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the show notes here or going to

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nytco.com/careers. So

1:01

I've done a couple episodes recently on the

1:03

Republican Party and I wanted to follow that

1:05

up with a couple different views on the

1:08

Democratic Party. And I think

1:10

for Democrats, the core

1:12

question that I get asked, that you

1:14

hear asked, is why

1:17

are Democrats letting this unpopular

1:19

81-year-old president run again? I

1:22

think it's worth stepping back and asking if

1:24

you were a politician in the Democratic Party

1:27

who had wanted to run against Joe Biden, what

1:29

would you have run on? One

1:32

theory of how you would challenge an incumbent president

1:34

would be you would say he's a bad president.

1:37

But actually Biden has passed a

1:39

ton of critical legislation Democrats, the

1:42

Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Bill,

1:44

Chips and Science, the

1:47

economy is doing pretty well, the labor

1:49

market is really strong, inflation is coming

1:51

down. So it's kind of hard to

1:53

run, saying Joe Biden has done a

1:55

bad job being president. I mean there

1:57

are important differences now increasingly on foreign

1:59

policy. But if you think back eight months ago,

2:01

that wasn't as true. The

2:04

other way you could have run against Joe Biden is to

2:06

say the guy's a loser. He's not

2:08

going to be able to win. And

2:10

the crucial moment for that, I think the

2:12

way to think about why Biden in the

2:14

end did not face so much pressure that

2:16

he either had to step aside or face

2:19

a set of serious primary challenges is

2:22

that in 2022, Democrats

2:24

did not get wiped out. And

2:26

more than did not get wiped out. They won. They

2:29

did much better than you would have

2:31

expected. They gained in the Senate, they gained

2:33

in state legislatures, they gained in governorships,

2:36

they did lose the House, but they held down

2:38

losses. And I always thought that if Democrats got

2:40

wiped out in 2022, there really would be primary

2:43

challenges. And because they did

2:45

so much better than expected, there wasn't really room

2:48

for them to get off the ground. There wasn't

2:50

a critique to be made of Biden's

2:52

Democratic Party. It wasn't obviously losing elections. It

2:55

wasn't failing to govern. So how are you

2:57

going to attack it? That

2:59

doesn't mean the Democrats have

3:02

made the right decision, but I think

3:04

it is crucial context and

3:06

context that is often lost in

3:08

thinking about why Democrats are making the

3:10

strategic decisions they're making. There is this

3:12

difference between how Democrats are polling and

3:15

how they are performing, but the

3:17

Democratic Party is a complicated thing that

3:19

no one player really holds power over.

3:22

And so I wanted to take it from two very

3:24

different perspectives. And I'll say, even

3:26

as we go into these episodes, I

3:28

don't fully agree with either theory of the Democratic

3:30

Party, but opposite ways of

3:33

thinking about something can both carry important

3:35

truths or at least things we're thinking

3:37

about. And I wanted to

3:39

begin then with perspective that gets heard

3:41

less often, but I think explains

3:43

more in terms of how the Democratic Party

3:45

is actually acting, which is that

3:47

if you look at elections rather than polls and look

3:50

at governance rather than vibes, Democrats

3:52

are not doing that badly. It's actually a

3:54

little hard to make the case that

3:56

is a party making huge mistakes. They

3:59

definitely don't look. like a party in crisis. So

4:02

for this show, for the more optimistic

4:04

perspective of the Democrats, I invited strategist

4:06

Simon Rosenberg on the show. Rosenberg

4:09

has been in Democratic party politics a long time. He

4:11

played a key role in Clinton's 1992 election victory. He

4:15

founded and was a long time head

4:17

of the New Democrats Network, which was

4:19

an influential think tank that at times

4:21

has been pushing Democrats in more liberal

4:23

and in more moderate directions. There's very

4:25

early and trying to build a stronger

4:27

Hispanic strategy for the Democratic Party. And

4:30

he became kind of famous again in 2022 for accurately

4:32

predicting that there would

4:34

not be a red wave, that the belief that Democrats are

4:36

going to get destroyed was not going to prove to be

4:38

correct. Now he's the author of

4:40

the sub stack, Hopium Chronicles, where

4:43

he is trying to offer Democrats this constant

4:45

argument that they're way too down on the

4:47

party. And actually they have a lot of

4:49

reason for hope and work to do sure.

4:51

But that they need to understand they're

4:53

coming to this from a strong position. As

4:56

always, my email as recline show at NY

4:58

times.com. Simon

5:03

Rosenberg, welcome to the show. Ezra,

5:06

it's great to be here. So

5:08

when I looked at polls at about this

5:10

point in the cycle in 2016, Trump was

5:12

trailing a bit. When I look at polls

5:14

at this point in cycle in 2024, he's

5:17

roughly even with Biden. I mean, it depends on

5:19

the poll you look at, he's maybe ahead, maybe behind, but

5:22

stronger than he was. And most Democrats I know

5:24

are freaking out about this poll. So why aren't

5:26

you? Because

5:28

since Trump unveiled himself as MAGA in the 2017-2018

5:30

cycle, we just keep winning elections,

5:35

right? We won the 2018 cycle, we won the 2020 cycle. We won

5:37

in ways that people never

5:41

thought we would in 2022. And in 2023, which

5:43

I think has not gotten as much coverage as

5:46

it should have, it was a blue wave all

5:48

across the country. We won in

5:50

all sorts of Republican places and flip seats

5:52

and ballot initiatives all across the country. And

5:55

when you just look at that as a political person,

5:57

right? That's exactly what you want a political

5:59

party to be doing. We're winning all kinds of elections,

6:01

right? Democrats keep

6:03

overperforming in elections. Republicans

6:06

keep underperforming and struggling. And

6:08

we even saw it just this week. In

6:10

Iowa, despite Trump's strong victory, turnout there

6:13

was abysmal. I mean, they had 186,000 people voted in 2016.

6:18

Only 110,000 people voted this time. Trump

6:21

only got 7% of all registered

6:23

Republicans voted for Donald Trump in

6:25

Iowa. It's a terrible number. And

6:28

so when we actually go vote,

6:30

we just keep winning and they keep losing. And so

6:32

I go into 2024 feeling really good about where we

6:34

are. Look, we have a lot of work to do,

6:37

Ezra. I'm not sitting here and telling you everything is

6:39

great. We got a long way to go. But

6:42

if we run a good campaign and execute well,

6:44

I think we're going to win this election by high single digits

6:47

and make this election a clear repudiation of

6:49

MAGA, which will hopefully start to loosen this

6:51

dark grip on the Republican Party.

6:55

So you and I have known each other a long time, but

6:57

I think you've had a burst of renown

7:00

in politics after 2022 when you were one

7:02

of relatively few people out there saying this

7:04

is not going to be a red wave

7:06

election. Democrats are going to hold on much better

7:08

than people think. And that's more

7:10

or less what happened. They won seats

7:12

in the Senate. They won governorships. They

7:14

won state legislatures. They held down losses

7:16

in the House. You've

7:19

made the argument based on what we

7:21

can see in data about the 2022 election that there

7:23

were really two elections in there that had

7:25

different dynamics. What were they? I

7:28

think it's sort of very foundational to understand where

7:30

we are today. And so in

7:32

2022, there were two elections. There

7:35

was a bluer election inside the battleground and

7:38

a redder election outside the battleground. Inside

7:41

the battleground where Democrats turned on their big

7:43

campaigns, you know, we were able to actually

7:45

not just do well, but we got to

7:47

59 percent in Colorado, 57 percent

7:51

in Pennsylvania, 55 percent in Michigan, 54

7:54

percent in New Hampshire. Those would be extraordinary

7:57

performances in a good year. a

8:00

bad year for us, right? We were supposed to be the

8:02

party that was the red wave was going to wash all

8:04

across the country and wipe us out. And

8:06

so we did extraordinarily well where

8:09

we were contesting Republicans, in many cases,

8:11

these Trumpy Republicans that were nominated in

8:14

these states, and where the issues of

8:16

abortion and democracy

8:18

were on the ballot. And we

8:20

actually gained ground against all conventional

8:22

wisdom outside the battleground, where

8:25

we didn't have these big campaigns, where we didn't

8:27

control the information environment and push our turnout to

8:30

the upper end of what was possible. We

8:32

actually lost ground in New York and in

8:35

California. And it's one of the reasons we lost the House

8:37

in 2022. And so

8:39

to me, the admonition is where

8:41

we run our big campaigns, we

8:44

do really well. When we go head to head

8:46

with Republicans and the grassroots of the Democratic Party

8:48

is focused, we keep winning. But

8:50

when we don't run those campaigns, it reminds

8:53

us of the power of the right wing

8:55

noise machine and their politics, which

8:57

is still formidable. And we can in any

8:59

way discount the significance

9:01

of their ability on a daily basis

9:03

to dictate the daily discourse in the

9:05

United States. And so we need to,

9:08

in 2024, we need to get much more

9:10

focused as Democrats about being loud

9:12

and trying to close that what I call the

9:15

loudness gap with the right in order to

9:17

be where we want to be in 2024. I

9:20

want to pick up on a few

9:22

questions and counter theories there. So one,

9:24

you said something interesting, which is that

9:27

in these battleground areas, Democrats

9:29

control the information environment, they ran

9:31

their campaigns. And I

9:33

read it differently, which is to

9:35

say that in those battleground environments,

9:38

what actually happened is that Republicans control

9:40

the information environment and ran their or

9:43

MAGA actually, in many cases, control the

9:45

information environment and ran their campaigns. And

9:47

that is an extraordinary counter mobilizing force

9:50

for Democrats. Something you said there, I

9:52

think is really important. I don't think

9:54

people might realize there was Democrats in

9:56

New York and California who lost the

9:58

house by not coming out. So

10:00

those were not huge MAGA elections. Those

10:02

were not elections people felt had a

10:04

big sense of weight to them. And

10:07

because they then had low turnout, Democrats gave

10:09

up seats. But in

10:12

the battlegrounds where MAGA candidates

10:14

were a mobilizing force for Democrats,

10:18

Democrats did great. And so there is

10:20

a theory of the Democratic

10:22

Party right now, Michael Bud Horzer, the

10:24

former AFLCAO political director, kind of makes

10:26

this argument that it's an anti-MAGA coalition,

10:28

that it is turn itself into a

10:30

vessel to stop this other political tendency.

