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0:24

Mid term elections are rough. on

0:27

the party of whoever happens to be president

0:29

this year that put Democrats on the defensive

0:31

and looking for ways to stay in

0:33

the good graces of voters who THERE PARTY

0:36

HAS FAILED TO DELIVER ON TWO YEARS OF

0:38

PROMISES SINCE JOE BIDEN WON WHITE HOUSE.

0:40

ONE STRATEGY FOR DOING THAT LEAVE

0:42

NATIONAL POLITICS IN WASHINGTON and

0:45

talk to voters about stuff they care about in their

0:47

own communities, stuff everybody cares

0:49

about regardless of how they usually

0:51

vote. From K ERA

0:53

in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris

0:55

Boyd. As we consider the outcome

0:57

of yesterday's elections, it's interesting

0:59

to think about how Democrats have evolved

1:02

their message in the wake of the realization that

1:04

some constituents they might have taken for

1:06

granted in the past, like black and

1:08

Latino and working class voters assumed

1:11

to be responsive to certain kinds of politics

1:14

have been moving toward Republican candidates.

1:16

Nicholas Lemmon is the staff writer at the

1:18

New Yorker where you can read his article, The Democrat's

1:21

Mid Term Challenge. It looks as a at

1:23

the country as a whole, but focuses specifically

1:25

on congressional basis in Nevada and

1:27

New Hampshire. Nicholas welcome to

1:29

thank.

1:30

Thank you for having me.

1:32

So you wanted to focus your reporting

1:34

here, which we should say was conducted before

1:37

yesterday's elections actually happened. On

1:39

closely contested races, to see how Democrats

1:42

at risk of losing their seats were running campaigns.

1:44

So for this piece, you spent this time

1:46

in New Hampshire where my Hasson was

1:48

defending her seat in Nevada where Katherine

1:51

Cortez Musto was trying to hang on.

1:53

Can you start by giving us a sense

1:55

of the political climate's surrounding

1:58

the candidates just in those two states.

2:01

Okay. Well, let's

2:03

see. Let's switch let's do New

2:05

Hampshire first. So

2:07

in New Hampshire, the

2:09

democrats, you know, both states,

2:12

Nevada. If you go back to say

2:14

the Reagan era, both states were

2:16

very, very Republican states,

2:19

red states that lately

2:21

have been becoming maybe

2:23

sort of purple. So

2:26

that's kind of why I chose to write

2:28

about them. New Hampshire, what

2:31

happened is the Democrats

2:34

kind of moved to the right

2:37

quite a long time ago, especially

2:39

in the form of pledging never

2:41

to raise taxes. or imposed

2:44

state taxes. New

2:46

Hampshire is a very anti tax

2:48

state. So there's a kind

2:50

of political I don't know if you wanna call

2:52

it a machine, a establishment

2:55

around senator Jean

2:57

Shaheen, who's the senior Senator

2:59

from New Hampshire that

3:02

really sticks with that and

3:04

runs as supercentrist. So

3:07

Maggie Hasson and

3:09

two members of Congress,

3:13

Annie Custer and Chris Pappas,

3:15

All three have been reelected, and

3:18

all three are running especially

3:21

senator Asen as, you

3:23

know, what would you say, not

3:26

traditional members of the left wing

3:28

Democratic Party. They're not running

3:30

as AOC. For

3:32

instance, Senator Hassan

3:35

made two or three trips to

3:37

the Mexican border, which is a

3:39

long way from New Hampshire to

3:42

protest the excessive

3:45

laxness of president

3:47

Biden's immigration policy. And

3:50

in that, in a number of other ways, she's

3:52

going super, super,

3:54

super centrist.

3:56

So you followed Maggie

3:58

Hasson to

3:59

an American Post where she

4:02

spent more time talking about what

4:04

she's done for veterans and what Donald Trump

4:06

did not do than about what many people see

4:08

as those kind of classic modern

4:10

Democratic talking points. Is

4:13

this not a strategy any Democrat

4:15

would use in a tight senate race when

4:18

meeting with a group of older veterans.

4:20

What's what's not notable about

4:22

this kind of talk?

4:25

I

4:26

think it's important to,

4:28

you know, yes, all politics is

4:30

local and all politicians go

4:32

local. In

4:35

in the case of Hasson, we haven't talked

4:37

about Nevada yet, but we'll get to that.

