It’s focused squarely on the folks in the middle, folks who aspire to be in the middle. It reminds me of how so much of what F.D.R., J.F.K. and L.B.J. did really focused on my parents, on how a construction worker and a clerical worker in my mom and dad’s time could go on to buy a house and send four kids to college and live in retirement in dignity.

But I think most people will tell you, they don’t believe it, they don’t feel like we’ve got your back as leaders. And that’s where Democratic leaders need to come forward and say, no, we do have your back.

I try to explain to folks the pain and the anxiety that a lot of formerly middle-class families in the Rust Belt states, for example, are feeling these days — and that explains why so many of them voted for Donald Trump for president. That’s the same pain and anxiety my parents went through. They are Latino immigrants. They had that working-class sense of optimism that they will do better for their kids, and their kids will do better. In my case, there was no doubt.

A lot of folks in the Rust Belt states are saying, ‘Hey, we don’t see our kids and grandkids exceeding our expectations — or their own expectations.’”

As a son of immigrants, I am an optimist because it runs in my DNA. But if you’ve got two or three generations now, where before you used to have that union job at G.M., or even that coal mining job, you do start to get skeptical.