10:32

And where that tendency is on the

10:34

ballot, it rises. And where that tendency

10:36

is not on the ballot, it

10:39

struggles. Does that track

10:41

for you? Yeah,

10:43

I mean, the anti-MAGA theory is something that

10:46

I actually promoted very heavily

10:48

in 2022 during the

10:50

time where I was battling the Red Wave. And I think

10:52

there is an anti-MAGA, what I often said during that

10:54

time was there was an anti-MAGA majority in the

10:56

country that we saw show up in 2018

10:58

and 2020. And so

11:00

the question is, would it show up again in 2022? I

11:03

mean, I wrote a piece in the fall of

11:05

2021 saying that I

11:07

thought this would be a close competitive election

11:10

and not a wave election because of this,

11:12

because there had been, you know, the Republicans

11:14

have made, you know,

11:16

in the grand scheme of politics, right, when you

11:18

have a politics that loses twice in a row

11:20

as it did for the Republicans in 2018 and

11:24

2020 MAGA, that is. Usually a

11:26

party runs away from that politics because it's

11:28

failed and they lost elections and they lost

11:30

the House, the Senate, and the presidency in

11:32

those two elections. Republicans

11:34

didn't do that. They ran right towards MAGA,

11:36

right? They doubled down. They became super MAGA.

11:39

And that's, in my view, an enormous strategic error

11:42

that is continuing through today, right? I mean, we

11:44

saw this play out not just in 2022, but

11:46

in 2023. It's

11:49

already playing out in early 2024. I

11:52

think MAGA is even unattractive to Republican voters.

11:54

And I think the Republican Party has splintered.

11:56

What's interesting for me about this is that

11:59

if you watch... cable news, if you watch MSNBC,

12:02

you know, a third of the contributors and

12:04

a third of the people on TV are

12:06

former Republicans, right, in some form or fashion.

12:09

We've never had that kind of

12:11

abandonment or splintering of a modern

12:13

political party in our lifetime. Yes,

12:15

MAG is deeply unattractive. And my

12:18

argument is that Trump and

12:20

MAG are even more unattractive, more dangerous, more

12:22

ugly, more extreme in 2024 than they were

12:24

even in 2022 and 2023. And

12:28

so if this has been a failed politics in

12:30

all these elections, they continue to double down

12:32

on it, then I think

12:34

it's why I'm so optimistic about what we're going to be able

12:36

to do this year. But let

12:39

me flip part of that dynamic on you. You

12:41

made the point you often see these former Republicans

12:43

on MSNBC, which is true. And

12:45

there is a slice of the Republican Party,

12:47

the Democratic Party has begun to win over,

12:50

which is these more educated, higher

12:52

information, which these folks are, of

12:55

course, you know, at the apex of. And

12:57

the argument you will hear from people who are a lot

12:59

less sanguine about this than you are, is that

13:01

Democrats have been outperforming in 2018 and 2022 and 2023,

13:03

because they've won over a kind of voter that used

13:05

to be Republican, and

13:10

is more likely to come out in a lower

13:12

turnout special election, more likely to know

13:14

what's going on, show up at the polls. But

13:17

in a presidential election, where you get a

13:19

lot more kind of unusual voters, where you

13:21

get a lot more low attachment voters, Republicans

13:24

are doing, you know, stronger numbers

13:27

among some of those factions. And

13:29

it's not like Donald Trump saw his number

13:32

of voters collapse from 2016 to 2020. More

13:34

people voted for Donald Trump

13:36

in 2020 than voted in 2016. It's just

13:39

even more people than that voted for Joe Biden.

13:42

But it was close enough that

13:45

a shift in the wins could

13:47

lead to Joe Biden winning the popular vote by 2.5 points

13:50

and losing the presidency. So there

13:52

is no margin here. Well,

13:55

listen, I understand the theory. And

13:57

it's a theory. It's not actually play a

14:00

role. out in practice. It could happen

14:02

in 2024. It might be what happens. But

14:05

it hasn't happened. The

14:07

theory is that all this, the fact

14:09

that Democrats just keep winning everywhere in red

14:11

states and blue states and ballot initiatives and

14:14

off-year elections and special elections isn't

14:16

going to translate over into 2024.

14:19

And yet, when you look at what's happened,

14:21

when we've gone to the general election since

14:23

1992, Democrats have won more

14:25

votes in seven out of eight presidential

14:27

elections. No American political party has done

14:30

that in our history. It's the best popular vote

14:32

run for a political party in

14:34

American history. And in the last four elections,

14:37

we've beaten the Republicans on average by 51 to 46,

14:39

right? A five-point gap.

14:42

The last time Democrats averaged over 50% of

14:44

the vote in four consecutive elections was

14:47

during FDR's presidency. And

14:49

so we're in the midst of our best presidential

14:51

run that we've been on since

14:53

the 1930s and 40s. And

14:55

this idea that somehow something's going

14:57

to happen in this election that has

15:00

not happened in seven out

15:02

of eight of the previous presidential elections and

15:04

isn't happening across the states, it's

15:06

a theory of somebody who doesn't really work

15:09

in politics every day, because that's not really

15:11

how politics works, right? There isn't one set

15:13

of dynamics that are playing out again

15:16

and again and again all across the country.

15:18

And then all of a sudden, everything dramatically

15:20

shifts. And so I know this

15:22

could happen. I understand the theory. A lot

15:24

could happen. A meteor could hit the earth tomorrow.

15:27

I don't think it's going to happen in 2024

15:30

for all the reasons that we discussed

15:32

earlier about the counter-mobilization against MAGA, which

15:34

is still the most powerful force in

15:36

our politics, far more powerful than

15:39

disappointment in Joe Biden and the Democrats. So

15:42

I have this experience sometimes when I listen to

15:44

you, because it's very persuasive on one level. And

15:47

then I also have this kind of like, wait,

15:49

but I've just been living through this other thing

15:51

happening, which is there

15:53

is no such thing in the American political

15:55

system as a popular vote presidential election. The only

15:58

thing that matters is the elect dot I

16:01

am old enough to remember Donald Trump winning

16:03

the Electoral College in 2016. It feels very

16:05

fresh as a wound I'm

16:07

also old enough to remember that he had

16:09

a Republican House and Senate then Democrats

16:12

did win that back in 2018. They you know,

16:14

although they did well in 2022 They

16:17

did lose the house, right? There is

16:19

a Republican speaker now In fact, there

16:21

have been many Republican speakers since

16:23

Democrats lost the house in 2022 Republicans

16:26

control more governor's mansions They control

16:29

more state legislatures There

16:31

is a lot of truth to this

16:33

and so as a corrective I buy

16:35

it right? There is a tendency I

16:38

think to see Donald Trump

16:40

and MAGA as this unstoppable political force

16:42

and The polls are now

16:44

feeding a kind of panic about that among

16:47

Democrats But also to

16:49

listen to you you're describing a

16:51

dominant political party that is wielding

16:53

power continuously But Republicans have

16:55

the Supreme Court they have the house they

16:58

have the governorships They have the state legislatures

17:01

Democrats have the presidency and the Senate I

17:03

would not say well the Democratic Party is

17:05

an obviously dominant party on historic run of

17:07

success Yeah,

17:09

I mean I don't agree You

17:12

know, I understand what don't you agree with

17:14

don't discount the importance of a popular

17:16

vote, right? I mean we're in a democracy and

17:18

winning more votes on the other side is the

17:21

core of what a campaign Are we in a

17:23

democracy though? Well, I mean this oftentimes we're not

17:25

I know and I've written about this extensively and

17:27

you and I Actually the last time that you

17:29

and I actually really connected was actually over this

17:32

issue I know about how our power is appropriated

17:34

in the United States and how you know You

17:36

can be a party winning elections by five points

17:38

and still not be in power right now I

17:40

just want to remind your listeners that You

17:43

know people say the popular vote doesn't matter in

17:46

a in a general election Of course it

17:48

does because there are tons of

17:50

down-ballot races below the Senate and House races

17:52

all across the country And so, you know

17:55

winning an election by four or five

17:57

points. Of course, it matters,

17:59

right? there's all these other elections

18:01

happening too. And so both can be true,

18:03

right? You want to both win the popular

18:05

vote and you want to win the electoral

18:07

college. So I, what I

18:09

look at, and the reason that I am talking the

18:12

way that I talk about this is that what's

18:14

happened to a great degree is that we've

18:17

had a couple bad elections where Republicans have

18:19

run up the score. And it's one of

18:21

the reasons why they've maintained so

18:23

much political power around the country.

