How Can Democrats Get Their Mojo Back?

Roy to Shia. He is one half of the authorship of a book that, had you read it before November twenty twenty four, you would have known in advance exactly how Kamala Harris was going to lose his presidential race. Roy To Shara is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and along with John Judas, he wrote a book that came out I Believe the Fall of twenty three Spring of twenty four, with the title where have all the

Democrats Gone? And essentially every trend line that came to fruition in November of twenty twenty four, he had already identified in this book. And as I said, and many of you know this, I've used this book, among three or four others, as a teaching text for a class that I teach on behalf of USC called How Washington Works. And as one of my students wrote, boy, I wish I had read this book before the election, and I

wouldn't have been so surprised by the result. The point is, it's an excellent book, definitely worth your time if you're trying to figure out what's going on inside the two parties, And frankly, is the two party system going to be able to hold up? And if we're stuck here with the two party system, what are the Democrats going to do to respond to what we've seen on the right.

And I do think when you listen to the conversation that Roy tischera does provide a path for Democrats to become a majority party again and a majority governing party again.

But they've got a lot of work to do. And I think you will hear in the tone of the conversation that we have we're both a little bit skeptical that the Democrats have lost enough. And I think that's the real question. Have they lost enough to make the changes necessary to become a majority party again? Right in nineteen eighty eight. Democrats lost the presidential race, with George H. W. Bush getting over four hundred electoral votes. It was a

race that they were supposed to win. It really suddenly made the party rethink things. When you lose by essentially a percentage point a couple hundred thousand total total votes and a handful of states could have flip the outcome, do you think you have to make major changes or minor changes? You know, I remember a conversation and I've for those of you have been longtime listeners of me, know this anecdote. Well, but when I did a when I did a deep dive into what happened? Why is

Wisconsin the most polarized state in the country? Like why did Wisconsin become more polarized than anything else? And essentially, you know, our thesis was a Wisconsin is ground zero, patient zero for polarization, which really began at the start of the twenty first century and really foreshadowed everything we've

seen nationally. And Tommy Thompson, the longtime Republican governor during the last part of the twentieth century there in Wisconsin, I had him and Jim Doyle, the last two term Democratic governor before Tony Evers got in there and both of them remarked, But it was Tommy Thompson who said, you know, until one of the two parties loses by more than a point in any given election, are you

going to have either party do any soul searching? Right when you have a path to fifty percent plus one to win, you don't think about you know, maybe we have some long term issues here, long term issues there, but if you still think of a path to victory, you don't work about it. It's like a Frankly. It's like if you know Frankly to pick on Wisconsin, it's

like the Milwaukee Bucks with Yannis. Right, if you think having Yannis plus you know, a semi healthy Dame Lillard can at least get you to be competitive and maybe you have a chance to make the Eastern Conference finals. Maybe you don't do the teardown. Right, But if you you know, if you're if you're the if you're if you're the Charlotte Hornets or you're the Miami Heat, you think we're not even getting to the Eastern Conference Finals,

We're going to do a whole teardown. And I think that's the conversation Democrats are still in They're not in a teardown mindset yet, right, They're still in this in this place where I think you still have a good chunk of the party that things just tinkering is going to do it. Oh, if they just come up with a better message with Latino voters, they will be able

to fix their problems in the Southwest. Or if they just come up with a better message for working class voters and Michigan, then maybe they improve things in an Ohio or in Iowa versus what happened after eighty eight when it was a slaughter And you realize, as I pointed out before that the combination of McGovern Carter, Mondale and Ducaccus and a message of massive weakness inside the Democratic Party that they may have had good ideas, but

they had weak leadership. And Bill Clinton came along and just came up with a new theory of the case, but was a bit more but led essentially with a bit more strength in how to do it. And I think that that's the question. I have our Democrats in that mode or is there such a desperation to win they'll take any answer. Well, this we're going to find out in a couple of years. But before we get

to the conversation with Gorod to share, I do you want to back up a little thing on the weekend's events, because there was some Look, let's talk about what it is, which is, if the roles were reversed. What would the level of conversation and criticism be if Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were trying to make money off of the presidency. Oh did they do that? What was the level of conversation? And I'm struck by something the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson said to my friend Jake Tapper on CNN

over the weekend. Jake Tapper was asking him about the mean coin, the infamous meme coin dinner where basically, if you bought this phony meme coin basically the baseball cards of crypto, right, it's not worth a thing, these Trump meme coins. It's like it's like selling something from the Franklin Mint, if you will. But if you bought enough of them, you got to have dinner with him. Mike

Johnson actually said, well, the Bidens were doing it, we're doing it undercover. Donald Trump does it out in the open for everybody to see, and therefore it's Okay, so just stop and think about that rationale. The Speaker of the House said, the reason he's not alarmed by Donald Trump profiting off the presidency versus the amount of effort he did to investigate whether Hunter Biden was essentially profiting off the Biden presidency. The big distinction for him is