4:40

It's important to remember that she's

4:42

not Joe Manchin or

4:44

Kristen Cinemas. She almost always

4:47

essentially always votes with

4:49

the president on issues that matter

4:51

to him. she supported all

4:53

of his, you know, big mega bills.

4:56

So on some level

4:58

deep down inside, one assumes that

5:01

she supports the

5:03

overall Biden administration agenda.

5:05

However, she doesn't talk

5:08

talk about Joe Biden. She doesn't

5:10

talk about I'm a guide in the

5:12

world democrat. She talks about

5:14

how bipartisan she is. she

5:16

talks about how much she likes working with

5:18

Republicans, and

5:20

she talks about, you know, these kind of

5:22

bread and butter issues that that

5:24

matter to people a lot. But

5:27

it's not as if she's

5:31

putting any real significant space

5:33

on voting in the

5:35

Senate between herself and

5:37

the mainstream of her party. Howard

5:39

Bauchner: Alright. So let's go to

5:42

Nevada. The

5:44

final results are not in, but

5:46

it's not looking great at the moment

5:48

for Katherine Cortez Masto, who

5:50

is sitting in the seat that Harry re

5:52

held on to for five terms.

5:54

Yeah. Well, so

5:57

Nevada is Harry

5:59

Reid state, and he,

6:01

you know, was a really

6:04

old fashioned kind of machine

6:06

politician who built up and

6:09

and very powerful,

6:12

very efficient Democratic establishment

6:15

in the state. And then, you

6:17

know, of course, he passed away last year.

6:19

So so it's a question of

6:21

can the machine live on Post

6:24

Harry Reid. Senator Cortez

6:26

Massto was Harry Reid's longtime

6:29

ally and handpicked successor

6:31

in the Senate. But

6:33

in in New Hampshire, the

6:36

Democrats look like they've done

6:38

better than the Democrats in Nevada

6:40

did. And I'm not

6:42

sure exactly why. One reason

6:44

why is that the opponent

6:47

of senator Cortez Masto, Adam

6:49

Laksov, has a very

6:51

well known name

6:53

in the state. He's the grandson

6:56

of the late senator, all

6:58

waxed. So

7:01

that gives him a big kind of

7:04

leg up in in running for office.

7:07

There's three pretty

7:10

contested congressional seats.

7:13

I think as we're talking right

7:15

now, none of the three has been called

7:17

yet for the Democrat or the

7:19

Republican. So, you

7:21

know, something has gone

7:23

awry for the Harry Reid machine.

7:27

One answer might be, but

7:29

we don't know enough to know yet. the

7:32

process of Latino defection

7:34

from the Democratic party to the Republican.

7:37

Nevada is a very heavily Latino

7:39

state. Another possibility is

7:42

that months ago,

7:45

the kind of socialist Bernie

7:48

Sanders forces stage

7:50

to takeover of

7:52

the state democratic party

7:55

operation and

7:58

in

7:58

sort of kicking out

7:59

the Harry Reed machine, and

8:02

that may have damaged the

8:04

the Reed machine's effectiveness in

8:07

this election cycle.

8:08

There might be some poetic justice

8:11

for the laxalt dynasty. If

8:13

I have my history right, Harry

8:15

Reid took Paul laxalt's seat

8:17

him when he first entered the senate. Right?

8:19

In nineteen eighty six. Now

8:22

what I can't remember, maybe you can you

8:24

can check it. did Lexalt

8:26

retire or was he defeated by

8:28

REIT? REIT ran in REIT's

8:31

first senate victory, I think, was

8:33

nineteen eighty six.

8:35

Yes. That's correct. And I

8:38

don't know actually whether he that's a that's a

8:40

good point. I don't know whether he defeated

8:42

laxalt or just came into an empty

8:44

seat. But, Adam,

8:46

laxalt, we should say, did

8:48

a pretty effective job of setting

8:51

up

8:52

a kind of good and evil binary between

8:54

Republicans

8:55

and Democrats? Well, you

8:57

know, in campaigns, candidates

9:00

do these early in the campaign

9:02

season, introduction ads. Here's who I

9:04

am. And his ad

9:07

started out with his children playing

9:09

star wars, you know, in costume

9:11

with Star Wars, distinctive

9:14

toys. And then Laksol

9:16

comes on and says, I love Star Wars

9:18

because it's about good versus evil.