18:25

But on balance, where I'm satisfied

18:28

with our performance is that,

18:30

you know, for a party that when I got

18:33

into this business back in the late 80s and

18:35

early 90s, where the Republicans

18:37

were on this incredible presidential run, the

18:39

Democratic Party in the late 80s and

18:41

early 90s was getting wiped out at

18:43

the presidential level. And the reason that

18:46

the new Democrats came about was

18:48

to reverse that and was to create

18:50

a competitive national party again. And since

18:52

1992 in Clinton's presidency, we've won more

18:54

votes, seven out of eight times.

18:57

And yes, two of those elections, we didn't win

18:59

the electoral college and they won the presidential election.

19:02

But the goal was to make us competitive at

19:04

a national level again when we weren't. I

19:06

mean, this idea that at some point the

19:09

Democrats used to be really strong and

19:11

have sort of fallen down, the exact opposite

19:13

is true. We used to be really weak

19:15

and we were getting killed in national elections

19:18

and now we're not. And so, you

19:20

know, in the best popular vote run that we've been on, you

19:22

know, since the FDR's presidency, I can

19:25

see Joe Biden's path for victory as a strategist,

19:27

right? He's been a good president. He's going to

19:29

have a strong case for reelection. We keep winning

19:31

elections all across the country. Trump

19:34

to me is a much weaker candidate than he was in 2016 and

19:36

2020. I

19:38

don't know how you dress this guy up,

19:40

Donald Trump, and make him look

19:43

like a serious candidate for president again. I just

19:45

don't think it's possible. And part of the reason

19:47

why is not just because he's

19:49

more extreme and more dangerous than he was and

19:51

MAGA is more of a threat to the country,

19:54

but his performance on the stump is

19:56

far worse and more wild. somebody's

20:00

been doing this for over 30 years, what

20:02

I see is a really crappy presidential candidate and I

20:04

think we're going to kick his ass. You

20:07

know, you're a strategist and you see a

20:09

path to creating victory for Joe Biden. So

20:12

if you were running that campaign, what's

20:14

the approach? What's the message? What

20:17

would you be telling Joe Biden to be doing, saying,

20:20

emphasizing? We're going to

20:22

have a hard time, I think, in

20:24

the day-to-day information war. What

20:26

Trump still has and what the Republicans still have is

20:30

they're much louder than we are. Just

20:32

his ability to dominate the daily news

20:34

and to give us very little space

20:36

to make our case and I think

20:39

this is also exacerbated by Joe Biden's

20:41

age and just his, you know, this

20:43

is where his age is not

20:45

an asset. I think in general his age is an

20:47

asset. It's made him a strong president. But

20:49

I think it means that as somebody who grew up in

20:52

politics in the war room in 1992, which

20:54

was really about reinventing the way

20:56

that information and media is done in

20:58

a campaign and how you contest the

21:00

information space every day, the theory

21:03

of the campaign in 1992 coming

21:05

out of the loss of two caucus is that we

21:08

had to contest the information space every day. Then

21:11

any attack that was made, if we didn't rebut it or counter it,

21:13

it would stick. We were very

21:15

on the front foot. We were fighting with

21:17

incredible intensity. The Biden communications

21:19

operation, to me, has a slightly

21:21

different understanding of all this, which is that

21:23

they believe there are things that are never

21:26

going to amount to anything that's going to matter and they can

21:28

kind of ignore them. And I just

21:30

don't agree with that. And

21:32

I don't agree with that from having been in this game for

21:34

a long time. I was a guest on Fox News for 17

21:37

years and did thousands of appearances on Fox. I mean,

21:39

I've been in this thing pretty deeply

21:41

for a long time. And I

21:43

think if my greatest advice to the campaign is that

21:45

we just, there has to be a tempo and an

21:48

expectation that they are fighting

21:51

with unbelievable ferocity and intensity every

21:53

day in the information space in

21:55

order for us to control the information environment

21:58

and to allow us to win. And that's

22:00

to me the most important thing that we need to do

22:02

in the coming months. I

22:04

don't think they're ever going to do that. And let me

22:06

try an analogy on you that's been in my head, which

22:09

is that Trump is a street fighter. His

22:12

theory of the information space is out of

22:14

a street fighter. He's going to punch

22:16

at it and hit it with a pole as hard as

22:18

he can, till it crumbles

22:20

beneath him. And

22:22

Biden and his team going back

22:25

now some years, and I

22:27

think this might be somewhat mediated by their own concerns about

22:29

him or what he's willing to do and not do, but

22:31

whatever it is, they do

22:33

Aikido. They try to let the

22:35

other person create the energy and use it against

22:38

them. I actually think the

22:40

one thing Donald Trump and Joe Biden agree

22:42

on is that Donald Trump should

22:44

be in the news every day. And Donald Trump

22:46

should control the information space. Getting

22:49

into the news, this is my

22:52

profession, is not a mystery

22:54

if you're the president, you

22:56

announce things that are significant enough.

22:59

You say things that are conflictual enough,

23:01

or you do things that are unexpected

23:04

or outrageous enough. Donald Trump

23:06

does all of them constantly to the extent that

23:08

he can, right? There's a reason he's showing up

23:10

at all these hearings and getting in arguments with

23:12

the judges. He wants that covered on the news.

23:15

If Joe Biden and his team believed

23:17

it was good for them, or wanted

23:19

to, or believed Joe Biden was good

23:21

at being in constant fights with Donald

23:24

Trump, they could unload on him. Day

23:26

after day after day after day, and I think their

23:28

view, and this

23:30

has been my sense of them for some time, is that

23:33

it is good for them when Donald Trump dominates

23:35

the news. Because again, it's a

23:37

counter-maga coalition. It's an anti-maga coalition.

23:40

And as long as you have

23:42

some MAGA figure driving the story

23:44

day after day after day, that

23:46

will ultimately counter-mobilize the Democrats. And

23:48

the counter-mobilization of the Democrats is

23:50

larger than the mobilization of the

23:53

Republicans. That's, I think, what

23:55

they're trying to do. I'm not saying it's my preferred

23:57

strategy, but that's my read of them. I

23:59

think you're- exactly right, by the way, completely,

24:01

right? And I talk to them all the time,

24:03

and I'm close to both the campaign and the

24:06

White House. What

24:08

I don't mean is getting in his face every day, Democrats

24:11

have to feel the campaign.

24:13

They have to feel us fighting. They have

24:15

to feel the intensity. Because

24:17

part of the reason we've been winning so

24:20

much is because of

24:22

this counter-mobilization. And the counter-mobilization isn't

24:24

just with voters, it's with our

24:26

activists. There is a

24:29

massive new democratic political

24:31

machine that has grown

24:33

up organically in recent years.

24:35

It was very accelerated during COVID when

24:38

these new technologies allowed remote activity.

24:41

And one of the remote activities is Zoom. I mean,

24:43

what's happening now is that there are hundreds

24:45

of thousands of Democrats who are listening

24:47

to people like me over Zoom and

24:50

campaign people and other folks,

24:52

democratic politics, every week

24:54

on Zooms where they have this far

24:56

more intimate relationship with politics than they

24:58

ever used to have. And so what's

25:01

happening is the counter-mobilization is also

25:03

providing our campaigns more money than they've

25:05

ever had in our history. We're building

25:07

unprecedentedly large campaigns with the biggest field

25:09

operations we've ever had. And

25:12

there are more volunteers to fit into those

25:15

campaigns than we've ever had before, because you can

25:17

now not just export your money out of California,

25:19

you can export your labor. And

25:21

I had yesterday, I mean, we

25:24

won this race in Orlando, and

25:26

I spoke to Fentress Triscoll, who's the state house

25:28

leader for the Democrats, who I worked with very

25:31

closely on this race. And she said, at

25:33

the victory party, Simon, a woman

25:35

came up to me and said, I'm here.

25:38

I drove two hours to be with you

25:40

and do G.O.T.V. because Simon asked me to

25:42

go help you guys. And so what's happening

25:44

is this counter-mobilization has created the strongest democratic

25:46

party than any of us have ever seen.

25:49

And it's why, when I wrote

25:51

in the fall of 2021, as

25:53

I said, because of all of this, we

25:55

had more tools to mitigate midterm drop-off than

25:58

we've ever had before. And I I

26:00

felt that we were going to be able to use

26:02

that to have a good election in 2022. Well,

26:05

that huge machine just played

26:07

a major role in winning an election in Orlando,

26:09

Florida that nobody in Florida thought we were going

26:11

to win. We flipped the state

26:14

house in Virginia just in November, which none

26:16

of the political operatives on the ground thought

26:18

we were going to do. And

26:20

we keep doing things that we didn't think we

26:22

could do. We keep performing at the upper end

26:24

of what's possible as Democrats because

26:26

of this machine, this counter mobilization

26:28

you're describing. And I think it's

26:31

just going to be too big and too overwhelming for

26:33

Donald Trump in 2024 because

26:35

it's independent of any candidate. It has

26:37

nothing to do with who's running. It's not

26:39

connected to an ideology. It's the simple thing.

26:41

Democrats are going to save the country. Republicans

26:44

are dangerous. And you've got

26:46

millions of proud patriots who love their country who

26:48

are fighting to make sure their democracy doesn't slip

26:50

away. They have nothing like that.

