← History As It Happens
History As It Happens
Democrats Lost in the Wilderness
01:06:20
The Democratic Party controls none of the three branches of government, has no apparent leader, and is deeply unpopular. An NBC News poll says only 27 percent of registered voters have a positive view of the party. This is not the first time the...
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- [00:01]
Martin DeCaro
I say this every election cycle and I'll say it again. The 2024 political field was intense. So don't get left behind in 2025. If you're running for office, the first.
- [00:13]
Sean Wilentz
Thing on your to do list should.
- [00:15]
Unknown Speaker
Be securing your name on the web.
- [00:17]
Martin DeCaro
With the your name vote domain from GoDaddy.com you'll stand out and make your mark. Don't wait. Get yours today.
- [00:27]
Unknown Speaker
History as it happens. July 4, 2025. Democrats lost in the wilderness. Kamala Harris loss a stunning defeat for Democrats.
- [00:37]
Sean Wilentz
Donald Trump has won the presidency for a second time.
- [00:42]
Martin DeCaro
America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.
- [00:48]
Unknown Speaker
As Republicans control the White House and Congress, the Supreme Court dominated by conservatives, and as the right scores culture war win. Democratic Party, along with liberal and left wing activists appear lost in the wilderness without an obvious leader and without the power to stop Donald Trump's agenda. While Democrats have faced irrelevancy before, as the curtain was coming down on the Cold War, a Southern governor led the party from the wilderness to the White House. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [01:21]
Martin DeCaro
That's why I've offered a plan to get this economy moving again and to create good jobs. And we must break the cycle of welfare dependency. And yet, just as we have won the Cold War abroad, we are losing the battles for economic opportunity and social justice here at home. That's it. Game, set, match.
- [01:38]
Sean Wilentz
It's over.
- [01:39]
Martin DeCaro
We will have a new President of the United States.
- [01:42]
Sean Wilentz
The problem was the Democratic Party, which includes the trade union allies, were kind of stuck, you know, in a way of thinking that was very appropriate in 1936 and that was, you know, maybe even appropriate in 1930, 56, but wasn't terribly appropriate to 1992. The world had changed dramatically and that they were trying to find a way to come up with a liberalism that was appropriate to the new world in which people were living. That's what Clinton was trying to do.
- [02:14]
Martin DeCaro
We're going to project another state for guess who have very few left. Guess who.
- [02:19]
Unknown Speaker
Ronald Reagan wins the state of Hawaii election night, 1984. If it were a football game, the final score would have been, I don't know, Ronald Reagan. 56, Walter Mondale, 3.
- [02:29]
Martin DeCaro
After one of the most impressive presidential victories in American history, President Reagan and George Bush won 59% of the vote, beating the Mondale Ferraro ticket.
- [02:39]
Unknown Speaker
As Reagan secured his revolution, Democrats still held a large majority in the House of Representatives, 253 to 181. Reagan's GOP controlled the Senate by six seats. Four years later, Democrats found a new kind of candidate to lead their party. After the hapless Mondale's humiliating loss in 1988, the party nominated Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis. He faced Reagan's vice president, George H.W. bush.
- [03:05]
Martin DeCaro
Because it's time to raise our sights, to look beyond the cramped ideals and.
- [03:11]
Sean Wilentz
The limited ambitions of the past eight.
- [03:13]
Martin DeCaro
Years to recapture the spirit of energy and of confidence and of idealism that.
- [03:20]
Sean Wilentz
John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson inspired a generation ago.
- [03:24]
Unknown Speaker
Dukakis jumped out to a double digit lead in the polls. But after withering attacks, labeling him as an elitist liberal, soft on crime and weak on national defense, Bush won In a landslide, 40 states to 10. Even so, Bush Democrats still had an 85 seat majority in the House. And in the 1986 midterms they had regained control of the Senate. Now compare this picture. Three consecutive defeats in presidential elections. Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, but the Democrats still controlling Congress. To the state of the Democratic Party today, it controls no branches of the federal government. It has no apparent leader and is losing ground among the voters. It needs the. The party may also have a credibility problem after the Biden debacle.
