0:01

Welcome to Politicology. I'm Ron

0:03

Steslow. A couple of decades

0:05

ago, a landmark book titled The

0:07

Emerging Democratic Majority predicted

0:09

that America was on its way to a bright blue

0:11

future, thanks to an inevitable

0:14

demographic shift that would deliver

0:16

the party a dominant, durable political

0:18

coalition. In fact, Barack Obama's

0:20

overwhelming victory in 2008 was

0:22

seen as ultimate proof of this theory, that

0:25

demographics was destiny, that this

0:27

coalition would allow Democrats to dominate

0:29

the electoral college well into the future. But

0:32

then Trump happened. And

0:34

his victory not only blew up that

0:37

coalition, it highlighted the rising

0:39

power of negative partisanship, with

0:41

anti-Trump sentiment, quite rightly, becoming a

0:44

unifying force for Democrats. This

0:46

raises an essential question. If

0:49

you were to peel back opposition to Trump and

0:51

Trumpism, what truly defines the

0:53

Democratic Party today? And

0:55

with the Republican Party infected

0:57

with extremism and embarrassingly unable

0:59

to govern, why are

1:02

Democrats winning sustainable majorities? Why

1:04

is the Democratic Party losing ground with

1:06

some of the core parts of the

1:08

coalition that was supposed to guarantee its

1:11

political dominance? Now,

1:13

20 years later, the authors of that

1:15

famous book are answering exactly that question

1:17

in a new book. Where

1:19

have all the Democrats gone? The

1:22

soul of the party in the age of extremes?

1:25

In this two-part series, we're going to get right

1:27

to the heart of the Democratic Party's identity crisis

1:29

and its electoral vulnerabilities and opportunities

1:31

with the one and only Rui

1:33

Tashira. Rui

1:35

was a senior fellow at the Center

1:38

for American Progress for nearly two decades,

1:40

and he's now a nonresident senior fellow

1:42

at the American Enterprise Institute. He's a

1:44

leading expert in the transformation of party

1:46

coalitions and the future of American politics.

1:48

Rui holds a PhD and MS

1:50

in sociology from the University of

1:52

Wisconsin-Madison, and he's appeared on CBS

1:55

News, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, and PBS,

1:57

and has published in the Atlantic.

2:00

The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and

2:02

The Washington Post. He's also

2:04

the co-editor of The Liberal Patriot on Substack.

2:07

This turned out to be a very long conversation, so

2:09

we're putting it out in two parts. Here

2:12

in part one, Rui and I discussed the

2:14

Democratic Party's struggle to win sustainable majorities and

2:16

why that's more than just a messaging problem

2:19

or the result of Fox News. We

2:21

talk about the changing party coalitions and

2:23

how the Democrats became the party of

2:26

the elites and the corresponding shift in

2:28

priorities away from the concerns

2:30

of working class voters and toward those

2:32

of a more liberal base of college-educated

2:34

elites. We talk about

2:36

their untenably relaxed posture on

2:38

immigration and how that hasn't translated

2:40

to more support among Hispanic voters.

2:42

In fact, they're trending the opposite

2:44

direction. And we

2:46

talk generally about how alignment

2:48

with culturally radical positions is

2:50

alienating working class voters. And

2:53

in part two, which will be out

2:56

next Wednesday, we dive into some specific

2:58

areas, like the shift toward identity politics

3:00

and how it's changing the party's approach

3:03

to race and civil rights. We talk

3:05

about radical approaches to transgender rights, the

3:07

change in environmental policy from responsible

3:10

stewardship to the more extreme positions

3:12

of the Green New Deal. Then

3:15

we get into the rise in independent voters,

3:17

what it really means, and how

3:19

it should impact political strategy. And

3:21

finally, whether it's even possible

3:23

for structural reforms in our political system

3:25

to improve the health of our democracy.

3:29

And now here's part one of my discussion

3:31

with Rui Teshara. Rui,

3:34

welcome back to Politicology. Hey,

3:37

thanks for having me, Ron. This should

3:39

be a very interesting conversation at a

3:41

very interesting time. So

3:47

before we dive into the book, which, as I

3:49

mentioned, I just finished reading over the weekend,

3:51

so it's all very fresh for me. Why

3:53

don't we remind listeners about where you're

3:55

coming from, your career, what led you

3:58

to writing this book? Okay,

4:03

well, obviously I have an academic background, but I

4:05

did go into kind of the think tank world

4:07

and as things evolved,

4:10

I wound up at

4:12

the Center for American Progress really when it

4:15

started, which was 2003, which became sort of

4:17

the premier and most well-funded

4:19

center-left think tank. And

4:23

I wrote, as I was coming into

4:25

that organization, coming out of the Century

4:27

Foundation, another liberal foundation, I wrote a

4:29

book called America's Forgotten Majority, Why the

4:32

White Working Class Still Matters. And

4:35

that's been a continuing theme of mine

4:37

in my writings, is try to apprise

4:41

people on the center-left of the

4:43

realities of the American electorate and

4:45

how important, for example, working-class voters,

4:48

especially white working-class voters still are.