27:09

The questions around retirement have gotten tiring

27:12

instead of have you saved up enough? Shouldn't

27:14

they be asking what is it that you

27:16

love to do? You're not slowing

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down. So your retirement plan should be more of

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Financial Group, marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation

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and its insurance companies and broker-dealer affiliate, Lincoln

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Financial Distributors Inc. 2024, Lincoln

27:41

National Corporation. I'm Julian Barnes.

27:43

I'm an intelligence reporter at the New

27:45

York Times. I try to find out

27:47

what the U.S. government is keeping secret.

27:50

Governments keep secrets for all kinds of reasons.

27:52

They might be embarrassed by the information. They

27:55

might think the public can't understand it, but

27:57

we at the New York Times think that

28:00

democracy works best when the public

28:02

is informed. It takes

28:04

a lot of time to find people

28:06

willing to talk about those secrets. Many

28:08

people with information have a certain agenda

28:10

or have a certain angle, and that's

28:12

why it requires talking to a lot

28:14

of people to make sure that we're

28:17

not misled and that we give a

28:19

complete story to our readers. If

28:21

The New York Times was not reporting

28:23

these stories, some of them might never

28:25

come to light. If you

28:27

want to support this kind of work, you can

28:29

do that by subscribing to The New York Times.

28:45

So I want to go back to the question asked

28:47

you about Biden and his path, because what I said,

28:49

what would you do if you said fight? But

28:52

I actually meant to ask something closer to what should

28:54

this be about? One thing they want to make it

28:56

about clearly is Donald Trump

28:58

and MAGA and democracy. You go to Biden's

29:01

big speech a couple weeks ago about democracy

29:03

in January 6th. They're

29:05

in many ways running against Donald Trump, almost

29:07

as if Trump is an incumbent. But

29:10

Joe Biden is the incumbent. And you go back to

29:12

2020 and how they ran then. They ran against Trump

29:14

and he was the incumbent, and they ran

29:16

against the pandemic. They ran

29:18

against the Trump administration's pandemic

29:21

operation, which at that point was

29:23

completely flailing. And right

29:25

now there is no pandemic at that level

29:27

that is dominating politics. Obviously, there's a lot

29:29

of COVID going around. Donald Trump

29:31

is not the incumbent. And the

29:33

bigger problem Biden faces, I think, is

29:35

widespread voter dissatisfaction with the economy, which

29:37

is somewhere where I do think polls

29:40

are important. I don't believe polls are

29:42

predictive of elections this far out, but

29:44

there are reasonable snapshots of public opinion and people

29:46

are not happy with the state of the economy.

29:49

And when you ask them who they trust on

29:51

it, they say they trust Donald Trump. So

29:53

in terms of what the Biden administration should

29:56

be saying about itself in the

29:58

election, what should they be saying? Well,

30:01

listen, they've made it very clear based on

30:03

that speech in Valley Forge that they believe

30:05

the sort of foundational contrast

30:08

is Joe Biden,

30:10

you know, protecting democracy and Donald Trump trying

30:12

to end it. And it's a

30:14

pretty powerful argument. It's actually been working pretty well

30:17

all across the country. And it's also true, right? I

30:19

mean, it has the virtue of being true. And

30:22

we know from polling and market research

30:24

that we all do that creating

30:27

a narrative about who we are

30:29

around freedom is incredibly powerful. And

30:32

this has been heavily tested by lots of

30:34

different people. And it's how

30:37

we've been running, frankly, in these elections that we

30:39

keep winning. And so I think first of all,

30:42

he's on the right track. I mean, this

30:44

is a very good early orientation. I

30:46

do think there's also going to be an element of the

30:48

campaign. It's about, you know, making the case that he's been

30:50

a good president and then rolling out, which I assume is

30:52

going to happen in the State of the Union, his second

30:55

term agenda. And these things are

30:57

also going to matter a lot. I'm

31:00

a little bit more optimistic than you

31:02

are about our ability to sell his

31:04

economic story, because I don't think

31:06

the country is down on

31:08

the economy. I think that Republicans are. And if you

31:10

look at Democrats and the people that are available to

31:12

us and the people who we have to talk to

31:15

to get to win the election, they

31:17

actually give Biden very high marks on the economy.

31:19

And they think the economy is doing really well.

31:21

I think this is one of these polarized issues

31:23

that we just like the Biden approval rating. I

31:26

don't think it's nearly as descriptive as people think it

31:28

is. So I think we can make

31:30

progress there. I don't know that we're going to catch up with

31:32

Trump on the economy, but I think

31:34

we there's a lot of ground we can make

31:36

up this year once the campaign really engages. And

31:39

so you're going to stop there for a minute,

31:41

because I think it's actually very important and is

31:43

a big question for me in the election. I'm

31:46

not pessimistic or optimistic on their ability to sell

31:48

an economic message. What

31:51

I do think is true is that

31:53

I spend time looking at the consumer

31:55

sentiment data. I spent time looking at the

31:57

polling here. I spent time looking at the

31:59

various indicators. of how the economy

32:01

is doing and how people are feeling about it. And

32:04

what looks both like a huge opportunity for

32:06

them to me and a

32:08

genuine problem for them to me is that

32:11

there is a gigantic delta between

32:13

what the economy looks like and how people feel

32:15

about it. If you were

32:17

just running this through a statistics machine,

32:21

Joe Biden's record looks fantastic.

32:24

Like you want to be Joe Biden.

32:26

Created a huge number of jobs, unemployment

32:28

is extremely low, wage gains have been

32:30

very strong, inflation was up

32:32

but now it's down, we are outperforming

32:34

European economies that kind of look like

32:37

our superficially. This

32:40

is just the economic facts, right?

32:42

Like a campaign is an effort

32:45

to tell a story. We have a

32:47

serious affordability crisis in my mind specifically in

32:49

housing and a couple other things, but

32:51

that's been going on for a very long

32:54

time. But in the economic data it looks

32:56

very strong. This is the data

32:58

you would want as the raw material to

33:00

tell a story. And whatever they

33:02

are doing to tell the story or not

33:05

tell the story, it is not working. Elections

33:07

are also about the public perception. They are

33:10

not just about people reading the Michigan

33:12

Consumer Sentiment Index. How do they close

33:14

that gap? So number

33:16

one, just like what happened in 2022 where

33:20

everyone thought we were going to lose because

33:22

there was low Biden approval and high inflation

33:24

and we ended up having a really good

33:26

election, despite the disappointment

33:28

with the economy that you are describing,

33:30

we keep winning everywhere because

33:32

going back to the thing that you said in the

33:34

beginning of the interview is there is

33:37

a force in our politics that is more powerful

33:39

than disappointment in Joe Biden and the

33:41

Democrats, which is the fear and opposition

33:43

to MAGA. That's the thing that has

33:45

been driving our politics since 2018 and it's

33:48

going to drive the election in 2024. The second thing is you're

33:52

right, a campaign is about putting information into people's

33:54

heads that they don't have. That's the

33:56

core of what you do

33:58

in a campaign. doesn't exist, right?

34:00

Is you're moving narratives and stories that people

34:03

need to hear that they may not totally understand.

34:06

Look, part of what's a

34:08

challenge now, there

34:10

isn't one information environment in the United

34:13

States. There are at least two, and

34:15

there may be even more. But

34:17

Republicans are living in a completely

34:19

different information environment than Democrats are

34:21

or than non-MAGA, non-Republicans. And

34:24

in the non-MAGA information environment, the

34:26

economy is actually doing well. More

34:29

happy. No, wait, I want to push you on this because

34:31

I know where you're going here. I can show you tons

34:33

of data on this. Yeah, but I know the media environments

34:35

very well. And what I would say

34:37

is, yes, there's a very MAGA information environment.

34:40

There's also like obviously a more liberal information

34:42

environment. But most people are not

34:44

in really either one of them. Most people just

34:47

don't read that much news because

34:49

the news makes you feel bad and

34:51

people have other things they want to do in

34:53

their lives. They get the news ambiently. And I

34:55

want to say extremely clearly, I think

34:57

that is a perfectly reasonable life choice to make,

34:59

right? Like that is the way human beings mostly

35:02

operate. Lives are busy. They have other things they

35:04

want to focus on. I always say that the

35:06

biggest divide in the news is not left

35:08

to right. It's interested, uninterested.

35:10

The news is fundamentally a

35:12

hobby. I can look at the

35:14

polling on how people feel about the economy, and I can

35:16

tell you the number of people dissatisfied is significantly

35:19

larger, multiples larger than the number

35:21

of people watching Fox News to

35:24

say nothing of watching or absorbing

35:26

smaller than Fox News conservative outlets. So I don't

35:28

want to just give that all to the news.

35:31

No, I'm not going to give it all to the news, but

35:33

I just let's just go to data, right? I mean, because I

35:35

think that one of the things you were saying earlier is that

35:37

there are we have to distinguish when we talk about these

35:39

things, particularly here in your kind of setting between

35:42

things that are true and things that people believe

35:44

because they're not the same. And

35:46

it's really important in a time of rising

35:48

untruth that we don't give up

35:51

on the idea that there is an objective reality

35:53

out there. And the objective reality is the country

35:55

is far better off than when Joe Biden came

35:57

to office in the midst of

35:59

COVID. a huge recession, insurrection, and

36:01

all the other things that were happening.