- [04:11]
Martin DeCaro
I'm going to do is fix the tax system. For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America, I mean billionaires in America and what's happening, they're in a situation where they in fact pay 8.2% in taxes. If they just paid 24%, 25%, either one of those numbers, they'd raise $500 million billion dollars I should say in a 10 year period, we'd be able to wipe out his debt. We'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for. What I've been able to do with the. With the COVID Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with. Look, if we finally beat Medicare. Thank you, President Biden. President Trump. Well, he's right.
- [05:07]
Sean Wilentz
He did beat Medicare.
- [05:08]
Unknown Speaker
He beat it to death. After the debate, it was no longer possible for Biden's inner circle to try to hide the President's rapid disintegration. That was it for Joe Biden, who first ran for president in 1988, his campaign derailed by plagiarism allegations.
- [05:24]
Martin DeCaro
On the wider question, to the untutored eye, plagiarism doesn't seem to be in the same league as a public offense as adultery. If Hart can re enter the room, why can't you? Well, in large part because I don't want to.
- [05:36]
Unknown Speaker
It's not a question of whether or.
- [05:37]
Martin DeCaro
Not I can or I can't. My dilemma was that at the time these, quote, charges were raised, I was in the midst of what everyone characterized back at home as the single most significant domestic fight that was going on.
- [05:51]
Unknown Speaker
Between the administration and the Congress.
- [05:54]
Martin DeCaro
And that was whether or not Robert Bork should become a member of the Supreme Court.
- [05:58]
Unknown Speaker
And as you will know, and there's no sour grapes about this, no one.
- [06:02]
Martin DeCaro
Ever said it was easy to get to be become the leader of the free world.
- [06:05]
Unknown Speaker
All right, back to the present. You may have seen that New York Times piece in late May. The headline, how Donald Trump has Remade America's Political Landscape. It had a graphic, a map of the country with all those little red arrows. Mr. Trump, the article said, has increased the Republican Party share the presidential vote in each election. He's been on the ballot in close to half the counties in America, 1433 in all, according to the Times analysis. By contrast, Democrats have steadily expanded their vote share in those three elections in only 57 of the nation's 3,100 plus counties, 57 out of 3,100. Also in the Times, the sociologist Arlie Hochschild wrote about the seven years she spent in Trump country. In eastern Kentucky, she wrote, in the 2024 election, 81% of Kentucky's fifth congressional district, the whitest and third poorest in the nation, voted for Trump. Once full of New Deal Democrats, the region had suffered losses that its people felt modern Democrats didn't care about or address. During World War I and 2, the black gold dug out of their mountains fed industrial America. Then the coal mines closed and the drug crisis crept in. Hochschild goes on to quote a local college professor who says, around here, Democrats come off as against this and against that and not for anything. They need a big positive alternative vision. And they need to understand that in rural areas like this, the deeper problem is that we're socially hollowed out. I think MAGA plays to a social desert. Now, America, the world really is, of course, dramatically different today than it was in 1991, when George Bush was so popular after the Gulf War, it looked like the Republicans would sail to another White House victory.
- [07:53]
Martin DeCaro
My opponents say I spend too much time on farm foreign policy. As if it didn't matter. Did school children once hid under their desk in drills to prepare for nuclear War. I saw the chance to rid our children's dreams of the nuclear nightmare. And I did.
- [08:11]
Unknown Speaker
Cold War and Gulf War triumphalism did not pay the bills. A recession hit the American economy and the recovery was slow. After two terms of Reagan and one of Bush, millions of Americans did not believe they were benefiting from any trickle down effect. Dissatisfaction with the establishment started to roil politics and populists took advantage.
- [08:32]
Martin DeCaro
This campaign is for the working people and the middle class of both parties.
- [08:38]
Sean Wilentz
And of no party, for the establishment.
- [08:41]
Martin DeCaro
That has dominated the Congress for four decades is as ossified and out of touch with the American people as the ruling class in the White House. Whose fault is that? Not the Democrats, not Republicans. Somewhere out there there's an extraterrestrial that's doing this to us, I guess. And everybody says they take responsibility. Somebody somewhere has to take responsibility for this.
- [09:03]
Unknown Speaker
Now, there would be no President Buchanan or President Perot. But it would have also sounded crazy to say the words President Bill Clinton, at least when the campaign was getting underway. Yet the Governor of Arkansas did it.