9:20

And that's what this election is

9:22

about. So, you know,

9:24

Cortez Masto is

9:26

relentlessly listing every

9:29

specific benefit that

9:31

she has been able to get

9:33

for people in Nevada and

9:36

laxalt at least at that stage of the

9:38

campaign was stressing

9:41

super big picture issues and

9:43

then this ad, you know, was showing

9:47

video of protests and cars

9:49

burning and things like that.

9:51

So it was it was a kind of

9:54

initially framed as a race

9:56

between the mundane we

9:59

deliver for you Democrats

9:59

and the dramatic

10:01

more culture war oriented Republicans.

10:04

Is are culture wars in this

10:07

climate what voters respond to,

10:09

whether that means they're frightened by

10:11

them or pushing back against them?

10:12

That's one of

10:15

the big questions. It's really hard to

10:17

tell. Now, one

10:19

thing we know for sure, the Democrats

10:22

essentially know Democrats are

10:24

running as culture warriors.

10:26

So in politics, you

10:29

know, elective politics. It's

10:31

the Republicans in this cycle who are

10:33

running as culture war Warriors.

10:36

They're the ones who are

10:39

accusing the Democrats of being culture

10:41

warriors. So if you

10:43

saw, you know, Rick

10:45

Rick DeSantis last night,

10:47

he he talked about wokeness. He's

10:49

mister anti wokeness won a

10:51

big victory being

10:53

reelected as governor of Florida.

10:57

I I didn't watch

10:59

every statement, but I bet anything

11:01

that not a single Democrat

11:03

who once said, I'm four

11:05

So it's a little

11:07

odd in that way. The the Republicans

11:11

stress the cultural appeal

11:13

as the

11:15

thing want their voters to understand about

11:18

Democrats. We're we're gonna protect

11:20

you from the Democratic culture

11:22

warriors. The Democrats essentially

11:25

never talk about this. I

11:26

don't want to get too far afield from what we're talking

11:28

about, but what do you think the Rhonda Santos

11:31

victory means for the prospects

11:34

of Donald Trump seeking another

11:36

term in the White House?

11:37

Well, yesterday

11:40

was not a good day for Donald Trump. burden

11:42

that last night was not a good night for

11:44

Donald Trump.

11:47

Let's imagine that there's such

11:49

thing as the Republican establishment.

11:51

And let's imagine that they're

11:54

having a meeting in the Republican

11:56

establishment boardroom today.

11:58

I know that's little bit of a fantasy, but

11:59

if there were such a meeting, I

12:02

think what would be on

12:04

the table at that meeting is

12:06

how do we

12:07

get president Trump not

12:09

to run again and just sort

12:11

of minimize him in the party. Because

12:14

at this point, you know, the president

12:17

Biden is still quite unpopular.

12:19

That's why you didn't see

12:21

him out on the trail,

12:23

painting very much except in a couple

12:25

places, and why the

12:27

candidates, I covered, didn't talk about him a

12:29

lot. And the

12:31

party when well ahead

12:33

of president Biden. The

12:35

Republican side, the party

12:37

ran well ahead of president Trump,

12:39

and some of the Republican

12:41

can that it's who lost,

12:43

seemed to be, you know,

12:45

people who were the Republican nominee

12:47

because president Trump wanted them

12:49

to be and then they lost like

12:51

doctor Oz. So

12:53

I suspect there's a lot

12:56

of anxiety in

12:58

the senior levels of the party

13:00

about the prospect of Trump running again

13:03

and, you know, conversely,

13:06

kind of a lot of enthusiasm for

13:09

governor DeSantis running instead of

13:11

Trump?

13:12

Nobody loves a mid term

13:14

first term president, is Joe Biden

13:17

particularly toxic to the

13:19

prospects of the democrats at this point, or is he just

13:21

in the same position any president would be

13:23

at this stage? toxic

13:25

seems like a very strong word.

13:27

His his

13:29

his approval rating is

13:32

pretty low, and his disapproval

13:34

rating is pretty high. But

13:38

toxic

13:38

makes it sound like

13:40

there are people out there who

13:43

dislike

13:43

him in a very visceral,

13:46

strong, personal way. And

13:48

I'm not seeing that come through

13:50

in campaigns I've seen

13:52

or in poll results that I've

13:54

seen.