Biden tried to hide it. Trump doesn't hide it. So didn't ask yourself, where are we headed as a society? Where are we headed in our politics? If basically one political party is completely okay with this corruptible practice, and I say it's corruptible. I don't want to assume corruption has happened yet, but it is easy to corrupt. It is obvious. It is, you know, sort of peeing on your leg and telling you it's reigning. Kind of obvious

at this point. And yet that's the rationale, that's the defense. And you want to talk about why I keep quoting Bob Dole from nineteen ninety six all the time, which was where's the outrage? And I think on this one, where's the outrage? And there is none? And there's and now the Republican Party is putting itself in a position where they're just going to be laughed anytime, laughed out of the room, anytime they attempt to criticize anybody else

on corruption issues. The silence, the ignoring of what Donald Trump is doing with this presidency is something else. Now,

let's take his commencement address at West Point, his decision to politicize the address, his decision to wear a maga hat. I'm going to take you back into the into the way back machine to go back. It's Barack Obama who was president. And let me just remind you of certain controversies that took place when Barack Obama did things with the military, some commencement addresses, you know, saluting the military.

There was a huge outrage over what Sarah Palin deemed the latte salute, that how did Barack Obama hold a latte while he saluted the Marines as he was i

think going on to Marine one. And it became this sort of obsession with sort of whatever you want, whatever you want to call you know, not journalists, not conservative journalists, but just sort of conservative influencer, wanta bees, pundits, whatever Fox News calls itself these days, because it's not a journalistic enterprise, but it's just sort of a vehicle for grievance and outrage. And this was a huge part of their outrage was did Barack Obama do enough of a salute?

And I remember another time was a salute wasn't stiff enough. But I can't imagine the level of outrage. Had Barack Obama come up with an ofa hat and did an Obama for America and and took a speech and used his commencement speech to just trash his predecessor or predecessors right the most sacred of things. And it's really sort of an irrational you know, he he doesn't acknowledge the fact that these kids, these kids went to West Point the majority of the time, their commander in chief was

Joe Biden. It didn't seem to rot the place so much that West Point still exists, that West Point was still teaching and graduating high performing cadets. So it is

it was just, you know, I know, we're no longer astonished. And I know what about ism is a disease that that is all over the place, particularly on the right, but it's it's there on the left.

this on the left as well. Sometimes when there's a violent incident and it's a right winger that does it, whether it was the shooting in Kenosha or the shooting the Tree of Life synagogue. So if we want to make it directly sort of anti semiticaid on the right, anti semiticiated on the left. Last time I checked is you have violent crazy people that exist on the left, and you have violent crazy people that exist on the right.

And yet politically there is always a group of folks who are trying to make the case that no, no, no, no, no no no, it's not our side that produces violence, it's their side that produces violence. And there's this wilful ignorance or excuse making when it doesn't quite fit a narrative that someone hopes exists. And the fact is neither

party and no ideology has a monopoly on crazy, and neither party nor ideology has a monopoly on violence. Sadly, I wish I wish it were true. Then we could easily get rid of it. Right if we knew it was only the part of one party, it would be gone. But that does not exist. But this level of what about ism because over time it eats away at it just eats away at our credibility. It erodes trust more and more because certainly, you know, we never go back.

So take behavior with the military, Donald Trump's decision to politicize it without any essentially without any sort of criticism.

I mean, nobody serious is criticizing him on the right, military leaders aren't. Everybody is just staling science. There's a little bit of a silence of fear that's out there. I run into it plain. I'll have people whisper to me, I really don't like what he's doing with Harvard, or I really don't like what he's doing with the military. I really don't like what he's doing with the government. But I can't say anything or I'll lose my job. Or I can't say anything or I'll lose this client.

I can't say anything because I don't want funding to be cut off from my institution. So this culture of fear that's out there is very real, and you know, this is where where trust in political leadership continues to erode.

You know, we don't have much trust in either side of the aisle, and it's because both sides of the aisle are earning that distrust every day with their behavior, with this idea that we've got to make sure we look good by tearing down the other side, rather than simply why don't you govern well and let people decide that you're doing a good job. Donald Trump has trouble handling that because right now things aren't going well for him right on merits, but he needs to feel like

they're going well. So it becomes this attempt to tear down the left and tear down the other side. And certainly Joe Biden's legacy is in tatters because of what Joe Biden did, and Donald Trump is certainly reveling in it and using it as a way to essentially protect himself politically at this point. But it just struck me that all of these things, the corruption and plain sight, which the Speaker of the House says, oh, but it's

in plain sight, so it's okay. Okay, just imagine, So basically, if I shop lift and wave to the camera, it's okay.