- [09:17]
Martin DeCaro
And yet, just as we have won the Cold War abroad, we are losing the battles for economic opportunity and social justice here at home. Now that we have changed the world, it's time to change America.
- [09:40]
Unknown Speaker
So how did Clinton do it? How did he reinvent Democratic politics for a new age? And what can it teach us about the Democrats problems today? Now, after I had already interviewed my guest for this episode, but before I could publish it, a political earthquake shook New York.
- [09:57]
Martin DeCaro
Together we have shown the power of.
- [10:00]
Unknown Speaker
The politics of the future. The socialist Zoran Mamdani's win in the Democratic mayoral primary has supercharged a bitter debate in the party among elected officials and the activist base. Can the Democrats become a big tent party again by swinging further to the left on economic policy, immigration, culture, war issues? Mamdani seems to be doing it, although he still has to win the general election. And New York City isn't exactly like the rest of the country.
- [10:30]
Martin DeCaro
We have won because New Yorkers have.
- [10:33]
Unknown Speaker
Stood up for a city they can afford.
- [10:35]
Martin DeCaro
A city where they can do more than just struggle.
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Unknown Speaker
Affordability, jobs, having a horizon in life. These concerns exist everywhere in America. So any national party needs an economic program that addresses them. Bill Clinton figured it out 33 years ago.
- [10:52]
Martin DeCaro
The era of big government is over.
- [11:02]
Unknown Speaker
But.
- [11:04]
Martin DeCaro
But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.
- [11:11]
Unknown Speaker
Princeton Sean Wilentz is one of the great historians in the world today, the author of the Rise of American Democracy. And the Age of Reagan, which covers the rise of Clintonism. Our conversation next.
- [11:24]
Martin DeCaro
History is defined by the names that stand the test of time. Names that inspire, unite and lead. Now it's your turn to create a lasting legacy with a Dot Vote domain. Whether you're running for office, driving change, or rallying support, a dot Vote domain ensures your name is as memorable as.
- [11:43]
Sean Wilentz
Those in the history books.
- [11:44]
Martin DeCaro
Visit GoDaddy.com, type in your name. Vote and secure a web address that stands out. Claim your place in history with Dot Vote.
- [11:54]
Unknown Speaker
Sean Willence, welcome back to the podcast.
- [11:57]
Sean Wilentz
Great to be here, Martin. Great to be here.
- [11:59]
Unknown Speaker
First time this year. It has been a bit. My Lord, has anything happened the past six months? Yeah, well, you know, it's great to have my favorite historian, and I do mean that sincerely, back on the show. Early 1991, the United States leads a coalition expels Iraq from Kuwait in early March of that year. President Bush's approval rating is now 89%. He was so popular that big name Democrats decide they're not gonna even give it a shot to run for the party's nomination. Maybe it looks like Democrats are never gonna get back in the White House. What was Seann Wilentz, a much younger Sean Wilentz, thinking? Were you teaching at Princeton already? I think you were right.
- [12:41]
Sean Wilentz
Oh God, I've been teaching at Princeton since 1979.
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Unknown Speaker
That's incredible.
- [12:44]
Sean Wilentz
Jimmy Carter was president when I was, when I started here, so that's how old I am.
- [12:48]
Unknown Speaker
So what were you thinking? Early 91?
- [12:51]
Sean Wilentz
Well, I remember the military parade in D.C. after the Iraq war. I remember General Schwarzkopf, who actually is from New Jersey, his father was New Jersey character, marching along and, and HW Saluting him.
- [13:05]
Martin DeCaro
You help this country liberate itself from old ghost and doubts. And when you left, it was still fashionable to question America's decency, America's courage, America's resolve, and no one, no one in the whole world doubts us anymore.
- [13:29]
Sean Wilentz
I was for that war, unlike some Democrats. I thought that I would have happily gone on to beg that, but I thought that that was justified. So I wasn't feeling like many Democrats did, that, you know, this is an unjust war and blah, blah. I thought it was fine. But by same token, I thought, yeah, I mean, the Democrats seem to be.
- [13:44]
Unknown Speaker
Irrelevant politically in terms of national politics, maybe presidential politics, right?