4:50

Now, in 2002, I wrote a

4:52

more well-known book with John Judas

4:54

called The Emerging Democratic Majority, and

4:56

in that book, we sort

5:00

of took stock of all the changes that

5:02

were happening in the American political

5:04

terrain, demographic, ideological, economic,

5:08

and we basically thought that those

5:10

changes were creating a playing field

5:12

that was favorable for the Democrats

5:14

and that they could conceivably build

5:16

a dominant majority on since their

5:19

kind of politics was probably closer to where

5:21

the country was moving than the

5:23

Republicans, and that if they

5:26

played their cards right and practiced this sort

5:28

of progressive centrism, they might do

5:30

very well indeed. But back to the first

5:33

book I mentioned, we actually made a big

5:35

point in the emerging democratic majority of reminding

5:38

people, hey, look, the

5:40

white working class is still

5:42

a huge demographic, you know, 45 percent

5:45

of the country at the time, you

5:48

can't afford to lose too many votes in

5:50

that sector if the Democrats

5:52

continue to lose altitude among that group,

5:54

the whole political arithmetic is

5:56

thrown off. You needed to, you

5:58

know, keep about 40 percent. of that vote,

6:01

maybe nationwide, 45 and some of the

6:03

key Rust Belt states where the white working

6:05

class vote looms so large. And

6:07

just generally trying to make people

6:10

understand that nothing's automatic

6:12

about these changes. They won't

6:14

automatically deliver a sustainable majority.

6:17

It has to be done in

6:19

the right kind of way with some

6:21

smart strategy and politics. Now

6:24

in 2008 when Obama gets elected

6:26

in that sort of landslide, mind's

6:28

up for the trifecta, you

6:31

look at the underlying support he got in that election

6:33

and it did sort of look like what we talked

6:35

about came true because we talked

6:37

about in the book about the rise

6:39

of the non-white population, the realignment of

6:41

professionals to the Democrats, the transformation

6:44

of the women's vote, the dominance

6:46

of dynamic metropolitan areas we call the idiopolis

6:48

in a lot of areas of the country

6:50

that are changing the politics of a lot

6:52

of key states. And

6:55

all of that seemed to be in line with how

6:57

Obama did. However,

7:00

2010 everything comes crashing down.

7:03

The Democrats lose 63 seats. Obama

7:06

does manage to get reelected in 2012. But

7:11

one thing happened in 2012 that

7:13

reflected the way people misinterpreted 2008

7:15

as well. There

7:18

was a really important role for the white working

7:20

class in both of those victories. And

7:22

in fact, Obama doesn't come back and win in 2012

7:25

without grabbing some of those white

7:28

working class voters back that the Democrats lost

7:30

in 2010 in the upper Midwest. Completely

7:33

disregarded. And after 2012 the

7:35

basic mantra of the Democratic Party seems to

7:37

become despite getting their ass kicked

7:39

in 2014, you

7:42

know, the rising American electorate, the coalition of

7:44

the ascendant, we've got this, we're on our

7:46

way. The important thing is

7:48

just to press our foot to the

7:50

accelerator, make sure our voters get to the polls and

7:52

everything will work out. Well, in 2016 it didn't. And

7:57

you know, John and I, John Judis and I were...

8:00

watching some of these developments and sort

8:02

of shaking our head, and I was doing

8:04

this even while I was at the Center for American Progress

8:06

trying to remind people, look, American politics

8:08

so much more complicated than you think. There's

8:10

so many other moving parts here. We don't

8:13

have this. In fact, there's key

8:15

weaknesses in the Democratic coalition that can really

8:17

come back to bite you. And

8:19

in 2016, of course, that does happen. Trump

8:22

does well enough in the Midwest, swinging

8:25

a lot of white working class voters his way

8:27

enough to get the election. And really

8:29

2016 is a bit of a cut point, both

8:32

for my work at the American Progress

8:34

and our thinking between

8:37

John Judas and myself, because it

8:39

was very apparent that after that election,

8:42

the way that election was summed

8:44

up by people in and

8:46

around the Democratic Party, the dominant interpretation

8:48

was, this is all about racial resentment

8:51

and xenophobia, status threat. It's

8:54

completely understandable why anyone would vote for

8:56

Donald Trump unless they were motivated by

8:59

these reactionary sentiments. And

9:01

therefore, what could you do? I

9:03

mean, we're the Democratic Party. We're the Progressive Party.

9:06

We can't worry too much about appealing to those

9:08

kinds of voters. And

9:10

I thought that was a big mistake, that in fact,

9:13

this working class-sized hole that was appearing

9:15

in the Democratic coalition getting worse fundamentally

9:18

compromised their ability to form a dominant

9:20

majority, fundamentally compromised to the kind of

9:22

party they were and they were becoming.

9:25

And I think we saw that strengthen throughout the

9:27

teens, and we see it in the early

9:29

20s as well, that flash forward to some

9:32

of the themes of the book, the

9:34

Democrats have increasingly become the party

9:36

of liberalish college-educated elites and much

9:38

less the party of the working class. And

9:42

we saw that especially in 2020 and forward

9:45

when Democrats not only continue to get

9:47

crushed among the white working class, but

9:49

they're significantly and steadily losing

9:51

altitude among non-white working

9:53

class voters, particularly Hispanic working class

9:56

voters. So that's some

9:58

of the developments that led me to... question

10:01

where the Democrats are coming

10:04

from, questioning the whole orientation

10:06

of the Center for American Progress,

10:08

which like other left-leaning institutions, they

10:10

came in increasingly insular, increasingly

10:13

dogmatic, increasingly singing from the same

10:15

hymnbook all the time, hashtag resistance,

10:17

all that jazz. And they just

10:19

seem to lose interest in a lot of the ways that

10:22

American politics is really working itself out and losing

10:24

interest, I thought, in working-class voters

10:26

writ large. And I

10:28

just couldn't take it anymore.