13:57

Honestly, I think some of his unpopularity

13:59

may be, but that people think he's

14:02

too old for the job. And

14:04

it may be that he won so narrowly.

14:07

and it may be that he's subject

14:09

to relentless attacks from

14:11

president Trump. But

14:13

the you know,

14:15

one of the big questions coming out of the

14:18

midterm is, what's he gonna do? I

14:20

I personally would not be shocked

14:22

if he gets up

14:25

sometime in the next three months

14:27

and says, you know, I've

14:29

decided not to run for reelection.

14:30

The big question there

14:33

is who else the Democrats

14:35

have? Well,

14:36

let me say first, if

14:38

you

14:38

go back if you go online

14:41

and find everything he's

14:43

ever said about whether he's

14:45

gonna run again and

14:47

read it really carefully word for

14:49

word. It's my sense that

14:51

those statements have been softer

14:54

in the last six months

14:56

than they were. earlier. He

14:58

used to say I'm running, and

15:00

he now says, I think I'm gonna

15:02

run or I intend to run,

15:04

that kind of thing. If

15:06

I were him, I you know, he's

15:08

turning eighty any minute, it

15:12

would be awfully tempting to

15:14

use this election as a

15:16

way to say it's

15:18

been a great run, and

15:21

I'm gonna leave the field a

15:23

winner. You

15:26

know, so that that wouldn't

15:27

surprise me. I'm obviously speculating.

15:30

Who who else is out there? The vice

15:32

president would be at the top of the list,

15:34

Kamala Harris. Gavin

15:37

Newsom of California seems to

15:39

be sort

15:39

of pre running of

15:42

Pete

15:42

Buttigieg. She's named me here a

15:45

lot, and he's been, you

15:47

know, kind of positioning himself of

15:49

as centrist and

15:51

going around the country as

15:54

the deliverer of the

15:56

benefit bit of the big infrastructure

15:59

bill. You know, he's gone to a lot of

16:01

ribbon cuttings for bridges

16:03

and things like that. the

16:06

people I wrote about, the Democrats in New

16:08

Hampshire who were not

16:10

very eager to have Joe Biden come to

16:12

their state were very eager

16:14

to have he Buttigieg come

16:16

to their state, which he

16:18

did. Then there's

16:20

some people who were in last time.

16:22

So Senator Amy Klobuchar

16:25

of of Minnesota, senator

16:27

Cory Booker of New Jersey.

16:30

Then there's governor Gretchen with

16:32

Whitmer of Michigan

16:34

who won a pretty convincing

16:36

victory and, you know, the party

16:38

has a tradition of choosing

16:40

governors as successful presidential

16:43

nominees. So, you know,

16:45

that's

16:45

why I think president Biden has to

16:47

decide soon. and

16:50

that'll kind of open up the

16:52

field. If at

16:53

least some, you know, democrats

16:56

of national prominence have moved

16:58

away from talking about

17:00

cultural issues or focusing on these

17:02

things. What would you characterize as the

17:04

most significant divisions within

17:06

the Democratic Party it's not quite as simple

17:08

as progressives versus centrist. Howard

17:11

Bauchner:

17:11

Yeah, I think a much more useful

17:14

division than progressives and centrist

17:16

is college educated,

17:18

noncollege educated, which is

17:21

really turning out to be you

17:23

know, at this moment, the great divide,

17:25

class divide, if you will,

17:27

in American life today.

17:30

And you know, if you go back

17:32

to fifty

17:33

years ago, you

17:36

wouldn't be that far wrong if you

17:38

said, well, people with college degrees or Republicans

17:40

and people who don't have college degrees

17:42

or Democrats, and that's kind of

17:44

how American politics works.

17:48

That's really not true anymore.

17:50

So the Democrats have

17:52

tremendously

17:52

added added

17:54

to

17:54

their power and strength

17:56

among college educated voters

17:59

while losing noncollege

18:01

educated voters to their Republicans,

18:03

and that includes minority voters. So,

18:06

you know, the problem for the Democrats

18:08

is only about a third

18:10

of the voters have a college degree

18:13

and two thirds don't. And,

18:15

you know, they're not making college any

18:17

more affordable. So you

18:20

know, a scenario where we go to a

18:23

being a country where two thirds of the people have

18:25

college degrees would be

18:27

very favorable to the Democrats as

18:29

they're position now,

18:31

but that's not on on

18:33

the horizon. So there's a

18:35

real cleavage between the kinds of

18:37

issues that appeal to college educated voters

18:40

and the kinds of issues that appeal to

18:43

noncollege educated voters. And

18:46

there's a lot of them, but just to

18:48

highlight one would be trade.