But if I shop lift and quietly put it in a knapsack and so the camera doesn't see it, then I've committed a crime. That's exactly what the Speaker of the House is claiming with this meme coin nonsense. So it's just this, Look what about is them is a disease that strikes a lot of people in this information ecosystem, but it is a really deadly virus these days on

the right. Donald trump behavior with the mean coins, Donald Trump's behavior at West Point again, just you know, we've seen the outrage that took place on the right when a Democrat behaved ten percent similarly as the way Donald Trump is has behaved over the weekend in various ways. And again, I know we're numb, right, there's a numbness to it on one hand. Right, I've got some friends in Europe who have said to me, how come you guys aren't in the streets, And I'm like, well, that

was the first Trump term. There's a little less energy for that this time. So there's a little bit of that, but I also think it goes back to the fear issue that I was telling you about, where there is plenty of people who are very uncomfortable with the President's behavior, particularly how he's self enriching. I mean this, I do

think what is going and what tears down every political movement, every political movement comes to an end because of corruption. And I will tell you the behavior of the Trump organization with crypto, and I've said it before, is going to be what eats and destroys this mag of movement eventually. Maybe it's not this year, maybe it's not next year,

but it is. This is going to eat away. This is a cancer inside this movement, Crypto and the Trump family's addiction to self enrichment using crypto here, I'm telling you it is going to be what brings them down. And I am surprised at how many people continue to

want to go along for that ride. All right, let me do a little update on a little campaign. Twenty twenty six is a fun poll making the rounds in New York City, and that's the key here. It's a It's a poll of New York City Democrats with an oversampling of Jewish voters. When I say oversampling, it doesn't mean they add it. It just has a larger sample of Jewish voters to get a better sense of how Jewish

Democrats would vote. And there was two statewide matchups that were put together, Kathy Holkle the incoming governor, Richie Torres, the congressman on a gubernatorial prime memory and then Chuck Schumer and Alexandria Casio Cortez AOC in a hypothetical Democratic primary for Senate. Now that race wouldn't be till twenty twenty eight, and as many of you have heard me

say before, I'll be shocked of schumer siks reelection. I don't think he's running, but to get a sense of what Democrats think of Chuck Schumer these days, or at least New York City Democrats, it's useful to know he's getting clobbered in a hypothetical matchup with AOC again New York City Democrats in this poll fifty four to thirty three. The poll was sponsored by the Jewish Voters Action Network, conducted by be It, taxed by Honen Strategy Group. It's

not my favorite methodology. I'm not going to lie to you. These days, but I'm also actually, I'm never going to lie to you, not just these days. I always hate that expression because it implies, you know, well, let me you know, honestly, let me tell you no what I merely mean. You're like you're not being honest before. But anyway, but I digress. But a double digit lead twenty one point lead among New York City Democrats for AOC over Schumer.

Among Jewish voters, Schumerling led four three. It was thirty eight thirty seven. And a hypothetical Democratic primary among New York City Democratic voters between Kathy hokl the incombent governor, Richie Torres, the congressman who we just interviewed last week and who told us that he was very focused on running for governor. And again, this is a subsample of a subsample. Right, it's New York City Democratic voters obviously

the largest chunk of voters in a Democratic primary. But you know, I would argue Kathy Holckle's strength is never going to be New York City. If she's even in New York City, she will win a primary if she's

able to do. You know, she is from Western New York, so she should have a better base there, and a New York City Democrat usually struggles the further up the state you go. But what does this tell you? And I go back to something that I truly believe. I think being an incumbent is going to be the worst thing on the ballot in twenty twenty six. If you're incumbent Republican or an incumbent Democrat. That basically incumbent bad

all right. Then the next question is which party's brand is going to be seen as the more negative brand? I think in a midterm is probably depending on where we are right It's going to depend on whether you're talking a gubernatorial race where maybe one party's held the office for quite some time. That means the other party

might be fired up. But overall, nationally, it's probably going to be slightly easier to be a Democrat than Republican because these Republican policies are not very popular right now. And this one big beautiful bill, I don't see anything in there that's going to help Republicans short term politically. Right If the bill works, it might help them long term, but short term I don't see where they get help

out of this. So to me, this poll indicates incumbents are unpopular, Hopell not doing well, Chuck Schumer not doing well, So there is going to be this pining for change. And I think the question is how big, how many of these democratic primaries? How messy are these going to be? And what kind of fights are they going to be? Are they going to be out of logical? Are they

going to be generational? Because those aren't the same thing, you know, and there are some progressives who want to hide the progressive part behind generational change, right and I think that that's you know, it's probably smart politics because many progressive policies are not popular right now with swing voters.