- [13:49]
Sean Wilentz
Well, yes, and certainly, I mean, everything's different at different levels. But don't forget, I mean, also, you know, George H.W. bush had already made his break with even the Reaganite Right. When he had done the tax deal somewhat before that, it was 1990. So, you know, you had the feeling already that HW's reelection would not be catastrophic in the way that it might have been if other people had run. I was feeling bad for my party, but I wasn't feeling as bad for the country as some people might have.
- [14:15]
Unknown Speaker
Well, I remember vaguely. Human memory is notoriously unreliable. I was only 16, 17 years old. I remember being high school young kid, all gung ho. We beat Saddam Hussein. It was like six days, the ground war. Yeah. And it seemed to my young eyes that the White House was owned by Republicans that were the only party allowed. I guess I probably considered myself a Republican in those days. I'm not a member of either party today. No one else is allowed to have the White House. This belongs to us. But a lot of people looked like.
- [14:45]
Sean Wilentz
There was a Reagan coalition that was very, very strong. That 1980 had been what they call a realignment election. Republicans certainly thought that they had a lock on the White House and that anything that interfered with that was, what should we say, almost unpatriotic.
- [14:59]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I wanna talk about the crazy developments of 91, 92 and how timing is everything and how it was possible for Clinton to get in. But you brought up 88. I think this is important because we're trying to understand why Democrats are today lost in the wilderness. I think the party's even in worse shape now than it was then. And what was going on then within the Democratic Party. 1988, Dukakis. That was meant to correct the too liberal swing of 84 in Mondale.
- [15:27]
Sean Wilentz
Right.
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Unknown Speaker
Wasn't Dukakis marketed as post partisan, a technocrat? Right.
- [15:32]
Sean Wilentz
You know, there were many different varieties of this, but he was part of the new generation of Democrats that was coming along. Gary Hart was an example. And there's a lot of them to kep Bart and Bill Clinton for that matter as well. So he was the first post Great Society, New Deal, Great Society Democrat running for president. And he was running on the idea that, you know, despite many difficulties, that Massachusetts had managed to, you know, solidify a kind of industrial policy that was. That was working. And people forget actually that, you know, early on in the campaign or even into the summer, Dukakis was leading in that campaign. People dis Mike Dukakis a lot because the campaign would ended up being such a debacle.
- [16:09]
Martin DeCaro
If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?
- [16:18]
Sean Wilentz
No, I don't BERNARD and I think.
- [16:19]
Martin DeCaro
You know that I've opposed the death.
- [16:20]
Sean Wilentz
Penalty during all of my life.
- [16:23]
Martin DeCaro
As governor, Michael Dukakis vetoed mandatory sentences for drug dealers.
- [16:27]
Sean Wilentz
He vetoed the death penalty. His revolving door prison policy gave weekend furloughs to first degree murderers not eligible for parole. While out, many committed other crimes like.
- [16:39]
Unknown Speaker
Kidnapping and rape, and many are still at large.
- [16:42]
Sean Wilentz
But it was not necessarily fated to be a debacle given the fact that people were feeling, you know, discomfort after Reagan. There was no logical successor to Reagan. It didn't necessarily have to go that way.
- [16:53]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, things were getting stale. I mean, Reagan himself, despite Iran Contra, remained personally popular. But you know, we think back at the so called Reagan boom, Americans understood that things were not as great as we often remember them after the Reagan economy.
- [17:09]
Sean Wilentz
Well, and also Reagan had had no, there was no logical successor to Reagan on the right. I mean, the large successor had been Jack Kemp and he was thought to be the golden boy of the conservative movement. And that just didn't work out. He just didn't take. And so there was nobody on the right that was going to succeed. So in effect, George H.W. became president because Reagan had picked him as his safe candidate back in 1980. Safe Vice Presidential candidate because, you know, Reagan was a smart politician. Not all the hard right Republicans, which is say vision hard right then now. But the Reagan Republicans were not that enthusiastic about George H.W. it took Reagan a while to actually endorse George H.W. bush in 1988. So there was a kind of what should we say? I don't want to say crisis, but there was difficulty on the right as well.
- [17:54]
Unknown Speaker
And the Cold War is still going on there too. So that was a preoccupation of the country. Once that's over in 19, by 1992, somebody like a Pat Buchanan can emerge and say, okay, time to adjust course here.
- [18:06]
Sean Wilentz
It was not some liberal Democrat who.
