WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) joined CNN’s The Amanpour Hour with Christiane Amanpour to discuss the empty rhetoric from the Republican Party and how the Democratic Party can expand its coalition to deliver for working families and rebuild community.

Murphy explained how the typical measures of public policy success are disconnected from how many Americans are feeling: “The economy is getting better, the unemployment rate is as low as it can be, crime is going down, GDP is rising. And yet there's still a whole bunch of people in this country who report feeling more unhappy than ever before. They report feeling disconnected from their community; levels of self-reported loneliness are through the roof; there are a lot of Americans who are employed, but who feel like they don't have meaning and purpose every day when they wake up. And I think we've got to have a broader conversation in this country about why that is, and help give Americans access to positive meaning and identity…Sometimes we get lost by thinking that our only job is to try to increase the health of the economy. Studies show that when it really comes down to it, happiness is not just your career or how much money you're making. Happiness is the question of how good are your relationships? Do you feel part of a community, something bigger than yourself? And I think we've done a really bad job of delivering that kind of purpose and meaning to people, even as we've done a better job of making sure that people have rising wages and have jobs that they can go to every day.”

Murphy continued: “People are not satisfied being part of a global economy. They want to be part of a unique American economy. Even more specifically, they want to be part of a distinct, unique place. They don't like that our culture has become flattened. They don't like that our downtowns have become eviscerated and the only place that you can buy things from are transnational retail outlets, like Amazon or Google. They want localness to matter. And Kamala Harris was on that stage the other night saying, ‘I have a plan to breathe life back into small businesses. So your downtowns come back to life. So you can feel good about belonging to a place which is where a lot of people found meaning and identity for decades and decades.’ So yes, the rhetoric, you know, is familiar because we hear it on the right, but the policy is actually being put into place right now by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

Murphy highlighted how Democrats can deliver meaningful results for working families by broadening the coalition: “We need to expose Republicans for the frauds that they are. The only major domestic achievement of their four years in power when Donald Trump was in the White House, was a tax cut, 80 percent to 90 percent of the benefit went to the billionaires, corporations and millionaires. And so, they talk about standing up for regular working people. But they don't do a great job of it. Here's the tough part for the Democratic Party. Listen, if we want to be the party of the working class then we've got to be the party of the working class. That means expanding our tent. That means being willing to bring into our fold people who may not agree with us on every single cultural and social issue. I care deeply about the issue of gun control. I care deeply about reproductive rights, but I am willing to bring people into our coalition who might not line up with me on all those issues because if they are willing to break up consolidated power, if they are willing to support a higher minimum wage, then having them inside the coalition gives me a better chance to convince them to join us on things like climate change, or choice, or guns. That's a tough conversation for the Democratic Party, but I think it's a really important one.”

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