bit a little bit about that. Again, it should stir the pots of more and I'm sure it is only going to encourage, not discourage Richie Torres to keep going on that one other thing worth noting big New York Times story of the weekend that indicates Democrats are still in the wilderness, and noting everything that I've been telling

you about. Well, look, I do think if you read that New York Times piece, this conversation with Roychisha, I think is going to be more enlightening than what you got in the Times, and more explanatory and give you a better idea of where the future of the party lies. Because the future does not lie in Washington. The future of the party is likely lies in one of two categories of folks, either a current governor or somebody that's about to win a governor's race. Maybe it's in twenty

twenty five, like Cheryl Abigail Spamberger. Maybe it's in twenty twenty six, and maybe it's somebody we haven't mentioned yet who comes out of nowhere to meet the moment. But I do think that you're more likely to see, if change is successful for the Democrats, that change will come from the states outside of Washington. All Right, with that, let's sneak in a break and when we come back to Shera on the blueprint for how Democrats get their mojo back, and joining me now is the co author

of one of the most prescient books that you could have read to understand the twenty four election had you read it before the twenty twenty four election. The book is called Where Have All the Democrats Gone? Written by John Judas and Roy to Shera and Roy to Shia

is joining me now. This is not the first time I've interviewed him on this topic, but we are in the middle of, I think the reckoning that Roy you were trying to warn Democrats that was coming, and now there are elected Democrats realizing, hey, maybe that guy was right. Maybe we've got a realignment going on, and maybe we need to figure out who the heck the Democratic coalition is these days? Are you ready to say I told.

when the alignment could write I always love this the realignment. It's not as if realignment has stopped. It's just we've held an election. So where are we, in your mind,

in the middle of this realignment. I would argue it's been I would argue this realignment started in nineteen ninety following you know, and you started to see it began with Buchanan's primary challenge to Bush, and we started to see these things over time. But that would imply that we've been in a twenty five year of political realignment. Is that Is that a fair way to look at this or not?

But by and large, the last thirty years has seen well, you could even take it back farther potentially the realignment of the working class away from the Democratic Party and toward the Republicans, and then a realignment of the college educated and especially the educated affluent away from the Republicans toward the Democrats, so they really kind of shifted bases in an odd sort of way. There's a famous chart

from the twenty twenty four election. I forget the guy who did it, but basically he looked at education and income differentiation polarization between the parties and the coalition the Democrats had in twenty twenty four bears the most relationship to the dull coalition of nineteen ninety six in terms.

away the remaining Republicans. What is the precinct vote now, boy, I need to look at it the most recent, but it's in the.

where to atack right. If you look at this in sailing terms, do they need to shift their win towards that center right, centerst coalition, that is, educated coalition that is coming to them. Do they need to tack back to working class? Obviously you go with where the most votes are to be gained.

You're starting to lose non white working class voters, especially Hispanic working class voters, but also including black working class voters. So the working class as a whole is just becoming increasingly Republican. And since the working class out numbers the college educated something like depends on if you look at eligible voters or actual voters, probably about two to one and eligible maybe sixty forty in terms of people who

show up. And we know because of this strange evolution of the two parties that the higher turnout election you have, the worse it is for the Democrats because that's when the peripheral voters, who tend to be low information, working class, you know, more inclined, could blow it up than to go with the institutions. These are all people through the

Republicans are more attractive. So there's another famous chart from the twenty twenty four election is done by Blue Rose Research that shows that if everybody had shown up, Trump would have won by five points overall, said one and a half points. But if only the people have voted

in twenty twenty two had showed up, Harris would have seletly worn. So this is like the world we live in there.

because it's obviously kind of like a problem. You know, Hey, where the party of the working class historically, and we're sort of for the little guy, and you know, we don't think of ourselves as representing the college educated and affluent, but it kind of seems like those are the people are most enthusiastic. But if we actually try to rectify

that pattern, what do we do? We'd have to like basically depart from the preferences of the most activated members of our new coalition who will absolutely you know, just to take an Exampleaul of, please say, well, you know, now that we've thought about it, we really don't think biological boys belong in girls' sports, full stop, right to the intense blowback. We've already seen some of that. Right.

So you can go down a list of things that are making the Democrats less attracted to working class voters in a sociocultural sense, and on every one of them. It's going to be hard for Democrats to really, I mean,

Matty Iglazias had a nice sort of praise for this the other day. Dog moderation, right, they realized, hey, we need more working class voters. We should probably be a little bit more moderate. So hey, I'm moderate, I'm for the working class, you know, I'm we don't want to be weak and woke and alyssa Slutkin's terminology, right, But they don't change their positions. It's still exactly the same positions. So really they're just trying to you know, people who

are like hip that are following things understand. Oh, I guess that's what they mean when they say, you know, I'm moderate, but the ordinary voter doesn't know that. All they know is Democrats still send for X, Y and Z.

can't we can't get rid of this government benefit. This is our constituents, this is this is who makes up my coalitions. Hands off, mad a kay baby, right, So it is it is And yet you know, so it's funny to me both parties have this fragility to them because they're both dealing with new right. Democrats are struggling with trying they don't know how to how to talk to working class, even though that was sort of the roots of the party. Meanwhile, the Republicans don't know how

to govern for them. Yet.