- [18:09]
Martin DeCaro
Declared, read my lips, no new taxes.
- [18:13]
Unknown Speaker
So what, what's the lesson then that Democrats take away from the debacle of 88 because Democrats, obviously the so called Democrat Leadership Council in Clinton, the party understood they needed to come up with a different approach here.
- [18:25]
Sean Wilentz
Well, that had been going on for some time, I mean through the 80s.
- [18:28]
Unknown Speaker
Right.
- [18:28]
Sean Wilentz
And Clinton was not going to run in 88.
- [18:31]
Unknown Speaker
Didn't Clinton give a speech at the 88 convention? That was a debacle.
- [18:34]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah, disastrous. Well, you know, Bill Clinton, who I admire greatly, has lots to say. He decided to say it all and he went on and on and on and on and on. You have to ask Bill why that happened.
- [18:49]
Martin DeCaro
My friends, we are moving into a future that will richly reward learning and achievement and innovation. And it will punish harshly ignorance and waste and the pursuit of short term profit at the expense of long term growth. We need a president who understands this. Congress will never, never, never forget it. In closing.
- [19:23]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah, he was not. He didn't look like he was ready for primetime and maybe he wasn't ready for primetime at the national level then. But he's not the same quite as Dukakis. I mean, he's a Southerner for one thing. He has to deal with different kinds of issues. He's a much more charismatic, magnetic personality than Dukakis. People overestimate, I think, the DLC's effect on Clinton. I mean, Clinton did more for the DLC than DLC did for Clinton by a lot. But what Clinton was able to do was to pull together a coalition. I don't think any other politician actually on the Democratic side could have managed to do, which is that he managed to pull together. What are we going to call them? The new liberal. I hate the word neoliberalism because it sounds like you're Friedrich Hayek. That's not what it was, but it was a kind of reinvented democratic economic and social policy. But also with the strong civil rights background that he had, he had come up against the Segregationists in the U.S. segregationists in Arkansas. He had that was very, very solid. He had attributes that made him very distinct and was able to pull together a coalition that won.
- [20:22]
Unknown Speaker
This was not New Deal liberalism. It wasn't pro union liberalism either. Clinton's record on unions was not good in Arkans.
- [20:28]
Sean Wilentz
Well, it wasn't. Look at the record. I mean, in 1992, the unions are still there, still in the Democratic Party. They were still unions that were important actually because they hadn't been completely crushed. I don't think he was particularly anti union. I think that he had other ideas about how to make a transition into the new world economy that we were dealing with. I mean, the problem was the Democratic Party, which includes the trade union allies, were kind of stuck in a way of thinking that was very appropriate in 1936 and that was maybe even appropriate in 1956, but wasn't terribly appropriate to 1992. The world had changed dramatically and that they were trying to find a way to come up with a liberalism that was appropriate to the new world in which people were living. That's what Clinton was trying to do. And he did it in a way, though, that was much more politically powerful than any of the others could possibly.
- [21:19]
Unknown Speaker
He could relate to people. He could tell stories. Let's return to that issue. His personal charisma. The famous moment was in the debate with Bush and Perot when a woman in the audience stands up to ask a question, and he responded to her in a way that was really human. We'll return to that. I want to go back to another issue, though, about timing. And also, you could have a great politician and a program that may work in a vision. But things changed in the country. We had a recession and we had an incumbent president that seemed out of touch. I think of what I learned in David M. Kennedy's book Freedom From Fear, how in the 20s, FDR, who had a vision, wanted to take the country, take the US Economy, capitalism, in a certain direction, told his fellow Democrats, look, we're not gonna ever get back into the White House until there's some real big economic disruption. He understood the reality there. That was at work here, too, in the early 1990s. The recession helped Clinton, didn't it?