18:50

College educated voters tend to

18:52

be overwhelmingly for free trade. High

18:54

school educated voters tend to be

18:57

overwhelmingly suspicious of

18:59

free trade as being, you

19:01

know, code for we're

19:03

gonna ship your job

19:05

overseas. So in this

19:08

view of how to

19:10

strengthen the Democrats in

19:12

the future, like the

19:14

original sin was president

19:16

Clinton's pushing through

19:19

NAFTA back in the nineties. and

19:22

and that that began the process of the

19:25

Democrats losing the loyalty of

19:27

working class or blue collar or

19:29

non college educated voters.

19:32

Are

19:32

there divisions within the Republican Party even

19:34

worth talking about beyond Trumpists

19:37

versus everybody else?

19:40

Yes.

19:40

that's a big exclamation

19:42

mark. The, you know, the

19:44

basics of American politics. The

19:46

weird thing about American politics is,

19:49

you know, the US has does

19:51

not mention political parties. And

19:53

the framers from what

19:55

we can tell didn't even think

19:56

there would be political parties.

19:59

But quickly there were political parties.

20:01

The democrats are the

20:03

oldest continuously operating major

20:06

political party in the world. We've had

20:08

the same two political parties in this

20:11

big huge crazy country

20:13

of ours. for,

20:15

you know, more than a hundred and fifty years,

20:18

hundred and sixty years. And

20:20

they're very evenly matched, you

20:22

know, when one moves

20:24

ahead, another moves ahead. So

20:27

what that means if you only have two

20:29

political parties is neither

20:31

party totally makes sense, and

20:33

each party has to be

20:35

a weird coalition of people who

20:37

don't agree with each other that

20:39

much. The fundamental split

20:41

in the Republican Party

20:43

is between, you know,

20:45

evangelical or fundamentalist

20:48

Christian voters often in

20:50

rural areas. And kind

20:54

of of business

20:55

interests that that's the

20:58

sort of tradition of the

21:00

party for all of the twentieth century.

21:02

And those are two groups that that

21:04

have an uneasy truce, but they

21:06

don't have common cause on every

21:09

issue.

21:09

Of course, it's hard to

21:12

celebrate economic policy when

21:14

people look at rising prices? I mean,

21:16

how what does it take to communicate to voters

21:18

that two things can sort of be simultaneously

21:20

true? it's

21:21

hard. And and it's gonna get

21:24

harder because, you know, this

21:26

is the headwind coming into

21:28

the twenty twenty four election.

21:30

and what I would be worried about if I

21:33

were, you know, a Democratic party

21:35

strategist or something like that.

21:37

The Federal Reserve is

21:39

acting very aggressively to curb

21:41

inflation. So right

21:43

now, you have you know,

21:45

and this might be why the Democrats had a

21:47

pretty good day yesterday. yes, we

21:49

have high inflation. We also have very

21:51

low unemployment and a very

21:53

tight labor market. So

21:56

there used to be something called the

21:58

misery index that was inflation

21:59

plus unemployment, and that's

22:02

quite low now. by historic terms

22:04

because unemployment is so low.

22:06

But the process of the

22:08

Fed, you know, raising

22:09

interest rates to get rid of

22:12

inflation everybody agrees is gonna

22:14

lead to an increase

22:16

in unemployment and maybe a recession.

22:18

I mean, imagine you're a democratic

22:22

candidate or strategist or something.

22:24

You could have

22:26

twenty twenty four

22:28

being a full on

22:31

recession with significantly higher

22:34

unemployment than we have in the twenty

22:36

twenty two cycle. And you could

22:38

also have a situation where somehow,

22:41

the Republican establishment that I was

22:43

talking about earlier had

22:45

managed to persuade president Trump

22:47

to get out of the

22:49

way and somebody

22:52

who is more electable in

22:55

to to be the nominee in his

22:57

stead. And, you know, then

22:59

it would not look so great for

23:01

the Democrats. Did anybody

23:02

go to the polls yesterday

23:05

or during early voting thinking about

23:07

January sixth? Well,

23:09

well

23:10

okay, I live

23:12

on the fabled upper

23:14

west side of New York, maybe the

23:17

most liberal neighborhood in the country or one of

23:19

the few most liberal.