at AI we called politics for that learners, which is basically how neither party wants to maybe isn't even capable of forming a dominant majority coalition because they're so caught, you know, betwixt in between in terms of new and old parts of their coalition, and they don't really have a strategy on how to change them, how to actually grow their coalition ones they're actually in office. And what

Trump's doing is a perfect example of this. I mean, he came into office with writing, you know, a lot of popular sentiment that was in favor of some of the things he said he stood for in terms of immigration, or terms of the economy, in terms of the eye whatever. I mean, in every single place, he's just gone a lot farther than I mean, people believe the government bureaucrats, a lot of them are you know, just throw him

over the side. But the way he did it was like so scary to people that he probably on net lost more people than he gained. And the whole tariffs thing is like bizarre. People aren't opposed to the idea

we should have like tariffs on China, or we need to reset the American global trading relationships. But the way it's been proceeded is so arbitrary and so hard to sort of sauce out what's really going on and figure out what the effects are going to be on me, the working class voter. That again, I think he's scaring

more people than he's he's waiting over. That's why add one thing, Chuck, and that's why the one thing that actually we shouldn't be surprised as approved ratings have gone down, we should be surprised it's still forty six percent, right, I mean, despite all this Michig gos, you know, Trump still is, you know, remarkably like it bet I happened.

it's not a seesaw. Right, we didn't. We're not seeing a recovery the way you did in Trump One point out right, Democratic numbers actually invest right.

For instance, I interviewed Rob sand who's running for governor of Iowa, and I asked, why are you running as a Democrat, And he says, because there's no viable option if you're not going to run as a Republican. He said, you can't. It's harder to get on the ballot as an independent. It's you can't vote in primaries that way. You know. He didn't sit here and say because I'm a Democrat, Okay, he was the Democratic right, No, he didn't do that. He was basically saying, yeah, I have

no other choice. I wish there were another choice. How fragile do you think these parties are? And I mean because I'm I'm looking at you know, I sit here. I want the Israel's Labor Party is never recovered. I don't know if the Tories are going to recover here. I mean, I'm just you know, it's it's just astonishing

what happened there. But this is this does happen in Western democracies where a major party loses multiple elections in a row, or even if they don't lose multiple in a row, they disappoint like I mean, creating a socialist part right total and I guess which to me, both

parties are more vulnerable to this if there was a viable alternative. I always said we're never going to have a third a successful long term third party, But I buy the idea that we could have a third party that replaced one of the two major parties, just like we did with the Republicans in the Wigs.

basically people don't even like the Labor Party, right. They have a bunch of positions and doing a bunch of things people like, they no clue what to do with the economy. They have this whole crazy ad Milivan renew deal type stuff. Their social positions are still considerably till the lap of the media and British voter and people don't like them, you know. So they're already like plunging in the polls, and you know, the Tories are sort of falling up parties you pointed out, and so reform

is just rocketing upward. You look at a lot of these constituencies where they had the local elections just recently and according to estimates we are done based on that,

if they held an election for MP's today at Milivan, lose a seat, right, I mean, crazy stuff like that. So something's really going on there, and I think what it shows is that across the Western world people think the major traditional parties are broken. The system's broken. The economic outputs are broken, the social contract is broken, the culture's broken, and they're looking for something that would make them feel at least a little bit of different, a

little bit of hope, and they're not seeing it. And this is part of the Democrats problem at this point. Obviously, Trump's disappointing a lot of people, obviously seems a little crazy, and people certainly wonder what's going to happen with the economy. But then they look at the Democrats and say, what are you kidding me? Why should I vote with these guys?

They're no different than they were, you know during the Biden administration. I mean, I wrote a piece the other day, Chuck, I know if you saw it called Democrats fork in the Road, party of restoration or Party of Change, and I think they're basically, as far as voters are concerned now, they look like the Party of Restoration. They're basically not offering anything different than what they did before. They're not changing their positions. They don't look like any better bet

than they did previously. Whereas voters are thirsty for change, they may not know exactly what that change should be. But it's kind of like like our I'll know what when I see it, and you know, Bencrust don't even seem to be speaking to that. They're just like Trump is you know, the fascist, you know, hound in the White House, and is is satanic Party are about to destroy the world and the United States and everything else, and so you should vote for us because we're like,

you know, we're different. I don't be that's enough anymore.

and Michael Ducacas. And I think about the last three Democratic nominees, right, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and they and they to me, they look a little bit like those other three, right where you're just like they're they're they're they're at the it was end stage of that era of that party. And now we know that was end stage at the time.

So it's not as if he wasn't wrong that, Hey, this is a shrinking coalition. It just turned out the Republicans were shrinking faster, right, and that there was that

it was sort of happening on both sides. What should be some lessons that Democrats ought to take from nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety one, because it seems to me they're you know, if I if I were them, i'd be looking at that period, going what what What helped the party get out of that funk during that period?

kidding themselves. You know, they're not going to be saved by you know, economics, by the congressional bastion, by whatever. You really voters don't trust you in a B and C, and you really must change. You have to be a different kind of Democrat, and you have to signal that very clearly, right, And I think that is to some extent the difference between then and now. Well there're two differences. So get to the second one and in a second.