- [22:17]
Sean Wilentz
Absolutely. And as you say, it was also that Poppy Bush looked like he was out of touch. There was a famous scene, in fact, where he's at a grocery line. He was trying to show off how much he was a Norma person. I don't think he'd been to the grocery store in, you know, decades. And he marveled over the fact that you get to those little bars, you know, that you can push things. He had no idea what that was. And, you know, this is an everyday experience for Americans to show that he was not there. And they caught that on tape. It's not what turned the election, but it was an example, actually, where he seemed to be out of touch in a way that, you know, that Hoover seemed to be out of touch. It's mutatis mutandis. It's not the same situation by any means. It's not a Great Depression. But, yes, he seemed to be out of touch with a lot of ordinary voters. But don't forget also that in 92, this is really important. Pat Buchanan had really dusted him up badly in the primaries and, you know, with his pitchfork brigades. That's where you see the beginning of Trumpism, actually. So by the time that Poppy Bush, I'm calling him by his familiar name, I never met the man, but, you know, for the sake of distinguishing him from his son, that George H.W. had already taken, you know, a lot of licking or a lot of punching. He'd taken a licking, as it were. He Came to the general election somewhat, as I say, bruised.
- [23:24]
Unknown Speaker
He didn't seem to be able to articulate an economic program to relate to people. The recession didn't last that long, but the recovery was slow and the jobs, white collar people were losing their jobs. Unlike maybe in past short recessions. Clinton talked a lot about we've got to abandon what he would say is trickle down economics or supply side economics. This has been an economic model that has failed you. Despite all the talk of the Reagan boom, he seemed to be offering an alternative that resonated with people.
- [23:54]
Sean Wilentz
Absolutely.
- [23:55]
Unknown Speaker
Whereas today. Sorry to interrupt, Sean, but this is my point. Today, Democrats can't relate to ordinary people almost at all at the national level. Might be some good governors out there. Case in point, they're hiring consultants to try to help Democrats speak to men.
- [24:11]
Sean Wilentz
Well, you know, I don't want to go on about the consultant industrial complex, so they're a whole other problem. But I mean.
- [24:18]
Unknown Speaker
And that's the difference. We're doing comparisons here.
- [24:20]
Sean Wilentz
Right.
- [24:20]
Unknown Speaker
Clinton saved the party then.
- [24:22]
Sean Wilentz
Well, he did. He saved the party, no question. And saving the party may have saved the country. It was going to take a while before the Ross Perots on the one hand and the Pat Buchanans on the other were going to be a political force. In some ways, Clinton did a lot to keep that at bay. Keep the Democratic Party, bring it back, bring it into the 20. What do you say? A bridge to the 21st century.
- [24:40]
Martin DeCaro
We have committed this night to continuing our journey to doing the hard work that will build our bridge to the 21st century century, to give the young people here and those all across America the America they deserve.
- [24:53]
Sean Wilentz
But look, 92 was about putting people first. That was his slogan. That was the name of his program. So he was making that pitch very, very clearly in some ways that the Republicans had cornered themselves, in effect, on that question. And this is where Carville, James Carville comes in, too. The economy, stupid. I mean, that was the issue that he was going to run on. Not on civil rights, not on all the other things that was there, but they had a very, very clear idea then. He also had policies that he wanted to pursue, the most important being health care. I mean, he made health care a big, big deal, which had not been made a big, big deal of since 65, 64. I mean, Medicare, Medicaid, that's the last time you had a really dramatic change in the health care system. So that was an example of a policy that he was pursuing which everybody could relate to. That was a universal policy. That was going to affect all Americans, you know, did he get screwed on healthcare? Yeah, but that was after the election.
- [25:46]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, no, you're right. There were specifics in his campaign, his proposals, because FDR in 32, he offered no specifics whatsoever. Nothing.
- [25:55]
Sean Wilentz
He had no idea, really. I mean, he had Bill Moskowitz and the people, you know, Francis Perkins and the people in New York who had been doing things while he was governor. But he had no. I mean, he wanted to balance the budget. So, you know, he was a man of, you know, what do you say, A second rate miner and a first rate temple. He understood instinctually things that most people don't even get intellectually.
- [26:14]
Unknown Speaker
He did have a vision. But campaigning, as David M. Kennedy said to me on this show, the Democrats could have run a ham sandwich in 1932 and beaten Herbert Hoover. I don't think FDR also wanted to box himself in over committing to anything, especially when you're about to take power. The lame duck session there was still too long. He wasn't inaugurated until March. He didn't want to overly commit himself in any one direction when you're about to take power with 25% unemployment rate and all that. But anyway, yeah, back to the 1990s. You mentioned civil rights before. There's a famous moment that has its own name, the Sister Soulja moment. In the context of trying to craft a new kind of liberalism to get Democrats back in the White House After 12 years of Republican president. Clinton was obviously pro civil rights. He was an ally of African Americans, but an up and coming rap star, a hip hop artist. Sister Soulja made some comments that some people maybe took out of. Took out of.