10:31

So I

10:33

started, I had always gotten along with the

10:36

people at the American Enterprise Institute, because they're

10:38

smart conservatives, and I never hated conservatives the

10:40

way a lot of my colleagues

10:42

did. I never viewed them as handmaidens of Satan.

10:44

I thought they were people at different point of

10:46

view. And I was going to argue

10:48

with them, and we could have a discussion. But

10:51

it turned out I couldn't have

10:53

a discussion anymore at the Center for American Progress, but

10:55

I could have one at the

10:57

American Enterprise Institute, which to its

10:59

credit remains an actual think

11:02

tank, where people do actual thinking,

11:04

and they write books, and they're actual

11:06

scholars. I mean, they're mostly center-right, clearly,

11:09

but hey, that's okay. We're all

11:11

entitled to our point of view, so long as

11:13

we can discuss those points of view. So I

11:16

find it a much more congenial atmosphere than

11:18

I found at the Center for American Progress.

11:21

And indeed, that I observed throughout the

11:23

left infrastructure, which I say became increasingly

11:26

insular and closed in in itself. Well,

11:29

I'm no stranger to what can

11:31

happen when you tell inconvenient

11:33

truths to your own tribe that they really don't

11:35

want to hear. I want

11:42

to go back to that point you made about 2016 as sort

11:44

of a turning point, because this paragraph stuck out to me

11:46

in the book, which really

11:50

chafes at the narrative about

11:52

Trump voters. You're writing,

11:54

while some Trump voters in 2016 were highly

11:57

reactionary, there was a couple of

11:59

political scientists who showed showed that Trump's

12:01

improvement over Romney was primarily

12:03

attributable to increased support among

12:05

voters with racially moderate views.

12:07

Trump's voters were actually less

12:09

xenophobic, less sexist, had lower

12:12

levels of racial resentment, and

12:14

were more tolerant on average

12:16

than Romney's supporters. Clinton's

12:18

loss revealed the weaknesses in the Democrats' vision

12:20

of the new American majority.

12:25

Can you

12:28

explain, maybe some of the numbers would help,

12:31

if you can recall, paint that picture

12:34

for us, and why we came away

12:36

from 2016 with the idea

12:38

that this was all down to race?

12:40

Why did Democrats come away with that

12:42

idea? And sort of how did it

12:44

get so entrenched in the dogmatism that

12:46

you described it, Cap? Well,

12:49

between 2012 and 2016, an

12:52

inconvenient thing happened for that whole

12:54

thesis about racial resentment. Basically,

12:57

it went down between

12:59

those two points. So it makes it

13:02

an implausible nominee for driving that whole

13:04

2016 election. Another thing

13:06

that's important about racial resentment,

13:09

so-called, is that it's based

13:11

in a scale that political scientists

13:13

like to use that

13:15

includes questions like, Irish and

13:17

Italians worked their way up without any

13:19

special favors, black people should do the

13:22

same. And there's few other

13:24

questions like that. Now, if

13:26

you think about what that question

13:28

asks, or that statement says, it's

13:30

basically a generic, conservative view of

13:33

the avenues to upward mobility, that people

13:35

should get ahead without special favors. No,

13:37

it's really, it is endorsing discrimination. It's

13:40

just a point of view about social

13:42

mobility. But that scale,

13:45

is in an sort of

13:47

uncomplicated way used to indicate

13:49

racism among sort

13:51

of ordinary people. The reason why they do

13:54

that is because if you ask questions that

13:56

are actually about what we might

13:58

have think of traditionally as racism, You don't

14:00

get almost any people at all because

14:03

the country's changed so much. Political

14:05

scientists landed on this as implicit racism.

14:09

One problem with this is that if

14:11

you look at the actual scale and

14:14

you substitute Lithuanians or Nepalese for blacks,

14:16

you get basically the same responses. Ryan

14:19

Enos and, forget the first

14:22

name of the guy named Carney, they

14:24

did an experiment where they

14:26

verified this. In fact, this is the case. Basically

14:29

what it has to do with this is in a sense

14:31

called just world belief as they termed it, rather

14:34

than racism per se, or at least you can certainly

14:36

question the extent to which it's

14:38

indicated racism. But that scale, this gets

14:40

back to the empirics of

14:42

that election in 2016 and why people

14:44

convince themselves so rapidly. Well, besides the

14:47

fact Trump was obviously a screwy

14:49

guy, he did say a lot of racist things.

14:51

But he also talked about trade, he talked about

14:53

runaway shops, he talked about immigration, he talked about

14:56

how the elites hate you and they're destroying your

14:58

communities. He talked about a lot of things, but

15:00

people fixate it on the idea it must all be

15:03

about race. But if

15:05

you looked at the individual level data from the 2016 election, what

15:07

was true is

15:10

that there was a stronger relationship

15:12

and a regression model between your

15:15

level of racial resentment and your

15:17

likelihood of voting for the Republican

15:20

candidate, particularly it had a

15:22

relationship to Obama to Trump voting. That's

15:27

not an accounting exercise, and this is where Marble

15:29

and Grimmer come in, whose research

15:31

I was quoting there. They showed that, yeah,

15:33

okay, well, that's true about the regression model,

15:35

but if you actually try to account for

15:38

the additional votes that Trump

15:40

actually obtained in 2016 relative

15:42

to Romney, it didn't explain anything. And in

15:44

fact, where those votes came from was from

15:47

a far different pool of voters than

15:49

people think of when they think about the idea,

15:51

oh, racial resentment drove the 2016 election. So

15:54

Marble and Grimmer were able to show that

15:56

the conventional story about these voters and how

15:58

they were all deployed. was completely

16:01

wrong. But you

16:03

know, I don't think that's the way most

16:06

Democrats summed it up. They gobbled up all

16:08

the regression studies about the role of racial

16:10

resentment in the process, I might add. And

16:12

this is something that always astounds me, Ron,

16:15

that this is a party that spent 40

16:18

years talking about the depredations of

16:20

neoliberalism, how it's destroying communities, how

16:22

the rich don't care about you,

16:24

how the whole model that we

16:26

run our economy on is broken

16:28

and it's crushing working-class people of

16:30

all races. And

16:33

then in 2016 they completely forgot about it.