36:04

And that's why I believe that over the course

36:06

of this election, he's going to be able to

36:08

make the case that he's made the country better,

36:11

which was his primary goal as president. And

36:13

he's got a strong agenda for the second term, right? But

36:16

I go back to this basic idea. If you look

36:18

at polling and in

36:20

polls, high quality, large interview polls

36:23

on the economy, Democrats are

36:26

giving Biden very high marks on the

36:28

economy and believe the economy is doing

36:31

really well, right? There is a huge

36:33

divergence in the universe

36:35

that we have to talk to that's available to

36:37

us, because 40% of the

36:39

country is not available to us. We have no

36:41

ability to reach them. People are

36:44

not nearly as down on the economy as the

36:46

overall numbers are. They just aren't. I mean, this

36:48

is clear as day. When you

36:50

look at these other measures, life

36:52

satisfaction, job satisfaction, income satisfaction,

36:54

right? Life satisfaction numbers are up

36:57

in the 70s and 80s. Job

36:59

satisfaction numbers are up in the 60s.

37:02

Income satisfaction are in the 50s,

37:04

right? And if you look at the Axios

37:06

poll that they released just the other day,

37:09

on questions of how are you doing, not

37:11

how's the economy doing, the numbers are way

37:13

up in the 50s and 60s. And so

37:15

what it means to me is that we

37:18

can make significant progress on this issue. We

37:20

may not catch up to Trump, but we

37:22

can't expect to have the election we want to

37:24

have if we're trailing Trump on

37:26

the economy by 10 points. And so we've got

37:28

work to do here, but to your point, we

37:31

have really powerful raw material to make the argument.

37:33

And I think television advertising and the real

37:36

campaign where we're prosecuting this stuff every day,

37:38

I'm optimistic we can make

37:40

progress because it's true. And

37:42

the things being true does matter in

37:44

a campaign. It's easier to win arguments

37:46

that are true than to win arguments that aren't true

37:48

traditionally in a campaign. It's not always the case, right?

37:50

But usually the case. So what we

37:52

have to do is doable in traditional

37:54

politics. The things we have to do are

37:57

doable. The things they have to do, I

37:59

don't think. or doable. I don't think that

38:01

they can take this guy. Because

38:03

let me make one basic point about Trump, which

38:06

we haven't talked about, is that the

38:08

question was asked of Iowa voters,

38:10

Iowa Republicans, if he is

38:12

convicted of a crime, would you view

38:15

it as a disqualifier for him being able to

38:17

run for president? 30% of

38:19

those voters said it would be a disqualifier.

38:22

If you want to talk about

38:24

a blinking red warning light about

38:26

the potential for the Trump candidacy

38:29

to collapse and for us to

38:31

have a route in the election, the data is there if

38:33

you want to look at it. The second data piece on

38:35

this NBC Sunday poll

38:37

with Des Moines Register, Haley

38:40

voters, 20% of the Iowa electorate were

38:43

asked in the poll, would you vote for Trump

38:45

or Biden in the general election? 43% said Biden, 22%

38:47

said Trump. I mean, these are crazy numbers.

38:53

I mean, if we get 40% of

38:56

the Haley voters, right, we're going to be

38:58

getting up into the 50s. Now, I

39:00

don't think they'll all come with us. But

39:03

there is incredible, clear data

39:05

from this past week that

39:08

Trump is a deeply troubled candidate

39:10

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39:13

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39:15

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40:14

You worked for Bill Clinton. You were

40:17

in the Barack Obama Democratic

40:19

Party orbit. Yep. And

40:21

both of them I think are interesting here.

40:23

If you go back to their midterm elections,

40:25

they got stomped, absolutely stomped under Clinton

40:28

Democrats lost the House for the first time

40:30

in 40 years under Obama,

40:32

the Democratic Party just got annihilated in

40:34

2010. And they both

40:36

looked fairly weak. Obviously,

40:39

Joe Biden had a better

40:42

midterm than they did. And he's pulling a

40:44

little bit behind where they were, which people

40:47

can interpret it in different ways. But

40:49

what lessons do those

40:51

politicians have for him or the Democratic

40:53

Party now? What

40:56

can Joe Biden learn from what Clinton and Obama

40:58

did to then win reelection? Both

41:00

of those campaigns started much earlier than

41:03

the Biden campaign has. Clinton was an incredible

41:05

politician and was in the game every day

41:07

and let his team loose

41:09

early on. In 1995, we

41:13

really set the terms of the debate early, which

41:15

really, we ended up winning reelection by eight points.

41:17

So I mean, it was an enormous victory in

41:19

1996. And Obama, same thing. I mean,

41:24

the campaign was much further along than

41:26

where the Biden campaign is now. And

41:28

so to me, the urgency

41:30

of the moment is they they've got

41:32

to just accelerate the development of the

41:34

campaign. Campaigns are organic

41:36

things, they grow, you know,

41:39

it's like building a battleship, right? You can't do

41:41

it overnight, you can't just flip a switch and

41:43

a campaign turns on, you have to hire

41:45

people and some people don't work out and you try

41:47

tactics and they don't work and you got to learn

41:49

from it. And you got to keep reiterating all the

41:51

time. And this is why I'm talking about

41:53

the need for them to engage more fun to lay in

41:55

the day to day battle because we've

41:58

got to we've got to go through an

42:00

accelerated process of getting this thing into a

42:02

general election day-to-day general election mode. We

42:05

have a very short window here now. I

42:07

mean, the general election is really beginning. I

42:09

mean, it's now. Trump's won functionally, and

42:11

we're in the general election. I think Trump is

42:13

going to start attacking Biden much more frontally very

42:15

soon, I would imagine, even with his ads and

42:17

in terms of their day-to-day engagement, because he doesn't

42:19

really have any opposition in the

42:22

Republican Party anymore. And

42:24

I think the campaign isn't really ready for that right

42:26

now. And so to me,

42:28

the most important thing is Biden world needs

42:30

to accelerate the development of the campaign. I

42:34

think a lot, as a lot of people do,

42:36

about the role Joe Biden's age will play in

42:38

the campaign. I mean, you look

42:41

at polling Biden's age is the number one concern voters have

42:43

about him. But then I've been trying

42:45

to think about what is that concern at its core?

42:47

Because something you'll hear people say, I've said something like

42:49

it. I think he's been a

42:52

pretty good president, right? Not that I wouldn't argue with

42:54

some things he has done. But I

42:56

think economic outcomes are looking strong. I think

42:58

his management of a lot of foreign policy

43:00

crises has been very stable, like very steady

43:03

the ability to build international coalitions has

43:05

been very impressive. The congressional

43:07

dynamics have been very good. They've gotten

43:09

a lot of big legislation passed. That

43:12

said, I think two things emerge

43:14

here. One is that

43:16

organizations reflect their leaders. That is a

43:19

truism across any organization you can think

43:21

of. Businesses, campaigns, everything. And

43:23

what you were saying about Bill Clinton, about

43:26

Barack Obama, about the energy of it, right?

43:28

Clinton being like out there, right? Immediately after the

43:31

loss in the midterms, Barack Obama, right? Beginning

43:34

to try all these grand bargains

43:36

and super negotiating committees and rages

43:38

endlessly out there showing that like

43:40

he's trying and he's and

43:43

Biden hangs back, right? And

43:45

I think his organization strangely, not

43:47

strangely, predictably has this quality of

43:49

him. A lack

43:52

of energy to it because there's a lack of

43:54

energy at this point to him, which I do

43:56

think is age related. I followed Joe Biden for

43:58

a long time. something I would

44:00

have said about the Joe Biden of 2000 or 2008 or 2012. That's one dimension of

44:02

it. The

44:07

other dimension of it that worries me is

44:09

that I think at a very fundamental level, and this

44:11

is going to be reflected in a piece I'm working

44:13

on, the Democratic Party has

44:16

become the party of normalcy, almost

44:19

like the conservative party in a more philosophical

44:21

way. I'm just saying we

44:23

are going to keep American democracy.

44:26

We are going to have relatively

44:28

competent people in the relevant positions

44:30

doing the things they're supposed to

44:33

be doing. It's not democratic socialism.

44:35

It's not intense around

44:38

different forms of identity anymore. Under

44:41

Joe Biden and in relationship to MAGA,

44:43

the Democratic Party, at least for this

44:45

moment in American politics, is the party

44:47

of normalcy. The one problem

44:49

with that for them is that Joe

44:51

Biden is himself someone abnormal. He

44:53

is just older than we've ever seen

44:56

in the president. In terms of that

44:58

promise of stability, of consistency,

45:01

the promise that on an emotional level is a party

45:03

saying to everybody, look, those

45:06

people are nuts. We've got

45:08

this. We have the people who can just keep

45:10

us under control. Then people

45:12

see Joe Biden and he doesn't project that command

45:14

to them. He's doing command as a performance. It's

45:16

the sense of what people are capable of. It's

45:18

energy. It's not just outcomes. That

45:20

feels to me to be where right now

45:22

I look at his age and

45:25

I see it actually affecting things. I think

45:27

that he hangs back in part

45:29

because of whether they don't think he's

45:31

an effective messenger or he doesn't or he doesn't want

45:33

to. I don't know. But it just

45:35

reflects something now in him that is

45:38

now we're seeing it in the campaign. I

45:40

think this fundamental thing they want to say, which

45:42

is we are the party of people

45:44

you can trust and they're the party of people

45:46

who God knows what, people

45:48

worry about his ability to do this.

45:50

They've not even tried as best I

45:53

can tell to answer that. You

45:55

could imagine things they could do, but they are not trying.

