Crossroads: The Democratic Party in Transition

And today we're going to be focusing on the future of the Democratic Party and to help us do that , we've got two really fun guests David Gershwin , who is a public affairs consultant and Democratic strategist , and Jim Wunderman , who is founder of the New California Coalition , ceo of the Bay Area Council and former chief of staff of Mayor Dianne Feinstein when she

was mayor of San Francisco . Gentlemen , welcome .

On the local level , there seem to be some very moderate you know , the new mayor of San Francisco , the mayor of Houston , as much as he's a thug , maybe Andrew Cuomo in New York , in other words , people who are coming up and dealing with real problems .

And then on the national level , it's like I think Roy Tishera said , it's like something out of a liberal arts college in the Northeast , you know , and the people running the national party seem to be completely clueless about why they lost .

What do you make of this struggle between sort of the local pragmatists and the sort of ideologues who dominate the national party ?

I wasn't senior because I was in my 20s , so I couldn't have been too senior , but I worked very closely with her and she was my mentor . So you know , I think the nature of local government and local politics lends itself more toward practical approaches and common sense and getting things done and is more measured .

Performance gets measured more on things that people can actually feel and on the national level it's more theoretical and philosophical and you know , it just doesn't lend itself the same way to that kind of practicality .

I would say that's a functional problem that we have in the country is that the most important part of leadership comes from Washington DC , but they don't actually they call it the beltway mentality and it means to say that it doesn't live within the same reality as actually the whole rest of the country .

So I don't think that's a new issue , but I think it may be even being felt a little more these days because of the pressures we're feeling in this society .

So , especially here in California , that is the case . But in terms of the Democratic Party having this element that you're speaking of , joel and Marshall , I'd like to say that I think the Republican Party has similar extremist wings . I don't think the run of the mill Republican embraces the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert .

So I don't think the run of the mill Democrat necessarily embraces the far left of the Democratic Party . There are actually some good messages coming out of the far left of the Democratic Party .

They need some massaging and they need some coaching from a communication standpoint , from a messaging standpoint , but overall , the rumors of the death of the Democratic Party , to paraphrase Mark Twain , have been greatly exaggerated .

The question , though , is , if you look at , we can look at the extremes and we can marginalize the extremists , but , joel , the spirit of Joel's question was really about the layer and level of connection , and is there a resonance really that is missing in the Democratic Party , writ large right across a larger group of people that is seems to be doing much better

in the Republican Party ? And what is that ? Why is that disconnect seem to be bigger in the Democratic Party than it is in the Republican Party ?

When that starts hitting people in the pocketbook , when they see the prices of not just imported automobiles but domestic automobiles going up 25% or more , because those domestic automobile companies are importing aluminum , they're importing steel there's a little bit of technology or two in the average vehicle these days so all of those forces will be driving automobile

prices and consumer goods higher . When that happens , I don't think the average American is going to feel like the Republican Party's speaking to them .

So if I am advising the Democratic Party writ large , I'm going to want them to focus much more intently on the economy , something they should have been doing all along , something that they were doing earlier in 2024 , but they really let go by the wayside between midsummer and Labor Day .

We met just a couple of days ago in Indian Wells for a two-day retreat and during the retreat we either entertained or were entertained by four candidates for governor in California , all Democrats . We did extend invitation to Republican candidate but didn't come but four candidates and you know , all four candidates focused on economic issues without prompting .

Now they know their audience is a more business-oriented type of group , an economy group . But you know , the polling doesn't lie , the election outcomes don't lie .

There is a movement that's happening in our state and in other states where the economy , inflation , the cost of living has really become the issue and whoever can capture Americans' imagination on that issue and have the confidence of voters in the future is going to be the preferred candidate , the preferred party is going to win primaries , at least least for a

while , until things get to the point where it's so good that people forget that the economy is important , which they did in California , which also thinks it's a country . So there's a beltway mentality in California that's not too different from what in Washington . It's big , it feels special and unique and it happens to be a one-party-led political institution .