But the first one is, I don't think the appetite, there's no there's no group out there, there's no it's not really that, there's not really a momentum behind the idea. We have to be different Democrats haven't lost. Democrat could be right, I mean, all I just.

in the face. But you know, it's funny. I remember doing a story about polarization in Wisconsin and Tommy Thompson saying to me, well, the problem is neither party loses by enough to change, meaning like when you only lose by a point or two, all you think about is, oh, geez, if I had raised this much more money, ran one more ad, got in one week earlier. Whatever it is, you don't believe, you believe your product's good enough. All you got to do is change.

they're obvious. They are trying to rerun the same playbook, and I think it's less significantly less likely to work. But the second thing I was going to mention Schuck, besides the fact they don't see the momentum there or you know, we have to establish we're a different kind of democrat, new democrat, whatever the phrase you want to we have to be really different. So the appetite isn't there for that yet. For a lot of the reasons

we've been going over. The second thing, though, is if you look at the DLC and its origins and how it developed as much influence as it did, it had a lot to do with the structure of the Democratic Party at the time and what the Congressional caucus was like.

There were a lot of moderates in the Midwest and the South whore like shaping at the bid to do something like this, right because you know, they knew that things were not going well in their areas and they just right, yah, yeah, yeah, you had you had a different kind of party where that kind of moderation and that kind of tendedness to to the working class voter or the median voter was was just much higher and

there wasn't. But I think throughout the Democratic Party now, uh, you know, it's much more uniform, much more homogeneous in terms of ideology, and much more hostile to the idea that Democrats really need to change any of what they stand for to make progress, right. I think that's a much easier sell. And there was a political base within the party back in the eighty quarter eighty eight period that just I don't think there's an analog to today.

again to run for government. And again, I you know, there's.

is the Democratic alternative is just unacceptable. So if you're going to create an alternative, you're going to have to start something new.

or whatever, we just didn't deliver it well. I mean,

you believe.

I mean, this is like classic calm strategy. Oh the problem is we just didn't You didn't go out broadly enough to talk to the masses of honest workers and peasants about our great ideas. What if they don't think your ideas are so great?

Biden and Clinton and it it might work. But I don't know if there's a Democrat out there that's willing to do.

we have the acknowledge I think at this point, Chuck, that Trump is like the towering political figure of the twenty first century in America. I mean he is, you know, if not a genius, there's something about him that's just quite remarkable. I mean, he really has trends. He's resilient Erican political landscape, and he's transformed the Republican Party. He's transformed an entire political party. And as you will say, he leveraged that by taking by becoming a different kind

of Republican. And who are the Democrats change their brand? He changed their completely changed their brand. Right, who's the who's the brand changer out there among potential.

What do you you stand for? Nobody wants to go there, and maybe somebody will, but it's not It doesn't fill me with optimism that nobody so far is really saying anything that looks very much like that. And you could actually add to that, let's let's factor in the probability that the Democrats retake the House in twenty six.

won't take the Senate, but they do better than expected. It's like, okay, fine, everything's great, you know, on to twenty twenty eight. So I think that's going to be a problem.

Let's just yeah, you know, let's do it again.

But I'm with these other governors, and the only one that seems to be comfortable challenging the status quo in the party besides Gavin for his own is Jared Poulis.

How what's what states should the party be working hardest? In to try to you know, there's the mindset of just figure out how to deal with the seven states that decide this election, or start thinking about where's the demographic headed in in the decade of the twenty thirties and start worrying about that. What would you be advising Democratic Party operatives to be focusing their efforts when it comes to which states to be targeting, which constituency groups, et cetera.

and what can we do about it? And if you can't start appealing to these Hispanic working class voters in a place like Texas, your whole political, long term political strategy starts to fall apart. So, I mean, that's not the only state you want to work in, but it would be an interesting example of a state where you should really take seriously that you know, you should be

more companited there. And there's a variety of other states where I mean, you could argue that pick a red state at random, where the you know, purple purple, and then red state where Democrats don't have a prayer of electing a senator, right, you know, pick out one or two of those and figure out, well, how can we crack this case, because if we can't crack that case, we're never taken back to the Senate. It's not it to me.

that's you're just working at the margins. I don't think it really focuses your attention on the things, the big things that need to be sold. You're just looking, oh, we just we just make a marginal improvement here or there,

and you know, we're back in the game.

a little bit. And because they're getting hammered so badly among that demographic from those states where the ruins so large, they don't have a lot of chance, and of course, you know, you try to make that up and into some extent they have a white college educated voters. I mean that's I mean, why are the Democrats even competitive

and wisconsints because of white college impicated voters. That's really that's really it.

think still helps them. But I think logically that edge is going to decline election over election because some of its generational, and it's probably going to get win. Its recently going to go away. So you know, they need a different formula to reach the newer working class voters. And obviously it's fool's gold to rely on how well they're doing them quite college voters, because it's just not enough.