45:58

Those Things concern me. He. Had

46:00

not listen. I really I was listening very

46:03

closely to what you're saying because I think

46:05

it's very nuanced and you've obviously gonna you're

46:07

writing a piece about of semen thinking about

46:09

it and it's or any knows very well

46:12

articulated and so let me try to respond.

46:15

I. Do think that we have to litigate

46:17

to age as you and the selection

46:19

and the way that I. Tell democrats

46:21

all the time we have to run towards

46:23

at not run away from it because it

46:26

really matters is front of mine for voters

46:28

and we can pretend that it isn't and

46:30

I think we have to make the case.

46:32

That's you know somebody has formally young myself.

46:34

Then when you get older you not just

46:37

lose a step, but you also gain wisdom,

46:39

experience and capabilities. and that that wisdom, experience

46:41

and capability have been sentences. It is success

46:43

and that his success as President. Is

46:46

actually because of his age not to spite

46:48

of it's I do believe that we're going

46:50

to have to invest a lot of money

46:52

and energy and explaining why the first term

46:54

was successful in a he offered to do

46:56

one thing in the first term which was

46:59

to get us to the other side of

47:01

cove it effectively and he has and will

47:03

he and east of own that I think

47:05

and to make it clear that you made

47:07

me president to do this thing. I

47:09

did it. Were on the other side.

47:12

I think that is gonna be able I

47:14

think to make a very clear argument that

47:16

you ask me to do something. I did

47:18

it. I got two more big things I

47:20

want to do with all due to gather.

47:22

If you're like me, we can do those

47:24

things together. may continue, Make progress is next

47:26

set of challenges have to be grounded. I

47:28

think deeply in this fight for democracy domestically

47:30

and abroad. and I also think climate change

47:32

is this other existential fights in front of

47:34

us. And so I do think there's a

47:36

way to address all that. but the other

47:38

part of what you said. Is

47:41

that I do think the communications burden

47:43

of this election is going to fall

47:45

much more on the campaign and is.

47:48

precisely the case when think about the

47:50

difference between running a campaign for this

47:53

joe biden and running at for barack

47:55

obama bill clinton who are to the

47:57

best communicators and modern american history It

48:00

means that the campaign has greater

48:02

responsibilities. And so it

48:04

means that the ability of the campaign

48:06

to execute the team that's in there,

48:08

their strategies, their day-to-day operations, their mobilizing.

48:12

What I've called for is a reinvention of the war

48:15

room, right? This is part of the new way we

48:17

have to be thinking, which is the war room in

48:19

our mind's eye is 20 sweaty

48:21

kids drinking red bowls, producing TikTok

48:23

videos. And what we need the

48:25

war room to be now is two to three million

48:27

people who are networked into the campaign, amplifying the good

48:30

works of Joe Biden and the Democrats to

48:33

redesign a campaign so that the

48:35

campaign itself is louder,

48:37

is taking on more communications responsibility,

48:39

acknowledging everything that you're describing, right?

48:42

It has to do more and be better than most

48:45

presidential campaigns have had to be in

48:47

recent years, which is why we needed

48:50

to get going, right? It needs to accelerate its growth.

48:52

But look, you're raising really important

48:54

issues. I think these are all things

48:56

that can be managed. They're not unmanageable

48:59

in a political context. I

49:01

think fixing Donald Trump and making him

49:03

look like a presidential candidate is not

49:05

something that is manageable. I

49:07

want to talk about some trends inside the

49:09

Democratic Party that stretch before

49:12

and beyond Joe Biden. And

49:14

the big one is the changing composition of

49:16

the party. So it's, I think, cliche at

49:18

this point, known to say that Democrats

49:21

have gained higher income voters,

49:23

lost working class voters. I'll

49:25

put some numbers to that. In 1968,

49:29

52% of white people who never attended college

49:31

voted Democratic. In 2020, only 35% did. You

49:36

look at voters of color, Donald

49:38

Trump improved his margins among particularly

49:40

working class Latinos between 2016 and

49:42

2020. Democrats

49:45

did not hugely roll that back in 2022.

49:49

So even if Democrats can win elections with

49:51

this sort of emergent, higher

49:54

income, in a more

49:56

educated coalition, why are they losing

49:58

working class voters? What can

50:00

they do about it? I don't have

50:02

the numbers right in front of me, but

50:04

I'm pretty sure that Biden won voters

50:07

under a hundred thousand dollars in 2020. Yes.

50:10

But by less than Democrats used to. And

50:12

that's consistent across elections going before Biden. I

50:14

think, but this is important because we're not

50:16

losing working class voters. We actually won working

50:19

class voters in 2020, right? And

50:22

because of the strong performance

50:24

with Hispanic and minority

50:27

people of color working class voters. And yes, some of the

50:29

margins have been cut a little bit and we'll see if

50:31

that happens again in 2024. I

50:33

mean, I think 2020 was a highly unusual

50:35

election because of COVID. More

50:38

Hispanics had to work in in-person jobs.

50:40

Fewer had health insurance. And

50:42

I think the shutdown Democrat argument

50:44

against Biden in 2020

50:46

that Trump made actually was material and

50:49

it's still material today in our politics.

50:51

Because I think for some younger

50:53

working people, Biden got on

50:55

the other side of opportunity for them.

50:57

Whereas Trump was the guy fighting

50:59

to make sure they could continue to earn a

51:01

living right and to feed their family. And that

51:04

for Biden to shut down argument, I

51:06

think is lingering and as part of his

51:08

brand that we've never really been able to

51:10

fully overcome. And I think it's particularly important

51:13

for people of lower socioeconomic status who needed

51:15

to work every day in order to feed

51:17

their family, right? Who had no reserves. We

51:20

have a more acute problem with white working class than

51:22

we do with the overall working

51:24

class. And the erosion that's

51:26

taken place, the so-called erosion that's taken

51:28

place with Hispanics and

51:30

African-Americans, I don't think is as great as some have

51:32

argued. And let me make my case for this. Is

51:35

that on Hispanics? And as you know, this has been

51:37

an area that I've been a pioneer

51:39

in in working with the Hispanic community. I mean,

51:41

I did the first bilingual poll ever done in

51:43

the Democratic Party and produced the first Spanish language

51:45

ads back 20 years ago. And

51:48

part of where I think a lot of the

51:50

analysis in the Hispanic vote has gotten completely wrong

51:53

is that it's not factoring in the growth of

51:55

the population. And so if you get

51:57

65% of 100. That's

52:00

65 votes, right? But

52:02

if you get 63% of 200, you have more. Smaller

52:05

piece of a bigger pie, you still get more

52:08

pie. So in the Southwest,

52:10

in the heavily Mexican-American parts of the

52:12

United States, Democrats are far

52:14

stronger in every state than they were 20

52:16

years ago. We

52:18

are burying the Republican Party now in

52:20

the Southwest and in California. And we're

52:22

even getting reasonably close in Texas. We

52:24

can't do it against Abbott, but in

52:26

the other elections, we've gotten reasonably

52:29

close. And so I think things are not

52:31

nearly as dire as some folks of my

52:33

colleagues in the industry have represented, in my

52:35

view. I feel

52:37

like this is a little bit confusing

52:40

things through statistics, or at least taking

52:42

statistics that tell you different things. I

52:44

take your point on the bigger

52:46

pie, smaller percentage, is still more pie.

52:50

Nevertheless, if you keep losing percentage, eventually

52:52

you get less of a pie. And

52:55

so there's an erosion here, right? We watched it with Democrats

52:57

with the white working class. I mean, you could have

52:59

said that for some time. It's like, okay, well, they're

53:01

still winning the white working class, they're still winning it.

53:03

Now they're not winning it, but it's close enough. And

53:05

now, and- So something is

53:07

happening here. Whether you buy all of

53:10

educational polarization or not, I'm on

53:12

record many times saying I think educational polarization is

53:15

tracking something else. And what people think it is

53:17

tracking it is some kind of rhetoric for class. And

53:20

I think there's issues of cultural representation there

53:22

and whether or not people feel respected and

53:24

other things happening. So I don't

53:26

love the educational polarization conversation, nor am I

53:28

gonna completely throw it overboard. I'm with you,

53:30

by the way. Can I endorse your interpretation

53:32

of that? Wonderful, I appreciate that. But

53:34

you are seeing very, and I take your

53:36

point on the Southwest. But

53:38

again, if Republicans begin closing

53:41

that proportion gap, eventually they're gonna close

53:43

the election gap too. But they're not,

53:45

this candidate, Donald Trump, this candidate can't

53:47

do that. Maybe he can. Well, I don't know. I

53:50

mean, I would not have expected, if you had told me from 2016

53:52

to 2020, for

53:54

all the messaging the Democratic Party and the

53:56

sense that what Donald Trump was doing was

53:58

destroying the Republican Party forever. among

54:01

voters of color but maybe winning over

54:03

these racist whites. Actually what happens is

54:05

that Joe Biden wins the election because

54:07

suburban whites move over to him even

54:09

as they suffer very surprising defections among

54:11

voters of color in different ways. And

54:14

so I think you should take more seriously

54:16

than you are or I would at least

54:18

like to get you to answer the question

54:20

from the perspective of somebody who takes more

54:22

seriously. The Democrats understand themselves to be the

54:24

party of the working class and

54:27

even if they do have a majority now among voters making

54:29

less than a hundred thousand that is they are

54:32

increasingly reliant on a different kind of voter

54:34

and that is both a question for

54:36

building a bigger majority right at some point you

54:38

gotta start winning back some of these working class

54:40

voters if you want 55% it's also a kind

54:42

of spiritual moral

54:46

identity question right if you're the party who

54:48

your whole thing is that you are trying

54:50

to make things better for working class Americans

54:52

and you are losing your

54:54

margin among working class Americans I think you should

54:57

wonder what is happening here so

54:59

if you were to buy that what would you say is

55:01

happening here? Yeah no so I want to be clear that

55:03

I think also to get granular on

55:05

the data right I think we're seeing more

55:07

erosion with working class men

55:10

right I mean I think that also may

55:12

have to do with Trump's machismo and his...