23:21

I can guarantee you. I

23:23

know my neighbors they went

23:25

to the polls about January sixth. How

23:28

many more neighborhoods are like

23:30

that? I'm not sure. There

23:32

was quote in my story in

23:34

the New Yorker but the Democrats from

23:36

Rusty Hicks, the Chair of the

23:38

Democratic Party in California where

23:40

he specifically said I

23:42

don't think the typical voter thinks

23:45

about January sixth in

23:47

the in the polling place.

23:50

It's much more about so called kitchen table

23:52

issues. How am I doing? Which

23:54

party cares about me? More? Which

23:56

party is doing more to, like, make

23:58

my life better? And I

24:01

I find that pretty persuasive.

24:03

You know, I didn't see

24:07

the the Democrats I Watch campaigning really

24:09

played down January

24:11

sixth as their talking

24:13

point. They talked about you know,

24:15

other things more. How

24:18

will Republicans walk

24:20

away feeling after all

24:22

the votes are counted from yesterday's

24:25

elections. I mean, it's not it's not the,

24:27

you know,

24:28

sort of

24:29

train, you know,

24:31

crashing through a tunnel that a lot of people

24:34

expected, but they it looks like they will

24:36

pick up some seats, especially in the

24:38

house. Yeah. But

24:38

they had the Republicans had a

24:40

bad day yesterday. They really did. You

24:44

know,

24:44

given, you know, if you

24:46

have a blindfold on and and you

24:48

know the fundamentals, which

24:51

is you know, what

24:53

is

24:53

the perception of the economy and

24:56

how popular versus unpopular is

24:58

the sitting president? The

25:00

Republicans should have done much

25:02

better. The rule of

25:04

of midterms is would

25:07

indicate that that they

25:09

should have you know, had

25:10

a much bigger victory in the

25:13

House and have clearly flipped

25:15

the Senate. So,

25:17

you know, the big story of

25:20

yesterday today is that the Democrats did

25:22

much better than you would expect them to

25:24

do given the circumstances. The

25:27

last most similar

25:30

midterm

25:30

election was two thousand two,

25:32

but that was a very special

25:35

circumstance because we were

25:37

still you know, in the shock

25:39

of the two thousand one attacks.

25:41

And president Bush was

25:44

still very, very popular

25:46

as the you know, nine

25:48

eleven president. So

25:50

I think Republicans are

25:52

sitting around today kind of

25:54

doing a lot of soul searching about what went

25:57

wrong. And, you know, their

25:59

answer

26:00

one one version of their answer

26:02

is gonna be that we ran too many unelectable

26:06

candidates. So their concerns

26:07

-- Mhmm. -- excuse me, for go ahead.

26:10

In I

26:10

mean, just as an example, we didn't talk about

26:13

this yet. The Democrats I

26:15

wrote about one of the things

26:17

they

26:17

do is and

26:19

they're pretty unapologetic about it,

26:21

is get involved in Republican

26:24

primaries to try to make the

26:26

least electable candidate, the nominee.

26:28

And that worked extremely well

26:30

in New Hampshire where

26:32

senator Hassan defeated a

26:35

guy named Don Balduck

26:37

who had never run for office before. He's

26:39

a retired general. An

26:42

early ad was he looks right in the

26:44

camera and he says, are you

26:46

sick of liberal socialist panzis

26:48

running this country? I am.

26:51

So, you know, he was her

26:53

dream opponent and and

26:55

and I think maybe the

26:57

Republicans are sitting around today saying

27:00

how do we make sure not

27:02

to have nominees for major

27:04

offices like Donald Bolton?

27:06

You don't

27:07

see Republicans soul

27:10

searching with regard to

27:12

messaging or with regard to

27:15

maybe discouraging candidates from appealing

27:17

primarily to the Republican base rather

27:19

than others who might, you know, flip

27:21

back and forth between elections?