16:35

It's like the only reason why anyone would vote for

16:37

a fire-breathing populace like Donald

16:39

Trump who denounced the elites was because

16:41

they're racist. And I thought this

16:44

was ridiculous. I mean, especially if you look

16:46

at the geographic pattern of where Trump got

16:48

those votes and where the Obama-Trump flippers were,

16:50

it was all in these areas that had

16:52

declined relative to the

16:54

overall economic progress of the United States that

16:56

were dependent on resource extraction, manufacturing, some of

16:58

the parts of the farming sector, and so

17:00

on. So to me it

17:02

was just astounding that immediately people would forget

17:05

about something they've been talking about for

17:07

decades and it actually would make fun

17:09

of the idea. Remember this whole shtick,

17:11

you know, like economic anxiety? We

17:15

know that has nothing to do with it. It's all

17:17

about racism. So I mean, I

17:19

just I couldn't believe it. But yeah,

17:23

that was definitely what took over,

17:25

had jeminized the Democratic mind. And

17:28

I dissented from that and I tried

17:30

to make those points within the Center for

17:32

American Progress and within the general left discourse.

17:35

But trust me on this, nobody was listening. They

17:37

did not want to hear it. Was

17:40

there some motivated reasoning going on there? Was

17:42

this just purely an innocent misreading of the

17:44

data? Oh clearly

17:46

there's motivated reasoning. I mean, look at

17:49

the way the whole Democratic Party was

17:51

evolving in terms of its attitudes toward

17:53

race and gender and other hot

17:56

button issues getting more and more liberal over

17:58

time. I mean, the Black Lives Matter movement

18:00

started in 2013. And

18:03

by the time Hillary was running against Bernie Sanders

18:05

in the 2016 primaries, she was

18:08

basically tripling down on

18:10

identity politics to push

18:13

people away from Bernie Sanders' class-oriented point

18:15

of view. I mean, she

18:17

would say, if we broke

18:20

up the big banks tomorrow, would it

18:22

end racism? If we taxed the billionaires

18:24

tomorrow, would it end sexism? We did

18:27

this and that, would it stop transphobia?

18:29

So she was very consciously trying

18:31

to attack Bernie Sanders from

18:33

the left and putting her chips down on

18:36

the whole rise of identity politics within

18:39

the Democratic Party, which of

18:41

course, in a primary election, is even

18:43

more important, much more important than it

18:45

is in a general election because the

18:47

people who vote in primaries and pay

18:49

attention to them are disproportionately the very

18:51

college-educated, liberalish people who are

18:53

increasingly vital part of the Democratic

18:55

coalition to become increasingly liberal on

18:57

all these issues. But of

18:59

course, that's not very importantly

19:01

where working-class people are coming from,

19:04

by and large, particularly white working-class

19:06

people. But as I

19:08

say increasingly, non-white working-class people

19:10

who just don't feel like they really

19:12

want to or need to sign up with a

19:14

lot of these boutique cultural issues to

19:17

be, quote, progressive, unquote. Yeah.

19:20

I think there's, especially about non-white

19:23

working-class voters, there's been a low

19:25

refrigerator hum of acknowledgement, especially recently,

19:27

that the Democratic Party is struggling

19:29

with that demographic. There's also a lot

19:32

of people within the party yelling about how it

19:34

isn't really happening. And

19:36

a lot of people ignoring the signs. We've

19:39

talked about this a fair amount on this podcast. Can you

19:41

give us a sense of what the 2020 election

19:43

and the 2020 midterms showed

19:46

about support for Democrats? Because

19:48

those two elections in particular have been

19:50

held up as evidence that there's nothing

19:52

really to worry about here. Right.

19:55

Nothing to see here. Yeah. Well,

19:57

in 2020, I mean, it is in contra-vro-

20:00

And I think most people acknowledge that

20:02

at this point that there was a

20:05

very substantial falloff in support among non-white

20:07

voters for Democrats, particularly

20:09

non-white working-class voters. If you look

20:11

at the sort of gold standard catalyst

20:13

data, the

20:16

Democrats' advantage among Hispanic non-college voters

20:18

declined by 20 points between the

20:20

two elections. That's a lot.