So they're just beginning to get the message now that this isn't working out well and I do think we're going to see the candidates try to push , you know , to have a pro-economy kind of message and we're going to push them to do it . And you know that's why we invited them not just to hear what they're thinking .

We invited them to encourage them to think what we're thinking .

We're going to increase the size of the skilled labor pool and the number of jobs that people have because we're going to get rid of outsourcing , we're going to reshore all of this stuff , first of all . What do you think of that ? As a salient political message ? How do the Democrats really counter that ? And , you know , do you think it'll end up happening ?

They want to know that when they have to buy new soccer cleats for their kids' soccer season starting in AYSO , in the fall that those soccer cleats are not $100 or more because they need to be manufactured in the United States because of the steep tariffs that were imposed on China and Vietnam and what have you .

I don't see how the Democrats become the party of , you know , middle and working class people , as long as they have net zero . Who would have ever ?

I mean , what is the likelihood of this happening ?

You know , building things we need in America . You know building things we need in America again , for national security reasons as well as economic ones . So I think , but it doesn't happen . You know , nothing happens overnight .

It's very hard to do things , make things happen quickly , and I think that we made a choice as a country to go into a globalized economy .

That was the direction of things and there were a lot of advantages to it happening , and I think it served America pretty well for a generation or so , because people there was no inflation and people were able to get whatever they wanted at a reasonable price and they , you know , while we lost a lot of factories and a lot of parts of the country , the

unemployment rate was largely low , and so forth .

So I , you know , I think that was the whether it was a thoughtful strategy or just kind of happened , because of't like it and he's really pointed this out , and I think that's one of the reasons he's president , because he doesn't like it and he's a light bulb has gone off in the minds of Americans that there's something really , you know , bad about having

everything that we make , everything that we consume , made in some other place , especially China , which is probably the one thing that both parties in Washington agree on is that China is a threat and you know that , which , which , whether you agree with it or not , that that is where they're coming from and a lot of policy is being guided by that .

So I think to go back to , you know , to go back to manufacturing onshore is a practical thing . It makes sense . I think people like it . And it's not good for California the way things are situated , because California has made it very , very hard to reindustrialize . I mean the laws , the rules , everything is against California .

So , with all these funds coming in to do it that came out of these big infrastructure packages and so forth , we are a flyover state for this and it's a shame and we've been pointing it out , and in order to deal with that , california is going to have to make difficult choices .

That we're , whether it's labor or the environmental groups or social justice groups . There's going to have to be some explanation and some discussion with them that say we understand your point of view . However , you know , if we're going to get this done , there's going to have to be some change .

We're going to have to unwind some laws and some things that you will call hard fought gains in order to be competitive , or we won't be competitive . The country as a whole has a hard time being competitive . That's why we lost these things in the first place .

So there's going on a national level , we are going to have to do things and it's not going to happen overnight because and you know just the labor arbitrage by itself we're not going to be able to acquire labor in America for the price you can acquire it in , you know , many places around the world , you know , and and here comes Africa , just as you know ,

trying to suppress Asia , you know . So this is the you know . I think completely going away from a globalized economy is probably not going to serve America well .

I think it's going to cause a lot of problems and you know it might be hard to ultimately convince people that we made a mistake and we need to re-globalize , because people are now embedded with the view that there is something inherently wrong about doing things outside our borders .

But I believe the natural order of things is to do the things we do well in the country . And maybe we manufacture certain things here because there are national security reasons to it . But you know , I don't believe it matters to .

You know , to consumers really , where the stuff gets made , as long as it shows up for a good price and it works and they can get it fixed and so forth . But you have to choose . You know you can't have it both ways .

Any idea of how many people were employed in manufacturing in the United States in 1979 ?

Would it have been a trillion ? Would it have been a trillion ? Would it have been five trillion ? Might very well have been right . So it may be that the net value of getting cheaper goods in the United States far outweighs the trade deficit that we have with China today . I don't buy that at all .

I mean , there is no economy outside of that area and that's where we're going to go if we keep going on this direction , because you'll have elite economies . You know , wall street , silicon valley , which increasingly doesn't produce any , doesn't make anything , um , but they design everything .