55:14

Yeah that's closer to my theory of it.

55:16

Yeah no no I think that that's very

55:18

real because it's not just people of color

55:21

there didn't used to be such

55:23

big gender gaps in black and Hispanic communities

55:25

and now they're starting to be significant

55:27

gender gaps which the abortion issue in

55:29

the Hispanic community is exacerbating I'm

55:32

not dismissing this at all we have

55:34

to be concerned about the

55:37

erosion you're describing but we also

55:39

have to be careful to

55:42

be accurate in understanding what

55:44

is actually happening and yes if we

55:47

keep eroding if we keep seeing a

55:49

diminishment of our vote with Hispanics some of the

55:52

margins we have will be diminished But

55:54

that's not what's happening I Want to be

55:56

clear, right? I mean we are doing better

55:58

in Arizona in the... Parts of

56:00

the country were heavily Mexican American populations

56:03

than we've ever done Anywhere where I

56:05

find one of the people who make

56:07

this arguments really to Sarah to be

56:10

so comical. Frankly, it's is that his

56:12

book is called in aware of on

56:14

the Democrats gone and yet we just.

56:17

Got. More votes in the last four presidential

56:19

elections and we've gotten since the nineteen thirties

56:21

and forties or actually doing better nationally. and

56:23

we've done since he's been alive. And the

56:26

idea that we're losing things as opposed to

56:28

gaining things net is just not the right

56:30

way to look at all this or coalitions

56:32

changing right. We have to adapt to it

56:34

in part because their party is hinting and

56:36

I think we have to be open and

56:39

and to do what you're describing. which is

56:41

we have to really study the stuff and

56:43

come to an understanding of how do we

56:45

build majority coalitions And so. I hear

56:47

you on the spiritual piece of this and

56:50

I think that we have work to do

56:52

here. Look, I want to be very clear,

56:54

I'm optimistic, but we have a lot of

56:56

work to do. Big chunks of our coalition

56:59

have wandered from us right now and we've

57:01

got work to do to get him back.

57:03

Largely young people, people of color right there

57:05

are wandering from the democratic party right now.

57:08

As you look at polling the not wandering

57:10

into being non voters, they're be wandering into

57:12

third party options for now, right? And so

57:14

we're going to have to contest. With

57:17

these third party candidates for can have to

57:19

go in there and fight it out your

57:22

binds. Not going to just have to run

57:24

against one. candidates could be running against for

57:26

in altogether but I'm confident that we have

57:28

a strong enough argument and if the campaign

57:30

a strong I'm confident that will be reasonably

57:32

successful. Images. Point

57:34

that there were abducted dynamics it when

57:36

it when you and Kobe the might

57:38

have really caught Democrats martyrs among Hispanics.

57:41

I think that the possible now see

57:43

to that this year is young voters

57:45

and in Israel and I'll be honest,

57:47

it two months ago I wasn't taking

57:49

this that seriously. I kinda figured it

57:52

would blow over in American Polimeni. Still

57:54

very much be true. You know we think

57:56

anyone's into the future but then added to

57:58

the pool. Now with it. Seem very

58:00

real to me. This is something that

58:02

emotionally. Is. Very real to the

58:05

people following it which if you're on

58:07

social media you're one of a now

58:09

my young more often than not and.

58:11

I'm. Curious how you take that the possibility

58:13

of a fracture over foreign policy between biden

58:15

any and young voters who he very much

58:17

needs to turn out who did turn out

58:20

And Twenty Twenty Two but hours before this

58:22

war. Yeah. I mean, who

58:24

turned on Twenty eighteen? Twenty twenty, and Twenty

58:26

Twenty Two, right? I mean, we've had very,

58:28

very strong historical performance of young people and

58:31

recent elections were the a foreign policy issue

58:33

like this? Become. A

58:36

top tier voting issue for any age cohort

58:38

in the country. In a general election that's

58:40

gonna be about so many other things, right?

58:42

It would be unusual. For that to

58:45

happen, and for the marginal twenty

58:47

five year old young voter in

58:49

the United States, the idea that

58:51

in November Israel, Hamas will be

58:54

more important to them than a

58:56

job or health care or democracy

58:58

or abortion or climate or guns.

59:01

It's unlikely that's the case. I

59:03

think there is though, however, and

59:05

influential small. Group. Of young

59:07

people who this is going to be

59:09

a top tier voting issue and they're

59:11

very organized and the very loud and

59:13

they're going to be part of what

59:15

we have to deal with and it's

59:17

one of the reasons why I been

59:19

very aggressive of about trying to get

59:21

the youth oriented part of this campaign

59:23

up and when I hope is that

59:25

we're going to see the most sophisticated

59:27

must well funded use campaign that we've

59:29

ever seen and modern American history. I

59:31

think the binding team has to do

59:33

this. I don't think they really have

59:35

any choice. I think

59:38

we're going to do really really well as

59:40

young people were gonna do particularly really really

59:42

well with young women because of abortion and

59:44

all the issues. I think we've got to

59:47

start really treating the gender gap. That's

59:49

growing and the use of which connected to

59:51

somebody else in the talked about today is

59:53

something that has to become more. understood

59:56

about what's happening with young people i

59:58

mean young many, many young women

1:00:01

are just not available to Republicans anymore and may

1:00:03

never be for the rest of their lives, by

1:00:05

the way. I mean, I think this abortion extremism

1:00:08

that we've seen, which we haven't really talked about

1:00:10

very much today, is the

1:00:12

kind of thing that could cause the Republicans

1:00:14

to lose elections for a generation. I mean,

1:00:16

it is one of the most extreme policy

1:00:18

outcomes in American history, stripping

1:00:21

rights away from more than half the

1:00:23

population. What happens with men

1:00:25

is going to be we're going to have to contest

1:00:27

that more. I think that some of the allure of

1:00:30

Trump's machismo and his kind of Joe Rogan-ish positioning

1:00:32

has been attractive to a lot of young men.

1:00:34

And I think we're going to have to go

1:00:36

in and fight it out with young men in

1:00:38

a way that's going to be very different from

1:00:40

young women. One

1:00:43

of the reasons I think it's important to

1:00:45

look at the shifting composition is the parties

1:00:48

have to adapt. I mean, you said this a minute

1:00:50

ago, have to adapt to who is actually in them.

1:00:53

And when you do that, it shifts what you can

1:00:55

say, what you can do, right? I mean, this is

1:00:57

very true for the Republicans. We can talk about the

1:00:59

Democrats all day. The fact that Republicans have to adapt

1:01:01

to being a MAGA coalition and have to say

1:01:04

things that only the people in MAGA

1:01:06

agree with, like the 2020 election was

1:01:08

stolen, is a real problem for them.

1:01:10

For Democrats, there is

1:01:12

a, I think, the concern.

1:01:14

And you see it if you read Rudy's book.

1:01:16

You could see it if you read my colleague

1:01:18

David Leonhardt's book, which is a more sort of

1:01:20

economic take on this. His book is called Ours

1:01:23

Was the Shining Future. And it's, I think, a

1:01:25

very deep look at some of these issues. And

1:01:28

the argument is that the Democratic

1:01:30

Party, as it has become more

1:01:33

connected to these higher income, more

1:01:35

educated voters, has begun to reflect

1:01:37

their concerns more, right? So emphasize

1:01:40

things like environmentalism, abortion,

1:01:42

things like that that were certainly tougher

1:01:44

abortion before Dobbs. But

1:01:46

I think behind that is

1:01:48

also reflect their cultural taste more. I

1:01:51

think one of the things that happens

1:01:54

with the educational polarization conversation is

1:01:56

people want to look at it as materialism, but

1:01:58

it's partially a question of... class

1:02:00

representation. That's something Donald

1:02:02

Trump and some Republicans are increasingly good at

1:02:04

is saying to people who feel like they

1:02:07

are on the outs of American life, whether

1:02:09

they really are or not, I

1:02:11

see you, I like you, you're great, these

1:02:13

other people are terrible, you know, their elites looking down

1:02:15

on you. And the Democratic

1:02:17

Party is losing the kinds of voters, it

1:02:19

seems to me, that don't like a vibe

1:02:22

within the Democratic Party, right? You know, they

1:02:24

like the consumer protections, right? But they're not

1:02:26

really that connected to politics. So tallying

1:02:29

up the policies from one side or the other is not

1:02:31

really how they think about politics. But

1:02:33

they look around and they see a

1:02:35

party led by people who

1:02:37

they don't think would like them if they met

1:02:39

them, right? The most important question in politics is

1:02:41

not, do you like the candidate? But do

1:02:44

you think the candidate would like you? And that's

1:02:47

the vulnerability here that if these dynamics persist,

1:02:49

we're not just talking about vote totals, we're

1:02:51

talking about what a party feels like to

1:02:54

people, because it reflects who has power in

1:02:56

it. As the Democratic Party is more and

1:02:58

more people with literal power in society inside

1:03:01

of it, it reflects that, that turns off

1:03:03

people who feel on the outside of that

1:03:05

power structure. And that also just creates

1:03:07

a very combustible kind of polarization in the

1:03:09

country. That is, I think, my deeper

1:03:11

concern about the set of things, not that

1:03:14

you can't imagine an electoral winning coalition, we

1:03:17

can imagine feedback cycle effects in terms of

1:03:19

what the parties are, that is not great

1:03:21

for the country, not great for them, but

1:03:23

also not great for the party, the Democratic

1:03:25

Party is traditionally intended itself to be.