20:23

It happened all over the country. It happened with

20:25

all kinds of Hispanic working-class voters. So

20:29

that is uncontrovertible, I think,

20:31

about that election. Now, of course, Democrats, you

20:33

know, Biden managed to squeak through, so what's

20:35

the problem? And I think that

20:39

there was sort of a evolving view among

20:41

about the 2020 election. And,

20:45

well, even these Hispanic working-class voters, they're the more

20:47

conservative ones who showed up, and we didn't do

20:49

a good job of getting our Hispanics to the

20:51

poll. And sort of a lot of

20:53

hand waving about, it doesn't really mean

20:55

what you think it means, by either losing

20:58

non-white working-class voters. Now in 2022,

21:01

in 2023, we see the Democrats do well

21:03

in midterms and special elections, and

21:06

I think there's an increasing consensus among not

21:08

the hack analysts, but the real analysts

21:10

that a big part of this performance

21:13

has to do with the

21:15

way the Democrats' coalition is

21:18

now purpose-built for low turnout

21:20

elections. I mean, these are like great

21:22

for the current Democratic Party coalition, which

21:24

no longer is hurt by

21:27

low turnout. It's helped because the very people

21:29

who show up in these kinds

21:31

of elections who are motivated to vote

21:33

in less high turnout elections are the

21:35

most educated, most engaged part of

21:38

the population, and they

21:40

have become so heavily Democratic or

21:42

Democratic-leaning that, in fact, you're actually in

21:44

pretty good shape if

21:46

turnout is low. In fact, the lower it is, arguably,

21:49

the better it is for you, which,

21:51

of course, is a complete reverse in

21:53

the way people used to think about the Democratic

21:55

and Republican parties, that Democrats are, in fact,

21:58

hurt by low turnout. more. Okay,

22:01

so what we're looking for as we go

22:03

to 2024 is we'll have a lot more

22:05

peripheral voters to show up in the voting pool. All

22:07

the data show that peripheral voters, people who didn't vote

22:09

in 2022, 2023, people voted

22:13

in 2020, but not in 2022. All

22:15

of these voters are in

22:17

fact more conservative, less ideological, more inclined

22:19

to give Trump a listen and

22:21

not in the wheelhouse of the

22:24

currently existing Democratic Party.

22:27

And that's what the polls are showing

22:29

now, right? If you look, for example,

22:31

at the Democrats' advantage among Hispanics, now

22:33

it's averaging in the low, the

22:35

high single digits, right? Eight, nine

22:38

points. That's a disastrous falloff

22:40

from where they were in 2020, which in

22:42

turn was a disastrous falloff from 2016. So

22:45

something's going on here. We see black

22:47

voters, particularly black male voters

22:50

voting for or saying they're going to vote

22:52

for Trump at relatively high rates compared to

22:55

historical patterns. All of this stuff

22:57

is going on. And the way

22:59

Democrats wave that

23:01

away is, well, that's

23:05

the people who are answering polls right now.

23:07

The only poll that really counts is the

23:09

horrible trope. The only poll

23:11

that counts is on election day. And on

23:13

election day, people realize the

23:16

choice between Trump and Biden, which is

23:18

now coming into focus. So

23:21

we're going to stop casting, in a

23:23

sense, protest votes through how they respond

23:25

to polls. We'll actually

23:27

have our mobilization going

23:30

on all eight cylinders, and everything

23:32

will turn out okay. Well,

23:34

maybe. But the simplest interpretation

23:36

of bad polling data is it's bad.

23:39

The simplest interpretation of your running 10 or

23:42

15 points behind where you were in 2020 among

23:45

Hispanic voters is you are running 10

23:47

or 15 points behind. And therefore, maybe

23:49

you need to actually figure

23:51

out a way to get those voters to give

23:53

you a look, change their minds. You

23:57

have to persuade them. And one

23:59

thing Democrats have lost... interest in, in an

24:01

odd sort of way, is persuasion. They

24:03

don't seem to have a lot of faith that

24:05

they can convert people who are now

24:07

toying with Trump or the Republicans into

24:10

Democrats by persuasion, by convincing

24:12

them the things they're told

24:14

about the Democrats aren't true,

24:16

that they are tough on immigration and

24:18

crime, that they do care about inflation

24:21

or whatever. I mean, I'm

24:23

not saying any of this is easy to convert

24:25

voters who are now toying with Trump into

24:28

Democratic voters, but, you know, at least focus

24:30

on the target here, which is

24:32

to change their minds, not just

24:34

like assume they won't show up. Yeah.

24:37

Yeah. It's either it's

24:39

either persuasion or mobilization. When mobilization is

24:42

your, your only, your only objective,

24:45

especially in low tenet, if, if, if the,

24:47

if the physics of low turnout elections have

24:49

completely changed and you have to focus on,

24:52

on persuasion and they're

24:55

not doing that. Yeah.

24:57

That's my view that at least they're not

24:59

doing very well. I mean, I think reluctantly

25:01

they have to engage after a while, but

25:03

I think they, they prefer a story that's

25:05

more comforting, which is that everything will turn

25:07

out all right in the end, provided

25:09

we turn everything up to

25:11

12 in our rhetoric and press the

25:14

mobilization accelerator. Okay. I

25:18

want to spend plenty of time on several big

25:20

issue areas where Democrats, you are, you especially need

25:22

to do that. Before we do, I want to

25:24

just talk about this term shadow parties that you

25:27

introduced in the book, because I think it's particularly

25:29

useful. There are groups

25:32

that make up both Republican and Democratic

25:34

shadow parties. Who

25:36

are they? How do they operate? And

25:40

specifically, how does the Democratic shadow party change

25:42

from the Carter era to now, which you

25:44

trace very well in the book? Right.

25:48

Well, I mean, back in the day,

25:50

back in Jimmy Carter's day, you know,

25:53

the Democratic party if it had a shadow party,

25:56

it wasn't the kind of shadow party we

25:58

have today, but you know, of

26:01

labor-oriented intellectuals and labor itself. Labor

26:04

used to be really important in setting the tone

26:06

for the Democratic Party and culture. No

26:09

more, that really has disappeared very

26:11

significantly over time. And what

26:13

has grown up in the latter part of the 20th

26:15

century and into the 21st is

26:19

this penumbra of foundations,

26:22

activists, nonprofit

26:24

groups, advocacy groups, huge chunks of

26:26

academia, huge chunks of the media.