Well , believe me , I had students from Hong Kong and from China who came here because they wanted to learn how to design , and now that stuff is being designed and now they do design it , they do design it .

So , ultimately , you have to figure out where your advantage is , and of course you can't do everything , but you certainly you can't have a situation where where the United States is incapable of of even making ammunition for the Ukraine .

not going to happen . I think one of the mistakes that this country made not even one party or the other is that we didn't really understand , while that was happening , how much the collateral damage was , how much damage there was to working class Americans . Where was the worker retraining ?

Where was the emphasis on vocational education , forcing working class Americans down the path of four-year colleges and universities or nothing ? That's too binary of a choice . We need to , I think , really refocus on education , worker training , job training .

You hear employers across the country complain about the lack of a skilled workforce and the lack of talent coming out of American schools . Why can't we reinvest ? If we did it in the 50s with STEM under Eisenhower , why can't we have a similar push under whoever is occupying the White House or the chambers of Congress ?

We're going to be talking next year with hands with a tight wire pulled apart .

So I think we you know we better be careful Now . I think there does need to be movement . I agree with Joel . You can't just do everything everywhere else and there's got to be some you know thoughtful process to say what can we make here ? How can we make it if it's all automated and if all just machines doing it ?

You know that doesn't and there's a lot of those seven million jobs in America that got lost . They didn't go to China , they went to machines that used to be people on a line doing things and people aren't going to stand on the damn line doing the thing anymore .

Now let's talk about housing for a minute . Here we have a state that can't build a house . There's no housing going up in a state that has a housing crisis . What if we decided to actually allow housing to be built ?

How many jobs could get created and if we train people to become carpenters and electricians and those kind of jobs which we could do theoretically ? do that and then you could be that , and then you could have economies of scale in a bunch of areas where it's not going to happen in other countries .

There could be some prefab stuff , but basically this would be American industry , and so we should think about what could be the American industries of the future , where there are needs , where there are potentially trained individuals , institutions to train them and markets , and so I wish we could have that kind of thinking going on in Washington and in Sacramento and

begin to address the underemployment of people , the crime , the communities where the kids have no hope of going so they end up in prison , and then we lament that we've got a prison society and all those things . So I would hope we can do better , recognizing that we can't completely annihilate the nature of a global economy .

I think we do it at great peril .

We have ideas about where they should be built , where they don't want to be built , you know , and the market won't support them being built . So , you know , our view of this is that , yes , we should have infill development . We should actually enable it to happen .

So you , you know , somebody can get a permit and somebody can build something at the same time you know , it's really greenfield development where actual family is going to be able to get a house and at a price they can afford , and not have to leave California and go to Austin , texas , joel or other places like that where you , you know , you know .

So I hope that this movement that you're talking about this is a budding concept , I think , in the minds of democratic , because all the leaders in California are democratic by nature .

They're the ones who are going to have to become aligned with the notion that you know what they did went too far and they focus too much on philosophy and too much on you know what they did went too far and they focus too much on philosophy and too much on , you know , solving world peace and not enough on these nuts and bolts how do we get it done ,

kinds of things . And if they don't do that , it's going to become a Republican state in the future . It is not a , you know , labor . The Republican Party will be supported by labor in the future .

You know you were saying before that . You know , if I could , I couldn't imagine 10 years ago it could be like this . So you could say that about a lot of things In 2008, . You know , the country was exasperated .

Barack Obama was elected president , Congress went , both houses went to the Democrats and what people said then was and they knew this was true the Republican Party was dead . It will never come back . They didn't relate to minorities . They didn't know where the country , they couldn't connect to , where the country was going .

So obviously they were right , because there are no Republicans anymore . Oops , right , Didn't go like that . So whatever it is today isn't how it necessarily be tomorrow Didn't go like that . So whatever it is today isn't how it necessarily be tomorrow .

When I was in college back in New York back a long time ago , I took political science and I took a book from the father of somebody who became a very close friend , a guy named David Broder , who you all knew , and he wrote a book it was called . I had to read it .