We're always going to be in a nice edge, and if you want to actually have a solid not just sort of for it for a US, not just like fifty to fifty chance. If you want, like to regularly win Wisconsin, then I think you have to take seriously, I do you do much better among white working class voters. Forget about the white college voters. I got to vote for you in I think, and you've got to get out the black I mean, look a look at what's happening with the non white working class vote, and a

lot of states like Wisconsin just to show up. It's just not showing up. They don't like the Democrats, they don't care about them. You know, there's increasing Hispanic presence in some of these states too, But it is remarkable how unenthusiastic black working classes.

were four and five point presidential states? But which if I had told you that in isolation, then that would have probably made you think, oh, well, then Trump must have won Michigan by ten but he didn't run, right, So what do you make of the fact that wherever Democrats didn't campaign, they did worse and at least did their seven states they held there they basically were that What does that tell you?

and that's what winds up happening. I mean that should tell you something, Right, there's a lot of voters out there who will show up in a presidential year without too much feeding them over the head, and they don't like you very much. So because you know, I mean, the issue really, I suppose how do you interpret this matter of persuasion or mobilization. We spend more money, we mobilize more of our people. We spend more money, we actually like move some of the people who otherwise saying

why not give Trump a chance? We actually managed to persuade some of those people not to vote to vote for Harris. It's not a solvable problem. I mean, we I think the data suggests that, you know, the specifisticated analyses overall, at least the tribute three quarters of the change to persuasion and one quarter to mobilization in this election.

But it would depend obviously on the state. But I would not say it it's a I mean, I guess you could infer from that, well, if we campaign hard enough everywhere, you know, and we if we did so much better and swing state X as we can't paint hard and spend a lot of money as opposed to an Illinois California, and that just means we spent even more money, and those swing states will do you even better.

And you know, we don't even need to worry about the fact that we're losing ground and urban areas in New Jersey and Illinois and so on among nonway working class voters. But I think I think that's a temptation among some strategists, but I think it would be would be wrong. I think they should see it instead as part of a general pattern of this realignment we've been talking about, which is problematic for the Democrats.

Because I have, which is, Democratic strategists are to the left of their of the mean voter of the Democratic Party, and Republican strategists are to the left of the mean voter of the Republican.

on top puton issues. So this is uh. And again I think there's not an honest attempt to grapple with that and make the appropriate corrections.

twenty foot the two twenty twenty five state wide elections this year because in many ways they will show the sort of the Democratic parties both new strength, which is the educated elites that all live in Virginia. That's probably going to make Abigail Spenberger win by a fairly comfortable margin's pissed off also probably help her and all of that. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, where they're going to be replaced, and oh, by the way, they have there's an incumbent Republican governor

New Jersey or supposedly reliable blue state. I have a few we're going to see a pretty competitive gubernatorial election because of what we were just talking about here, which is so I guess what would you be looking for for the Democrats to tell you in New Jersey, to tell you maybe it's not as bad as it looked in twenty.

that attributable? Are we really reaching these voters. We're just different voters showing up, you know. And I think the closer it is, I think the more you'll you'll find an influence of the vote in those in those towns, right, not in the affluent, college educated suburbs, but more of the working class. And I'm frequently a Spanic heavy towns. That's what I'm got that.

Vibe administration. It's interesting immigration and some other.

chunking this present. That's a big deal. You know, people may hate Trump, but you know, people think he's he's up to the he's up to the job, whatever job he's doing, right, They don't think like, what were you guys thinking, you know, for two or three years. I mean, I just think it's it's all these books that are coming out are just more and more documenting it, and it keeps on being a point of discussion and dissection, and more will come out about how much people covered up.

the baton, if Naty Celosi won't walk away. You know, this was an entire party that seemed to be more concerned about who's in charge rather than whether he.

and say you're always doom and gloom. Is there anything that's not doom and gloom about the party that you would highlight.

that realization. The second thing, of course, is Trump. You know, right, this is this administration that doesn't know what it's doing. They may, in fact, really crash the economy. Voters may in fact, you know, be responding to that as late as the twenty twenty eight cycles.

Trump administration is, particularly in economic terms, the better it's going to be for them. So that would be hopeful for them getting back into power. But I think again, from the standpoint of the country and the kind of governance we need, I don't think that's what Streame does.

be that kind of messenger. But there's no obvious person, right, there is, you know, And I think the only thing I I hold out hope for is that in this current way that the media works, you can go from nobody to somebody very quickly.

