s show. If you’re looking for a reason why Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump, there are plenty to choose from. Many of Harris’ reeling supporters are still trying to understand the forces behind Trump’s win. Trump won less than half of the popular vote, where his margin of victory was smaller than President Biden’s in 2020. Still, he swept all seven swing states and he has forced Democrats to ask what they must do to reach more working-class and Latino voters. One prominent evangelical pastor offers some insight. The Rev. William J. Barber II has long been one of America’s most persistent and eloquent spokespersons for poor and working-class Americans. Barber, who has been called “the closest person we have to MLK” in contemporary America, has organized coalitions of the poor, working-class Whites and people of color around such causes as raising the minimum wage, expanding health care and strengthening unions. Barber is the recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant” and helps lead the Poor People’s Campaign, which seeks national solutions to ongoing poverty. Barber also done something else: He’s shown Democrats how they can win political victories in red states. Barber is currently the founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School and Repairers of the Breach, a group that trains social justice leaders. But he made his mark from his home state of North Carolina. As one of the architects of the “Moral Mondays” movement, he helped lead a racially diverse coalition that is credited with toppling a Republican governor and turning North Carolina into a swing state. Though Harris lost North Carolina, Democrats in 2024 won races for governor and attorney general, and the GOP appears likely to lose its veto-proof majority in the state legislature. For Democrats debating how best to reach new voters, Barber’s perspective could be valuable. He has written a blueprint for expanding the Democratic base in North Carolina and elsewhere through what he calls “fusion politics,” a multiracial and multiclass coalition that transcends the conservative-vs.-progressive binary. Racism is often depicted as a Black problem, but Barber insists it’s also been used throughout US history to hurt the economic interests of everyday White people. He once said, “Racism may target Black people, but it damns a democracy, and it damns humanity.”