You know they're in the middle and you've got like a liberal wing and you've got a conservative wing , but you know the Democrats and the Republicans are the same . You can't tell the difference . Well , you know , david Broder was a very smart guy and completely wrong and within a few years there were great dichotomy between the two parties .

You know , and you know . So these things tend to change and smart people , consultants , you know , they figure out probably where you know where people are really kind of living and how to shift .

And the party that kind of gets it , you know , grows and and then they do stuff that's dumb , you know , and then the other party does better , and you know , and we shift back and forth and there is a there is a tendency to have these shifts because people are inherently dissatisfied .

You know there's a lot of reason , whether it's the media , whether it's , you know , social factors , people . There's a great level of dissatisfaction . You know social factors , people . There's a great level of dissatisfaction and you see it in the polling and you know the right track , wrong track , numbers .

All those kinds of things are open doors for whoever's not in power to take it , if they can just figure out how to get their act together .

And I think they don't even have to make any effort to do anything right now , because it's pretty clear that the Republican Party , or what's left of the Republican Party , is certainly whipsawing the economy one way or another . When you were talking about Jim , we were talking about your iPhone . Before Apple lost 9 percent of its value in one single day .

That was earlier this week . It almost seems like ancient history . That was before the pause on the tariffs , before they caved , before Trump caved on tariffs .

But nonetheless , the Democratic Party , I think , has ample opportunity to grab the reins of being the party that is in the interest of the American voter and putting money back in their pockets , and not being the party of oligarchs .

I mean , yesterday , Donald Trump was trying to tout how successful he was to pause the tariffs and how this was going to positively impact Americans . Who did he have in the Oval Office while he was talking about this Charles Schwab , the Charles Schwab .

I don't think the average American voter is looking at Charles Schwab as someone whose economic fortunes dovetail with theirs , you know .

Take a look at where the oligarchical money went in 2020 and even in 2024 . If you take out Elon Musk , they still were overwhelmingly with the Democrats . Some sort of message . You know , like it just you know , to hear someone at the Atlantic talking about , oh , the danger of oligarchy , I say whose checks are you cashing ?

You know , I mean , you're cashing Steve Jobs' inheritance . Basically , is that's where the money comes from , and so I think what the Democrats need to do is try to find a message like what Jim is saying about vocational working , about real infrastructure . But my problem is how do you get rid of the transgender stuff ? How do you get rid of reparations ?

How do you get rid of DEI ?

It was the not articulating the economic vision that did them in . And then and then , just to speak into one of those things , when you be a DEI , if you just break down what those initials stand for diversity , are you against diversity ? Equity Are you against equity ? And inclusion Are you against inclusion ?

At each , each and every one of those items can be a positive force for good if implemented correctly . Right .

Any profession in which people who are designated as being minorities , which of course can't include it meant equity of , of outcome , outcome not out equity of opportunity , and that's how people and if I think , if the Democrats went back to opportunity , I think they would be , which is where I think the Republicans have kind of focused .

That there's this fourth turning notion right , this idea that this next generation is going to be basically remaking society . And you know you think about why is something a wedge issue ? It's a wedge issue because the core belief wasn't there with the group that was the , you know the group that was rising in power .

And I wonder what do you guys think about that ? Do you think we're looking at kind of such a major demographic shift , with this next younger generation taking over , that both parties will be remade ?

So I think there will be a demographic shift and as that generation gets older and that generation is going to have to participate in the same numbers that the older generation has , and there's always hope held out for that .

And those numbers of the younger generation participating are nearly always disappointing , but as they get older , as they get older , there's no doubt that they will be participating . So that change will inevitably happen .

And I think the other really interesting thing about this new generation I'm working on this issue right now is the tremendous difference between men and women , males and females , that the difference between young men and young women is really profound and we've never had something of that extent before .

And , of course , when voters look at the economy as a barometer , the pathway that this current administration and this current administration's party seem to be leading us down is nowhere good , nowhere fast . So I don't think the Democrats have anything to worry about at this point , but the Democrats have .

I don't think the Democrats have anything to worry about at this point , but the Democrats have to be diligent and the Democrats have to be focused and not lose sight of the prize .