How will Democrats move forward? Three strategists weigh in

Summary

Consider This from NPR: How Will Democrats Move Forward? Three Strategists Weigh In

In the wake of a challenging election cycle for the Democratic Party, NPR’s “Consider This” delves deep into the strategies Democrats must adopt to reclaim their footing. Hosted by Ari Shapiro, the episode features insightful discussions with three seasoned political strategists: Paul Begala, Adrian Shropshire, and Waleed Shahid. This comprehensive summary encapsulates their perspectives on the party’s recent setbacks and outlines potential paths forward.

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1. Introduction and Context

The episode opens with reflections on Vice President Kamala Harris’s prominent campaign slogan, “When we fight, we win,” which resonated throughout the Democratic National Convention. Despite the party’s robust campaigning—raising a billion dollars rapidly and mobilizing extensive ground operations—the anticipated victory remained elusive. The immediate aftermath saw internal strife, with Democrats pointing fingers at each other for the loss. Representative Richie Torres criticized the far left’s influence, claiming it bolstered Donald Trump’s support base.

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2. Election Results and Immediate Aftermath

The Democrats faced significant setbacks:

• Loss of Blue Wall States: Traditionally Democratic strongholds shifted red.
• Leadership Vacuum: The party lacked a clear, unified leader post-election.
• Voter Shifts: Key demographics historically supporting Democrats gravitated right.

This defeat ignited internal disputes, highlighting the party’s struggle to present a cohesive front and effectively communicate its achievements over the past four years.

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3. Strategist Perspectives on Moving Forward

a. Paul Begala: Reconnecting with the Working Class

• Core Message: "Democrats have got to rebuild their connection to the working class" ([04:44]).
• Focus: The middle class, viewed as the backbone of the nation, was pivotal. Begala emphasized that the Democrats’ failure to retain the middle class was a critical factor in their loss.
• Strategy: Shift focus to “web issues” that unite the diverse Democratic coalition, rather than “wedge issues” that divide it. He advocated for economic concerns over cultural or identity-based issues to appeal broadly.

b. Adrian Shropshire: Party Building and Understanding the Base

• Core Message: The Democrats need to engage in extensive party building to reconnect with segments of the working class they have alienated ([05:02]).
• Focus: Understanding and addressing the diverse needs of the party’s base, particularly communities that felt neglected.
• Strategy: Engage in meaningful conversations with voters to rebuild trust and clarify the party’s stance on both economic and cultural issues. Shropshire cautioned against overly focusing on either economic or cultural matters, advocating for a balanced approach.

c. Waleed Shahid: Addressing Economic and Societal Issues

• Core Message: Democrats must deliver tangible economic results while addressing societal changes like transgender rights ([05:28]).
• Focus: Bridging the gap between economic disenchantment and societal issues that voters care about.
• Strategy: Implement a dual approach that tackles economic anxieties and humanizes marginalized communities. Shahid stressed the importance of not abandoning progressive causes while simultaneously addressing the economic hardships faced by working-class Americans.

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4. Messaging and Strategic Direction

Web Issues vs. Wedge Issues

• Begala’s View: Advocates for focusing on universal economic concerns (“we’re fighting for you”) to maintain unity within the Democratic coalition ([07:59]).
• Shropshire’s Perspective: Emphasizes the need for clear, consistent messaging that encompasses both economic and cultural issues without alienating any voter group ([08:28]).

Economic Anxiety vs. Cultural Advocacy

• Begala: Believes economic issues are paramount and can serve as a unifying factor across different voter demographics ([07:59]).
• Shahid: Argues that economic concerns alone are insufficient and that Democrats must continue to advocate for societal changes to maintain relevance and support among progressive voters ([09:41]).
• Shropshire: Echoes the necessity of addressing both economic and cultural divisions to create a more holistic and inclusive platform ([11:03]).