26:30

Influential intellectuals who have a certain

26:32

point of view on what

26:34

the Democratic Party should be. And that's

26:37

where the money is, to

26:39

a large extent. I mean, that's where

26:41

the influence is, that's where the discourse is.

26:44

I mean, one way I think about it, Ron, is

26:46

basically educated elites

26:49

who are lean liberal on a lot

26:51

of these issues that I'm sure we'll get into. They

26:55

control the commanding heights of cultural production

26:57

in this country. They're the ones who

26:59

set the tone for good, honest,

27:01

decent people who are Democrats in terms of how

27:03

they think about the world. And they have

27:05

a huge influence on politicians, they have

27:08

a huge influence on primary voters, they

27:11

have a huge influence on the image of

27:13

the Democratic Party, how it's perceived by ordinary

27:15

voters. Their voices

27:17

are very loud. And of course, one

27:19

thing that's totally turbocharged, this

27:21

rise of the shadow party, besides the

27:23

money and influence behind it, is social

27:25

media. I mean, that

27:27

has provided an avenue through which the

27:30

shadow party and the activists

27:32

associated with it and the groups associated

27:34

with it can put pressure on

27:36

the Democratic Party and on politicians to toe

27:39

the line and in a sense

27:41

control the discourse. So that

27:43

influence of the shadow party takes

27:45

the Democrats away from its

27:47

historic connections to and commitment

27:49

to the working class. Because a

27:52

lot of these, basically

27:54

with the shadow party writ large, that's

27:56

not their priority. There are

27:58

many, many issues. that parts

28:00

of the shadow party are committed to that are

28:02

not about helping the working class

28:04

or not as even as without winning elections i

28:07

mean they're they're basically very committed to

28:10

the vector of values and issues that

28:12

they think are really important and

28:14

double take the high most in the democratic

28:16

party is their vehicle for bringing

28:18

those things to fruition and

28:21

that's really their priority not the party as

28:23

a whole and certainly not the working class

28:26

so i think that's made a huge difference

28:28

in the democratic party image ordinary voters i

28:30

think it's made a big difference in how

28:32

democrats prioritize issues and what they

28:35

sort of spend their political capital and

28:37

that's the world in which we live today for

28:39

the democratic the democrats are

28:41

to a significant extent hugely influenced

28:44

by their shadow party and

28:46

their shadow party is just very very far to the

28:48

left of the median voter and that makes a difference

28:51

i think the years of many democrats listening

28:53

the idea that the democratic party is the

28:55

party of uh... white

28:58

educated affluence elites really

29:02

alienating uh... but but that

29:04

is more and more the case i

29:07

just wonder if that's the way rank and file

29:09

democratic voters are seeing themselves now

29:12

or if there's an inherent contradiction in the

29:14

way democratic voters see themselves versus the way

29:16

is these elite institutions and the democratic party seems

29:18

to be going but

29:21

i think you're getting at their the

29:23

idea that's true that there's a difference

29:25

between what the shadow party thinks and

29:27

what liberal politicians like

29:29

per milla jay up always more

29:31

plus sixty seventy democratic district in

29:34

seattle what they think about the world

29:36

or what the people who ran

29:38

in the twenty twenty democratic primary most

29:40

of them seem to think about the world

29:43

and what they needed to appeal to there's

29:45

a difference between that and what an ordinary

29:48

middle- or working-class democratic voter

29:50

thinks which is to say

29:52

yeah they're more liberal than their counterpart

29:55

is associated with the republican party but

29:57

they are nearly as liberal as

29:59

the people people who just drive the democratic

30:01

discourse, who are both in primary elections, who are the

30:09

most engaged Democrats on social media. In

30:11

other words, they're more moderate. If you look at democratic

30:15

Hispanics and blacks, they're overwhelmingly moderate

30:18

to conservatives. They're not liberal. Now,

30:20

white college educated Democrats, they are

30:22

over-evolved. Now, that's different from

30:24

Hispanics and blacks. And

30:27

actually, one amusing trend we've

30:29

seen in American public opinion

30:31

is the most racially

30:34

militant voters in

30:36

the United States are white college

30:38

educated liberals. They're not Hispanic. So

30:41

the ones who are most denouncing

30:44

structural racism and white supremacy. The ones who want

30:46

to use Latinx. Yeah,

30:48

or who want to use Latinx. So that's

30:50

all baloney as far as most regular black

30:52

and Hispanic voters can consider, particularly black and

30:54

Hispanic Democrats. Remember

30:57

to fund the police and all this

30:59

nonsense about, we need less police and

31:01

more social, whatever. I mean, that

31:03

was never popular among black and Hispanic voters, including

31:05

among black and Hispanic voters. But you know who

31:07

was popular? Among white college

31:09

educated Democrats. So it just

31:11

shows to go you that we're

31:13

sort of in the upside down now,

31:16

as I put it sometimes, where the

31:18

Democrats regularly dominate the college

31:20

educated and reflect their priorities.