Bobby Kennedy today? And it's an examination of his career and his particular interesting sort of synthesis of liberal and conservative politics that appealed to both black and white working class voters and is willing you know, so what he thought being a Democrat was all about back in the day. And I think it's you know, there's a lot there for people to think about. He's a potential model for a different kind of politics if someone wanted to pursue it.

So it's a pretty substantial report and that should be coming out soon, both covering his career and the relevance were to them.

to a more mainstream Democratic candidate, again more pragmatic. I know that sounds like I'm endorsing the guy by calling you know, if you call somebody pragmatic, that's a net positive. But again, the non progressive wing of the party, if you will a win there, right, it matches what we saw in San Francisco, and we're sort of seeing and I think you're going to see this move in the cities.

Andrew Cuomo is winning not because of his lack of who he is, but because he's not a progressive, right it's who he isn't And so you're starting to see the Democratic Party sort of flex its muscles against progressives in the cities. Right city governance, progressive governance definitely is become unpopular in major cities, and Democrats are sort of self policing here in these primaries. And what we saw in Pittsburgh, I think is another example of this. One

other twenty twenty six note that I wanted to make sure to flag was I've been spending a lot of time telling you about what's going on in that Texas Senate race, because that could be the lynchpin of whether the Senate map becomes competitive between the two parties. Right, if John Cornyn's not the Republican nominee, that changes a lot of the calculus about the Republican's ability to hold

the Senate. Well, I have, for I have sort of wondered whether Cornyn would either run as an independent sort of do a Lisa Murkowski promised to cauc us with the Republicans, but not run in a Republican primary. Well, right now, that is not the path he's taking. He has hired Chris Losovita. And if you know who Chris Losovita is then I don't, then you know this is a pretty big deal. Chris Losovita was one of the two architects of Trump's successful twenty twenty four campaign. He

really is a Virginia based operative. He's had a lot of success in Virginia. He's lost his share of racist too, Don't get me wrong. He's considered basically a fix it campaign guy. You bring in las Avita to fix a campaign, to retool a campaign. He's been brought into rescue campaigns that were losing. Pat Roberts comes to mind in twenty fourteen. He comes in and within a month was able to get the campaign back together. And he's been brought in

before on reclamation projects and they haven't worked. But lot, if I will say this, Ken Paxton has not faced

the wrath of a really tough political campaign. I promise you now, if he can survive a Chris Losovita led John Cornyn campaign against Ken Paxton, who's shall we say ethically challenged there as the attorney general of the state of Texas. If Paxton survives that, then he's likely to

survive and end up a US senator. But I will say this, we are about to see a next level of negativity in a Republican primary, the likes of which only in Texas would you see something like this, where the belief is it's a one party state and therefore

the primary is everything. I'm not so convinced to that, And in fact, one other wildcard in all this could be if a third candidate jumps in and we get basically two rounds of Paxton v. Cornet, because neither candidate can get to fifty percent, and that is another possibility, draining the eventual winner of of massive amounts of cash, potentially leading if it's a Colin al Read sitting out there Democratic nomine running a second time, potentially sitting out

there as a viable candidate. But the hiring of las Aveda by Cornyn. I'm not saying Los A Veta would do this, if Trump's wouldn't do this, if Trump said don't do it. So my guess is I'm not going to sit here. I think knowing Chris the way I know him, he might be more inclined to do something if Trump told him not to do it, because he's kind of that, he is that streak in him. But I really don't think if Lasavina knew that Trump was

against Cornn, I don't know if he does this. And I do think Trump's kind of neutral in this race. Even though MAGA in Texas may be inclined to be

more pro paxtant, I don't think Trump himself is as pro paxton as perhaps Maga might be. So just something to watch for them, all right. I just want to have I'm going to do something that my friend Tony krn high Or does sometimes, and I want to adopt it here. If you're a traffic expert and you live in and around Washington, DC, I would love for you to write into me and explain to me the decision by the district and the Nationals to create new traffic

patterns to exit Nationals Park. I'm not one hundred percent against what they've tried to do. For those of you that care, they end up blocking off you can't you can't get on three ninety five, just shooting up South Capitol Street. If you're on one side of the stadium, they sort of force you to go over the Anacostia, go around and get on six ninety five to go back to three ninety five that way, or you could go over the Wilson Bridge. And I know I'm doing

really hyper local, but that's why I did it. Here at the end of the podcast, I know my true blue DC folks are listening again in theory, I kind of get what you're trying to do with the traffic pattern, but there are some fixes that could be done, and if you're gonna do it, there's so light cycles when you're trying to get on to six ninety five that

could be improved. I'd love for you to do that, but please explain it to me that this is that that there is what instigated this decision to try to create a brand new traffic pattern in exiting the stadium where you cannot use South Capitol Street going towards the city, that you can only use South Capital exiting the city during NATS games? Are you doing this during DC Defenders games? You're going to do this during DC United games?

So with that, I hope you enjoy the rest of your Memorial Day weekend and I'll see you when I upload again in forty eight hours.