Demographics and Voter Engagement

• Shahid: Challenges the notion that “demographics is destiny,” pointing out that despite increasing diversity, Democrats failed to secure key voter groups by not addressing their immediate economic and societal concerns ([06:14]).
• Begala: Suggests moving the party’s focus back to the working and middle class rather than relying solely on demographic shifts ([11:57]).

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5. The New Paradigm for Democrats

The strategists collectively argue that Democrats must redefine their approach to resonate with a broader electorate:

• Economic Focus: Prioritize issues that directly impact voters’ financial well-being, such as cost of living and employment.
• Cultural Relevance: Continue advocating for progressive social policies while ensuring that these do not overshadow the economic narratives that many voters prioritize.
• United Messaging: Create a cohesive narrative that bridges economic and cultural issues, avoiding internal divisions that weaken the party’s overall appeal.
• Addressing Anti-Democratic Sentiments: Combat misinformation and strengthen communication strategies to counteract Republican narratives effectively.

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6. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode underscores the urgent need for the Democratic Party to introspect and adapt in the face of shifting political landscapes. With voices like Paul Begala advocating for a return to economic fundamentals, Adrian Shropshire pushing for deeper party engagement, and Waleed Shahid promoting a balanced approach between economic and societal issues, the path forward requires a multifaceted strategy. The strategists agree that abandoning the party’s foundational support base and failing to address voters’ tangible concerns could hinder Democrats’ resurgence in future elections.

As Democrats grapple with their defeat, the insights provided by Begala, Shropshire, and Shahid offer a roadmap for rebuilding and reconnecting with the electorate, emphasizing the necessity of both economic and cultural engagement to reclaim political ground.

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Notable Quotes:

• Paul Begala ([07:59]): “We’re fighting for you. If you work for a living… we need to focus on economic crises that everyone is facing.”
• Adrian Shropshire ([05:25]): “The Democratic Party actually doesn't understand its base.”
• Waleed Shahid ([06:14]): “What tangibly improved my life? In that vacuum, you’re going to get far-right messages…”

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This episode of “Consider This” provides a critical examination of the Democratic Party’s recent challenges and presents strategic insights from seasoned political minds. By addressing both economic and cultural issues with a unified message, Democrats hope to navigate the complexities of modern American politics and secure future victories.

Transcript

[Ari Shapiro]

When Vice President Kamala Harris was campaigning for the presidency, she landed on a signature line this summer at the Democratic National Convention. It was everywhere. In the pump up video set to Beyonce and when we fight, we win. Plastered across posters, in the audience and in speech. When we fight, we win after speech. Because as we've always known in Texas, when we fight, we win after speech. And as the next president of the United States always says, when we fight.

[Paul Begala]

When we fight, when we fight. Thank you.

[Ari Shapiro]

God bless. In this election, the Democrats fight was pretty good. They successfully ditched their unpopular presumptive nominee. They raised a billion dollars with record breaking speed. They reached tens of millions of people with their massive doorkno knocking and phone banking operations. But the win, of course, never came. And since then, we've seen another law of politics take shape. When you don't win, you fight amongst yourselves. The finger pointing began the morning after the election. Democratic Representative Richie Torres from New York said that, quote, donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left.

[Adrian Shropshire]

Look, if the goal is to win elections on Twitter, then you should embrace movements like Defund the police. But if the goal is to win elections in the real world where it matters, then you have to appeal to working class people of color who historically have been the base of the Democratic Party.

[Ari Shapiro]

That's him on msnbc. Meanwhile, former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in convincing President Biden to step aside, suggested in a New York Times interview that he should have thrown the nomination open earlier.

[Paul Begala]

Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race. Kamala, I think, still would have won, but she may have been stronger having taken her case to the public sooner.

[Ari Shapiro]

Pramila Jayapal, the Washington congresswoman who leads the Progressive Caucus, says Democrats didn't do enough to distinguish themselves from Trump.

[Adrian Shropshire]

We don't offer a different option. He is a billionaire. Yes, but we also surrounded ourselves with billionaires and we allowed corporate interests to dictate policy.