31:22

And Republicans increasingly dominate

31:24

the working class. And that's pretty

31:27

weird. And I'm not saying

31:29

the Republicans represent working class interests

31:32

very well. I doubt

31:34

that's true. And to some extent they're

31:36

relying obviously on rhetoric and sort

31:39

of bashing the Democrats more than actually

31:41

delivering for their constituents. But

31:43

let's face it, this is reality. A

31:46

lot of working class people are increasingly

31:48

having difficulty thinking of the Democrats as

31:51

their party, the party that

31:53

doesn't look down at them, the party that's on

31:55

their side. I mean, people make a

31:57

lot of visceral decisions about which party they

31:59

support. And why

32:01

they're not like looking at the you

32:03

know, the policy, you know They

32:06

did 2020 Democratic policy platform or what's going to

32:08

be the 2024 Democratic policy platform

32:10

They know very little about this

32:12

stuff, but they do have a sense of

32:14

the parties and where they're coming from Okay,

32:18

let's dive into some of these issues one

32:20

of the things I found really helpful about

32:24

The way you talked about these issues was and I'm not sure

32:26

if you did it explicitly in

32:28

every single issue area, but it

32:30

was certainly a clear frame is

32:33

reformers versus radicals and Maybe

32:36

you can explain You know

32:38

that what you mean by the difference between

32:40

Reformers and radicals in the shift in the

32:42

Democratic Party from sort of looking at issues

32:44

through the lens of class To

32:47

the lens of identity and

32:49

how that's impacted voters and then we'll get into the issues. I

32:51

want to start with immigration Yeah,

32:54

so we have a whole section in the book

32:56

the second section of the book called

32:58

cultural radicalism where we Talk

33:01

about the ways in which the Democrats appeared

33:04

have signed on to a variety of ways

33:06

on issues like race immigration Gender and

33:08

so on that are really quite

33:11

radical in a bad way and take

33:13

the Democrats out of their historic Wheelhouse

33:16

and indeed the wheelhouse of the values

33:18

of the American people So immigration is

33:20

a good example because I

33:22

mean most people don't know this or

33:24

if they knew it They've forgotten it that the

33:26

Democrats once had a much different attitude toward

33:28

immigration than they do today That

33:31

you know the 90s with the Jordan

33:33

Commission and historically up to that point

33:36

Democrats had realized there was a problem

33:38

With having completely open borders and

33:40

open immigration that you know

33:43

having a lot of low-skill immigrants coming into

33:45

the country in an uncontrolled way Did put

33:47

pressure on unions but pressure on the

33:49

low-wage labor market and was

33:51

generally, you know Not something that

33:53

was desirable and that

33:55

employers would exploit this underclass

33:57

of undocumented or illegal workers,

34:01

and that therefore we needed to actually figure

34:03

out ways to tighten up the system.

34:05

We needed an E-Verify system so employers

34:07

couldn't use illegal immigrants and

34:09

pay them less and so on and so

34:11

forth. This was basically the stance of the

34:14

labor movement, and it was the stance of

34:16

big parts of the labor-oriented Democratic Party, which

34:18

was very big at the time. What

34:21

happens over time is Democrats evolve, and including

34:23

parts of the labor movement, I guess the

34:26

IU, they move away from

34:28

this kind of attitude toward immigration, where

34:31

they start assuming that there could

34:33

not possibly be any problem with

34:36

immigration. As I put it,

34:38

I think I stole this from David Leonhardt,

34:40

the default line became more is better and

34:42

less is racist. That

34:45

evolves very strongly over the course of the 21st

34:47

century. I

34:49

don't know about your neighborhood, Ron, but I see plenty

34:51

of no human being is

34:54

illegal. There's this sign, science is real, and

34:56

I said love is love. That

34:59

is the standard issue line of a

35:01

lot of educated Democrats these days. The

35:04

only reason to object to

35:06

lots of people pouring over the border

35:08

from Mexico or Central America or wherever,

35:11

really, is that people, they just don't

35:13

like black and brown people. They don't

35:15

like foreigners. They're

35:19

troglodytes. They're

35:21

not for this multicultural, multiracial America that

35:24

gloriously is coming into being. There can't

35:26

possibly be any other reason than this.

35:29

That is just ridiculous. The idea

35:31

that nations should not

35:33

control their borders and have an

35:35

actual system that decides who

35:37

gets in and enforce that fairly

35:40

is ludicrous. This is not the

35:42

way any country wants to

35:44

work. National borders are there for a

35:46

reason, and people feel like people coming

35:48

over the border willy-nilly on

35:50

basically gaming the asylum system

35:52

and being paroled or whatever,

35:54

that there's something wrong with

35:56

this. Maybe these people should do

35:58

it the right way. Maybe there are too many

36:00

people coming? I mean, obviously, in a lot of cities, even

36:03

in the north now, we see municipalities

36:05

being overwhelmed with people who

36:07

come in who are illegal, came

36:09

over the border, and now are distributed

36:11

across the country. This

36:13

is really unpopular, really

36:16

unpopular. There's nothing progressive about the

36:18

idea of open borders, right? Because

36:21

it would create tremendous burdens

36:23

on a nation. It does undercut

36:25

the low-wage labor market. As Bernie

36:28

Sanders memorably put it at one

36:30

point, open borders is a Koch

36:32

brothers plot or

36:35

line. Of course, he backed off from that,

36:37

and this just shows you the influence of

36:39

the shadow party that most of the advocacy

36:41

groups, basically, they're not that interested

36:43

in border security. What they're interested in

36:45

is comprehensive immigration reform,

36:47

which basically translates to the

36:50

primary thing we want to do is

36:52

develop a path to citizenship for illegal

36:54

immigrants who are here and been here for a

36:56

while, which is a laudable ambition, but

36:58

you're not going to sell that to the

37:00

American people, nor should you be able to

37:03

sell that to the American people. This

37:05

is combined with an actual immigration system

37:07

that includes real border security, which is

37:09

what people want. Over

37:12

and over again, this is documented in the

37:14

polls, including among most Democrats, including among most

37:16

Hispanics. People do not support,

37:19

basically, de facto open

37:21

borders, uncontrolled immigration. They

37:24

actually want a fair and forced system.

