Story highlights Van Jones is a political activist and CNN commentator

On Tuesday night he made news for saying Trump's victory was part of a "whitelash"

The Axe Files, featuring David Axelrod, is a podcast distributed by CNN and produced at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. The author works on the podcast.

(CNN) One of the biggest challenges facing the Democratic Party is its unwillingness or inability to communicate with the white male voters who helped propel Donald Trump to victory in Tuesday's election, according to political activist Van Jones.

"The liberal imagination now ... doesn't have a place of honor for heterosexual white guys who are middle aged and vote Republican," Jones, who is a CNN commentator, told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files" podcast, produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.

"They are somehow all the oppressor. They're all the enemy. They're all the other," Jones said. "They don't feel that way. They feel like they're on the downside of everything, economically and culturally, and don't know where to turn."

The Democratic Party and its liberal allies haven't done an adequate job of speaking to these voters or to their concerns, Jones argued.

"Somebody should have checked on those guys over the past 10, 20, 30 years," Jones said. "And yet nobody did but a guy named Donald Trump."

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