[Ari Shapiro]

She's speaking there to NPR member station KUOW in Seattle.

[Adrian Shropshire]

We have to stand up for who we are. And I'm not sure we totally know as a party who we are.

[Ari Shapiro]

Consider after a resounding defeat, the Democratic Party has to figure out where it goes next. And the struggle over its future is already underway. From npr, I'm Ari Shapiro. This is Ira Glass of this American Life. Each week on our show, we choose a theme, tell different stories on that theme. All right, I'm just going to stop right there. You're listening to an NPR podcast, Chances are, you know, our show. So instead I'm going to tell you we've just been on a run of really good shows lately. Some big, epic, emotional stories and some weird funny stuff, too. Download us this American Life.

[Adrian Shropshire]

Okay, so does this sound like you, you love NPR's podcasts, you wish you could get more of all your favorite shows and you want to support NPR's mission to a more informed public. If all that sounds appealing, then it is time to sign up for the NPR Bundle. Learn more at plus.npr.org Joe Biden's on his way out. Donald Trump's on his way back. Want to know what's happening as the presidential transition is underway? The NPR Politics podcast has you covered with the latest news and analysis. Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast.

[Ari Shapiro]

It's Consider this from npr. So needless to say, things don't look great for Democrats at the moment. The so called blue wall states went red, the party has no obvious leader and many of the voter groups Democrats have historically relied on shifted to the right last week. So what should the party do now? I talked with three strategists with different answers to that question. They are Paul Begalla, who worked on Bill Clinton's campaign and in the administration as a White House adviser Adrian Shropshire, executive director and founder of the political action committee Black pac. And Waleed Shahid is co founder of the Uncommitted Movement and he's a former spokesman for the progressive PAC Justice Democrats. Good to have you all here.

[Paul Begala]

Thanks, Ari.

[Adrian Shropshire]

Thank you.

[Waleed Shahid]

Thank you.

[Ari Shapiro]

Will you each begin by giving us a one sentence headline of where to start? What is your top line prescription for what Democrats need to do now? Who wants to take it first?

[Paul Begala]

All right, this is Paul. I'm the old guy, so I'll start. Democrats have got to rebuild their connection to the working class. It is the most heartbreaking result of this election is that the Democrats lost the middle class.

[Ari Shapiro]

Okay, Paul says middle class. What's next?

[Adrian Shropshire]

I think that maybe a little bit of what Paul just said, but there is some party building that actually needs to take place. I mean, there are parts of the American working class that the Democratic Party lost and there are parts that actually held strong. We need to have a conversation with folks, certainly the folks who did not and understand that. But I just think there's a lot of conversation to be had. I think the Democratic Party actually doesn't understand its base.

[Ari Shapiro]

Paul says the working class, Adrian says the base will lead. What do you say?

[Waleed Shahid]

I think most working class and middle class voters can't Answer the question, what did Democrats do for me in the last four years? And in that vacuum, you're going to get far right messages about migrants, trans people, conspiracy theories from the far right. And I think that's the number one question question that voters had is in the last four years of Democratic rule, what tangibly improved my life?

[Ari Shapiro]

So more than who does the party speak to a question of what does the party stand for? Let me ask for as long as I've been covering politics, 20 years or so, Democrats have preached demographics is destiny, believing that as the country gets less white, it will move left. This election showed that to be false. So what replaces that as the new paradigm, the vision of where the party goes from here?

[Waleed Shahid]

So my parents and many people, pretty much everyone in my family has voted Democrat every single year since they've been citizens. My family is Pakistani American, Muslim American, and this was the first year that people in my family voted for Trump. People entertained the idea of voting for Trump and it was largely about two things. One was the war in Gaza. Second thing was they didn't feel like their number one issue, which was the cost of living, that Democrats had done anything for them. And so what they heard from the Democratic Party is, vote for us, we'll protect democracy. But they don't really believe that democracy is working for them. And in that vacuum, unfortunately, strongman authoritarians like Donald Trump who say, I alone will fix everything, it kind of works because the current system that the Democrats were defending, the status quo that they were defending, just wasn't the mood of the country and wasn't the mood of a lot of Democratic voters.