37:28

The evolution of the Democrats

37:30

toward this radicalism on the

37:32

issues that toys de

37:34

facto de jure with open borders

37:37

is a really bad development. In

37:40

fact, it's hurting the Democrats right now, and

37:42

it's both bad policy and bad politics, in

37:44

my opinion. That's a theme

37:46

that runs through our discussion of these culturally

37:49

radical issues, is they're both

37:52

bad policy and bad politics.

37:54

The Democrats, by invoking these

37:56

tropes, by identifying with them, they

37:59

actually... put a ceiling on their support and

38:01

alienate themselves from working class voters.

38:04

It doesn't mean they can't win elections, obviously,

38:07

for reasons we've been discussing, but

38:09

it does mean that they're really putting a ceiling on

38:11

their ability to put together a

38:13

sustainable majority. And as

38:15

we've kind of been talking about, who

38:18

is the party of the working class in America today?

38:21

It doesn't really look that much like the Democrats

38:23

anymore. Their priorities seem to be different. Well,

38:26

there does still seem to be this belief

38:29

that more lax immigration enforcement

38:31

will help Democrats perform better

38:34

with Hispanic voters. But the

38:36

data isn't bearing that out. Maybe you can

38:39

extol that. Well, as the Democrats

38:41

have become increasingly liberal on the

38:44

issue of immigration, they've simultaneously lost

38:46

Hispanic support, which is the

38:48

sign that these voters... Their number one issue

38:50

is not the people who

38:53

vote in elections, right? Hispanic citizens.

38:55

What are their number one issues? They're

38:57

the economy, there's healthcare, there's schools,

39:00

there are communities, the ability to

39:02

move ahead in America. It's

39:04

not immigration. And the idea of these are in

39:07

an uncomplicated way, immigration voters,

39:10

is just incorrect. And also, it really

39:13

misunderstands who these voters are and what they

39:15

care about. And that connected to

39:17

the whole idea of them as being voters

39:19

in that sense, connected

39:21

to the conception the Democrats

39:23

increasingly bought into, which

39:25

is a way to understand Hispanic voters as they're

39:28

people of color, right? They're all

39:30

part of this mass of non-white voters who

39:33

are oppressed by the fact they live

39:37

in America's white supremacist society.

39:39

And they're victims of racism every day.

39:41

That's not how Hispanics think about themselves. They

39:44

think about themselves as people who are

39:46

trying as hard as they can to

39:48

get ahead in America. Maybe they're working

39:50

two jobs. They're just trying to help their

39:52

families. They're patriotic. They like America. They

39:54

actually like America. The idea that they

39:56

were this radical, super pro-immigration,

39:58

super anti-war, anti-war, racist group is

40:00

just not correct,

40:03

not borne out by the data, not borne out

40:05

by the political behavior. So the

40:07

idea that you're going to move

40:09

Hispanics more heavily in your direction

40:11

by being so super

40:15

liberal immigration, it just isn't borne out by

40:17

the data and by the voting patterns that

40:19

we've seen. I mean, again,

40:21

you know, Democrats are running

40:24

like high single-digit advantages among

40:26

Hispanics in Trump Biden trial. That

40:28

shouldn't happen if really what these

40:30

voters are about is about, you

40:33

know, huge surges of immigration coming into the United

40:35

States and how great they feel about it. They

40:37

don't. We've had enormous

40:39

surges during the Biden administration, which

40:41

they're now, you know, trying to wriggle out

40:43

of. But it's been

40:45

an undeniable fact that there's a big

40:47

difference between the immigration patterns

40:50

and the illegal immigration patterns under Trump and

40:52

under Biden. There just is. People

40:55

are aware of this. You know, I think

40:57

most Hispanics know about it, but you know what? They're not

40:59

that happy about it. I mean, I listen

41:01

to focus groups with swing voters, swing Hispanic

41:03

voters who had voted for Biden in

41:05

2020 and now are thinking of not doing it

41:07

or are going to vote for Trump. And a

41:09

continuing theme was, you know, where did all these

41:11

people come from? You know, why

41:13

can't they do it the right way? I

41:16

mean, they're not happy about this. It doesn't

41:18

like, you know, like more of their brothers

41:20

and sisters are coming across the border and

41:22

they're just like just happy as clams because

41:24

again, that misunderstands what their priorities are, what

41:26

they really care about. And

41:28

what they care about is just much more mundane

41:30

than some, you know, sort of John

41:33

Lennon, imagine there's no borders kind of kind

41:35

of thing. That's not their gig, man. Thanks

41:42

for listening. As I mentioned, this is a

41:44

two part series and part two will be

41:46

out next week where we take a tour

41:48

through some specific issue areas like

41:50

race and civil rights, sex and

41:52

gender, environmental policy, what the

41:55

rise in independent voters really means and how it

41:57

should impact political strategy and whether

41:59

it's even possible. for structural reforms in

42:01

our political system to improve our

42:03

democracy. In the meantime, I'd

42:05

love to hear what this discussion sparks for

42:07

you, so send me a note at podcast

42:09

at politicalogy.com. I'll see you in part two.