27:23

We're speculating, obviously, but

27:25

my speculation would be

27:28

that the prevailing attitude would

27:30

be, you know,

27:31

people like governors,

27:33

like Glenn Youngkin in

27:35

Virginia, and we're on DeSantis

27:37

in Florida have found

27:40

what seems like the magic formula

27:42

at the moment, which is

27:45

you know, learn the lessons

27:47

of Donald Trump

27:49

with regard to culture

27:52

wars. Don't assure

27:53

that, but also

27:56

have a more sort of

27:58

button down

28:00

you know, trust

28:03

trust inspiring manner and

28:05

make peace with the business

28:07

wing of the party.

28:10

two politicians I mentioned look

28:12

like, you know, and I was talking

28:14

before about the Republicans having

28:16

an unwieldy coalition of

28:19

business and kind

28:21

of fundamentalist and more

28:23

culturally oriented voters.

28:26

And and

28:26

governor Youngkin and governor DeSantis

28:28

seem to have a way to pull those two

28:31

groups together in a

28:32

way that president Trump didn't.

28:35

How

28:35

did mid term

28:38

Democratic candidates in yesterday's elections

28:41

try to manage both critiquing

28:43

Trumpism and also appealing

28:45

to voters who pick Donald Trump and

28:48

his retinue since twenty

28:50

sixteen?

28:50

I think on,

28:53

you know, staying away from

28:55

Trumpism, I mean, that's pretty

28:58

easy just by not, you

29:00

know,

29:01

getting up and making these extravagant

29:04

and and super aggressive

29:06

statements that that he makes

29:08

and that he somehow gets

29:10

away with. I don't see any Democrats

29:13

doing that. But I think

29:16

that, you know, I talked to

29:17

a lot of people for this story

29:20

and a theme I heard consistently

29:23

was we have learned

29:25

a lot from

29:27

the success of Donald

29:30

Trump at

29:30

taking what we thought of

29:32

as Democratic voters away from us. And

29:34

as I said earlier, these include a

29:37

lot of minority voters, especially

29:39

Latino voters. So

29:42

you you see the

29:44

effect of Trump in the,

29:46

you know, very very strong

29:49

emphasis on kind of blue

29:51

collar ordinary family

29:54

issues, emphasis on patriotism, emphasis

29:57

on family you know,

29:59

know

29:59

skepticism of free trade, things

30:02

like that. In Maggie

30:04

Hasson's case, very vocal

30:07

system of which is a Trump issue.

30:10

So so, you

30:12

know, the there's a feeling

30:13

of the Democratic party that

30:17

there's

30:17

stuff we weren't

30:19

doing

30:21

the ring before this

30:22

before and during the twenty sixteen

30:24

election when he was elected president.

30:27

that we're now learning how

30:29

to do again. You do

30:31

mention in the piece that Roe Connor,

30:33

who just won another term for his house seat

30:36

in California, has talked about the importance of the

30:38

Democrats selling a new

30:40

economic patriotism. What

30:42

would that look like? Well,

30:44

again, it's you

30:47

know, we haven't used the word

30:49

globalization yet, so let's throw that

30:51

in there. there's

30:54

a huge, and not

30:56

just in the US, but all over the

30:58

world, political

31:00

rebellion against globalization. that's

31:03

been going on really

31:05

since the two thousand and

31:07

eight financial crisis.

31:10

And it's visible just

31:12

about everywhere. And I think that's

31:14

what congresswoman Connor is

31:16

is really talking about is,

31:18

you know, the democrats

31:21

embrace globalization as

31:23

being, you know, kind of good for

31:25

everybody and are

31:27

now, you

31:29

know, adopting a policy see where,

31:32

you

31:32

know, to be very concrete,

31:35

we're not the party that

31:37

ships your job overseas. But,

31:41

you know, there's a kind of broader

31:43

language that goes along with that. But the

31:45

heart of economic patriotism

31:47

is he means I think is the idea that

31:49

the Democrats would be a

31:51

party that would promote taking

31:54

blue

31:54

collar jobs and sending them to

31:57

other countries. throwing Americans

31:59

out of work. My

32:00

guest, Nicholas Lemmon, is a staff

32:02

writer for the New Yorker, where you can read his article,

32:04

the Democrats' midterm challenge.

32:07

Nicholas, this has been very interesting. Thanks for making

32:09

time to talk with us.

32:10

Thank you. I've enjoyed it. You

32:12

can find us on Facebook, Twitter,

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and Instagram. You can subscribe to our

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32:19

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32:25

KERA dot org. Again, I'm

32:28

Chris Boyd. Thanks for listening. Have a

32:30

great day.