[Ari Shapiro]

So, Adrian, Paul, what's the new paradigm?

[Adrian Shropshire]

Yeah, I mean, this idea that demographics is destiny, I think was never real. I think that the challenge for us right now, I think I agree with Waleed about the sort of vacuum that has been left in communities in terms of that vacuum being filled with misinformation, disinformation, outright lies and propaganda. You know, when we think about what is the new paradigm, we need to have real conversations with people and not just sort of gloss over and have knee jerk reactions. I think that we're sort of seeing right now in the postmortem that's happening about have we gone too far? Did we go too far left? I think the Democrats need to decide what they are fighting for and they need to fight for those things.

[Ari Shapiro]

I want you to jump in, Paul. I hear you, Adrian, saying the messaging is important. What is the message though, Paul?

[Paul Begala]

We're fighting for you. If you Work for a living.

[Ari Shapiro]

Okay.

[Paul Begala]

If you actually gotta show up for work, we're a friend of yours. You see, the Democrats have this huge, diverse, fractious coalition, which is a very good way to prepare to govern a huge, fractious, diverse country. So we need web issues, not wedge issues. The other side uses wedge issues because their coalition is not as difficult to manage and they want to divide ours.

[Ari Shapiro]

But when you talk about. Go ahead. Yeah, Adrian.

[Adrian Shropshire]

I mean, if there was a message, the Democrats say, this is who we are and here are the policies we're going to put forward. It is those things, though, Paul. I mean, I do think that there's. My concern is that the party does not lean too much into. It is just the economy. It is not economic anxiety that causes a woman to go to the polls in her state where there's a ballot initiation for abortion on the ballot and vote to protect abortion rights, and then goes to the part of her ballot where the man who is responsible for putting justices on the court that would eliminate Roe and vote for that person. That's not economic anxiety.

[Paul Begala]

I think it is. See, I think it is. I think she's pissed that her carton of eggs is twice what it was four years ago. And while she stands for choice, she's like, well, at least this guy is going to make my eggs cheaper.

[Ari Shapiro]

Waleed, I'd love you to jump in here because Paul distinguished between web issues and wedge issues. If Republicans continue to lean into the wedge issues, should the Democrats run away from that? Should they ignore it? Should they talk past it? Should they lean into it? Like, what do you do when the Republicans say on day one we are going to address policy towards transgender people?

[Waleed Shahid]

For example, I think that Democrats need a both and approach around delivering real economic results to working class Americans and not shying away from real societal changes that are happening around us that we can't just pivot away from. We need to humanize trans Americans. We need to contextualize trans Americans. We need to do the same thing that we did in the struggle for gay rights, which is fight these battles and persuade not just an election season, but in the years before election season. And I think we lost to the oldest playbook in human history, which is divide and conquer. And one place I would push back on, Paul, is that Democrats also need. We're too conflict averse. We're trying to be everything to everyone. We need to create villains. Part of the thing is that Democrats have gotten too close to the boardrooms of Uber and Facebook and Wall Street. Some of the groceries companies. And we need to take on those villains. Otherwise the Republicans will create and manufacture villains every single time.

[Ari Shapiro]

The last time Democrats were in The Wilderness for 12 years, Ronald Reagan for eight years, followed by George H.W. bush. Bill Clinton got back into power by saying, it's the economy, stupid. We're going to tack to the center. Is the same answer going to work for Democrats four years from now, two years from now?

[Waleed Shahid]

No. Yes. Go for it.

[Ari Shapiro]

We got a no, a yes. And Adrian, no.