1:03:28

There's a lot there, Ezra. Sure is. We

1:03:32

have to just ground ourselves in the reality that Trump has

1:03:35

lost, and the Republicans have lost the 2018, 2020, 2022, and

1:03:37

2023 elections. And so the loss is their loss, not our

1:03:39

loss, right?

1:03:46

And we have to not allow ourselves to

1:03:48

sort of get to a place where the Democratic

1:03:50

Party is in trouble or losing. I just don't, I

1:03:52

mean... But I'm not saying that. I'm saying there's other

1:03:55

dynamics that are worth taking seriously. I know, but I

1:03:57

mean, I think this notion that the Democratic Party is

1:03:59

sort of... in trouble or in losing,

1:04:01

you know, I just reject that in

1:04:04

many of these arguments. Well, what about able

1:04:06

to vanquish MAGA, right? Not win elections by

1:04:08

a bit, not win the Senate but lose

1:04:10

the House, not win specials by a bit,

1:04:12

but actually destroy it. Well, let's see what

1:04:14

happens in 2024. I mean, I

1:04:16

want to go back to this basic reality

1:04:18

that I think is not present adequately in

1:04:20

the daily discourse that we all have with

1:04:23

each other, which is

1:04:25

that something really significant has happened in

1:04:27

the last two years, which is the

1:04:29

party in power has actually gained seats

1:04:31

all across the country. It's an anomalous

1:04:33

event. And so to me,

1:04:35

this is the most important electoral data

1:04:37

that exists far more important than any

1:04:39

crappy 800 sample poll that's

1:04:42

being done out there right now, because we

1:04:44

keep having a dramatic thing

1:04:47

happen. There is a massive repudiation of

1:04:49

MAGA happening all across the country. I'm

1:04:51

going to answer your question here in

1:04:53

a second, but I want to start

1:04:55

by not conceding that

1:04:57

the Republican Party is strong and winning. They're not.

1:04:59

And so I don't know that their formula is

1:05:01

successful. And I think what you're going to see

1:05:03

in 2024 is

1:05:06

a really substantial and significant splintering of

1:05:08

the Republican Party. I think the never

1:05:10

Trump or never MAGA former Republican wing

1:05:12

of the Republican Party. I mean, if

1:05:14

we were in a parliamentary system right

1:05:16

now, there would be a

1:05:18

new party, right? A center-right party that

1:05:20

would have emerged with Liz Cheney as the head of it. She'd

1:05:23

be in our cabinet. We would have, you

1:05:25

know, MAGA would be down in the 40s, right in the

1:05:27

low 40s and polling, and we would be

1:05:29

sort of a coalition government. We can't do that

1:05:31

in our system. I do think the

1:05:33

Biden campaign is going to have to figure out some way to

1:05:35

do that virtually. I mean, if

1:05:37

we have Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney

1:05:40

and Adam Kissinger and all these

1:05:42

folks campaigning for us in 2024,

1:05:44

it's going to make a big difference. It's

1:05:47

going to create a huge permission structure for

1:05:50

Republicans who are not MAGA, which could be

1:05:52

up to 20% of the Republican Party. By

1:05:54

the way, we're talking about huge numbers. And

1:05:56

I do think going back to what you

1:05:58

said earlier, how the response to all

1:06:01

this is that you argued

1:06:03

earlier that we're the party of normalcy, right?

1:06:05

I mean, we're the party that is presenting

1:06:07

a normal face for America, very normal guy,

1:06:09

one of the most religious presidents in modern

1:06:12

American history, right? That the face of

1:06:14

the Democratic Party is one of normalcy

1:06:16

and regular people and that's part of

1:06:18

our goal. We have investment

1:06:20

is being made in red states and

1:06:22

red districts all across the country because

1:06:25

of Biden's huge investment agenda. We're

1:06:27

not running away from Republican voters. We're going

1:06:29

to run towards them and help bring them

1:06:31

into our coalition. And so I

1:06:33

think all, again, I go back to this

1:06:35

basic view that the things that we have

1:06:38

to do are doable. Every party has issues.

1:06:40

I mean, you have assets, liabilities, you've got

1:06:42

challenges and things, but I don't think we're

1:06:44

as culturally... If we were so

1:06:46

culturally out of it, why do

1:06:48

we keep winning elections again and again and again?

1:06:50

And so I think this has been exaggerated in

1:06:53

my view. I think it's a problem to be

1:06:55

managed, but it's not a problem that

1:06:57

is defining the Democratic Party. And frankly, on the

1:07:00

issue of the polarization you're talking about, that

1:07:02

polarization has been created

1:07:04

and fostered by a political leader

1:07:06

and by his allies in the

1:07:08

right wing media. And the idea

1:07:10

that somehow we're responsible for

1:07:13

the polarization in the country right now, I

1:07:15

think is just unbelievable bullshit. Joe

1:07:17

Biden has been a good president. He's

1:07:20

been a good president for everybody. So

1:07:22

I stand by this basic idea that

1:07:24

the Democratic Party is strong. We're winning elections.

1:07:26

I'm proud of my president, proud of my

1:07:29

country, proud of my party. And I think

1:07:31

we're going to have a really good election.

1:07:33

And I think there's obviously, Ezra, to your

1:07:35

point, there are things to worry about, things

1:07:37

to manage, but I think on balance, things

1:07:39

are going really well. And I'm really looking

1:07:41

forward to this election and engaging

1:07:43

with the Republicans frontally and having these arguments out

1:07:45

in the public. Always our final

1:07:48

question. What are three books you'd recommend to the

1:07:50

audience? Yeah, these

1:07:53

are three I prepped for this

1:07:55

and it was an interesting question because it was

1:07:57

not what I read recently, but what would I

1:07:59

recommend? And so three, I just

1:08:02

finished a book called A New Deal for

1:08:04

the World by Elizabeth Borgwort.

1:08:06

I think a lot about how

1:08:08

the Four Freedom Speech that FDR gave

1:08:10

in January of 1941 was really the

1:08:14

beginning of the modern democratic party as we know it.

1:08:17

And it put us on the side as Democrats.

1:08:20

And I'll just do this really quickly, is that

1:08:22

part of my whole story that I tell is

1:08:25

that the world that we imagined and built as

1:08:27

Democrats in the 1940s has created

1:08:29

a golden age in human history. There's

1:08:32

never been a better time to be

1:08:34

alive in the history of the world and the

1:08:36

history of humanity than it has been during this

1:08:38

period of Pax Americana and the world

1:08:40

that we imagined and built together. And as I

1:08:42

tell Democrats in my talks that we're

1:08:44

part of the most noble political enterprise

1:08:46

that's ever existed, the Democratic Party. We've

1:08:48

done more good for more people than

1:08:50

any other organized political entity

1:08:53

in human history. And that's

1:08:55

why this fight for preserving that global order

1:08:57

and making sure that people of the world, their

1:08:59

kids and their grandkids have the opportunities that

1:09:01

we had is so central to

1:09:03

everything that we need to do now as

1:09:05

Democrats. We've been called before and we're being

1:09:07

called again. The second book

1:09:09

that I just went back and have been

1:09:11

rereading is on tyranny by

1:09:14

Timothy Snyder and his first

1:09:16

chapter, which is called Do Not Obey in

1:09:18

Advance, is something that I literally think about

1:09:20

every single day about everything that I do.

1:09:22

And it's a very powerful articulation of how

1:09:25

we can't yield to

1:09:27

the authoritarian narrative story

1:09:30

impulse. We can't self-censor

1:09:32

and that we need to create our own reality

1:09:35

and stay in our own reality and not yield

1:09:37

to what they want us to do. I think

1:09:39

this is so central. It's a central operating principle,

1:09:41

I think, for Democrats and for

1:09:43

people who are pro-democracy in the United States

1:09:46

now. And then the third book, a

1:09:48

little bit less weighty, was, you know,

1:09:50

I'm a big fan of Daniel Silva's and

1:09:52

his latest Gabrielle Lahn book,

1:09:54

The Collector, is something that I just recently

1:09:57

I finally got to, had been sitting on

1:09:59

my bedside. for months and I

1:10:01

just love his books. Simon

1:10:05

Rosenberg, thank you very much. Thanks Ezra

1:10:07

for what you do. This

1:10:20

episode of User Cline Jones produced by Roland Hoeff.

1:10:22

Back checking by Michelle Harris, our

1:10:24

senior engineer is Jeff Gallop with additional mixing by

1:10:27

a famed Shapiro. Our senior editor

1:10:29

is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also

1:10:31

includes Andy Galvin and Kristen Lin. We have

1:10:33

original music by Isaac Jones, audience strategy by

1:10:35

Christina C. Milosky and Shannon Busta. The

1:10:38

executive producer of New York Times opinion audio is

1:10:40

Amy Rose Strasser and special thanks to Sonya Herrera.

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