[Adrian Shropshire]

No. I don't think that we're in a fundamentally different world than we were then. Again, I would say, to Waleed's point, like, the country has changed. Right. Not just in terms of its complexion. And we have to address the issues that are fundamentally dividing Americans. And that is not just the economy. You know, we can't. As a country, we are incapable, unable, unwilling to address the sort of central issues that have created our inability to get to a more perfect union. And that is absolutely racism. The Democratic Party absolutely cannot run away from that. And I know that for myself and my community, we've been dealing with this for a very long time. I think when we look at black folks right now, this sort of general sentiment is like, okay, here we are again.

[Ari Shapiro]

Paul, do you think the Democratic pivot looks the same as it looked 30 some years ago when Clinton was running?

[Waleed Shahid]

No.

[Paul Begala]

No, it's not really. Sorry, Ari. Political journalists always think that lives move on a left, right spectrum, and in America, they mostly move on an up, down spectrum. Okay, so we gotta move to the middle. By which I mean the middle of the middle class. Why are we losing? I think because we've lost the middle class.

[Waleed Shahid]

Yeah. I don't think we're that far apart as it may seem. But the. The thing I'm sitting with is like, we do need to be able to speak to Americans, to the mood that they're in. And the mood that they're in today is one of change, one of wanting to understand the cultural changes that are happening in the country around race and gender and sexuality. And also their pocketbooks. Their pocketbooks are empty. Things cost too much. And so we need to do all of the things. I think what I'm frustrated with is there's been all this talk this past week about how Democrats need to abandon the woke part of their party, and very little talk about abandoning the billionaires who are part of their party, who are harming our ability to speak in terms of class warriors and not just cultural warriors.

[Adrian Shropshire]

I don't know.

[Ari Shapiro]

The Republicans had elon Musk. And they managed to do it, but.

[Waleed Shahid]

They are running a campaign based on, again, the oldest playbook, which is Elon Musk is somehow a victim of American democracy rather than a success story of how the economy and democracy works for people like him. And so I feel so ashamed that the Democrats were unprepared for the onslaught of what was going to be attacks on the lines of migration, the border, transgender Americans when we. When we knew this was coming years ago. And yet we didn't develop a strategy to explain to the American people what this was designed to do, which was to help elect Republicans and people like Elon Musk and get them more power.

[Paul Begala]

I'm smiling. Well, because not only do we not explain it, we rub their noses in it if they dare use the wrong word. I'm sorry. There is a woke censorious, preachy elitism in our movement, and we gotta flush that. You don't go to someone who's busting his ass at seven bucks an hour and tell him he's privileged just because his skin is white. I'm sorry. You don't do that. Not if you want to get his vote. Okay. And I'm not naive. I understand there's racism and prejudice in this country. I want to build bridges to those folks. I want to reach out to them. And the easier way to do that is on these economic crises that they're all facing, irrespective of race, gender, and religion.

[Ari Shapiro]

Three Democratic strategists there, Paul Begalla, former White House advisor and now political contributor for cnn Walid Shahid, senior advisor to the uncommitted movement, and Adrian Shropshire, executive director of BlackPak. Thank you all so much.

[Paul Begala]

Thanks so much.

[Ari Shapiro]

This episode was produced by Alejandra Marquez Hanse and Connor Donovan. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. It's consider this from npr. I'm Ari Shapiro.

[Adrian Shropshire]

The Code Switch team spent Election Day talking to folks about how the outcome might impact them. It's a time capsule of people's hopes and fears before they knew the results. One way or another, there's a change coming. I wanted to vote for Trump, but.

[Ari Shapiro]

I voted for her.

[Waleed Shahid]

Gays for Trump.

[Adrian Shropshire]

I cried this morning. I've been crying on and off.

[Ari Shapiro]

I'm terrified.

[Adrian Shropshire]

Listen to Code Switch, the podcast about race and identity, from npr. NPR brings you the updates you need.

[Paul Begala]

On the day's biggest headlines.

[Waleed Shahid]

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[Paul Begala]

Defaulting on its loans.

[Adrian Shropshire]

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[Paul Begala]

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[Adrian Shropshire]

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