- [27:13]
Sean Wilentz
She said, there will be times when you have to start killing white people.
- [27:16]
Unknown Speaker
Now I got the quote here, and this was in the context of May 1992. We had these horrible race riots in LA after the Rodney King verdict or the police officers were exonerated after they beat the living daylights out of him. She said this. If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people? I guess you can be charitable and say she's just making some kind of rhetorical remark. Obviously a lot of people didn't take it that way.
- [27:40]
Sean Wilentz
It wasn't. Look, it is what it is. But that's maybe the problem is that when it becomes sort of quasi normal discourse.
- [27:45]
Unknown Speaker
Yes.
- [27:46]
Sean Wilentz
If you ask normal people what that means, it means, Jesus Christ, you know, what are you talking, Bill Clinton. So, yeah.
- [27:51]
Unknown Speaker
How did Clinton handle this?
- [27:52]
Sean Wilentz
Well, he called it out. I Mean, that was the point. It got Jesse Jackson and other people very, very angry. Because there was a way in which the whole history of the civil rights movement and civil rights politics is a complicated one. But by the time you got to the 1990s, a kind of racialism that Martin Luther King Jr. Never would have been party to, but that had grown up in the late 60s. You know, you associated with Stokely Carmichael or Rap Brown or that kind of strain that overthrew John Lewis and the. And the King acolytes and the. In SNCC and other places. That strain of a kind of. What do you want to call it? A kind of soft black nationalism. Call it. That had become very much a part of black politics. It was a kind of middle class, bourgeois, rising bourgeoisie, whatever you want to call it. Even at Jesse Jackson, who was, you know, Martin Luther King's other. One of his great successors, you know, saying, it's nation time, it's nation time. It sounded. Had a black nationalist tone to it. Not that long afterwards, you're going to Louis Farrakhan an absolute racist, you know, calling the Million Man March. That was after Clinton got in. But that was a strain of politics that was. Was there. And that Sister Soldier represented. Not in any kind. You know, she's a rap star. What is it really matter? But she was reflecting, I think, something about what had happened to civil rights politics that really was hurting the Democrats and that people perceived as being what the Democrats were about. And he was going to say, no, we don't stand for this. It's as if somebody got up today and say, no, we don't want to defund the police. We don't want to do this kind of thing. Clinton did that in 1992. At the risk of losing at the time some support from some black leadership like Jackson, who was pissed off, you know, very, very, very angry about all that. But he did it anyway for the sake of the party and because it's what he believed.
- [29:35]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that happened at a Rainbow Push Coalition, I believe, event where Clinton went to speak. Jackson was very angry because he claims he didn't know Clinton was gonna say this about Sister Soulja. And Clinton did anyway.
- [29:47]
Martin DeCaro
You had a rap singer here last night named Sister Soulja. I defend her right to express herself through music. But her comments before and after Los Angeles were filled with a kind of hatred that you do not honor today and tonight. Just listen to this. What she said, she told the Washington Post about a month ago, and I quote, if black people kill black people, every Day. Why not have a week and kill white people? So you're a gang member and you normally kill somebody. Why not kill a white person? Last year she said, you can't call me or any black person anywhere in the world a racist. We don't have the power to do to white people what white people have done to us. And even if we did, we don't have that low down dirty nature. If there are any good white people, I haven't met them. Where are they? Right here in this room. That's where they are. I know she is a young person, but she has a big influence on a lot of people. And when people say that, if you took the words white and black and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech.
- [30:55]
Unknown Speaker
And you mentioned how today, you know, defund the police and we've had some disturbances in la. Of course, on the right, all this stuff gets exaggerated. But on the left, Democrats, unable, seemingly unable to criticize what should be very easy to totally reject. You know, there was this leftist overreach after the George Floyd situation. You know, that was a horrible situation. He was murdered by the police. But, you know, the activists and even some of the adults in the party got carried away with this. You can't be activists. You have to be politicians. You have to be pragmatists.
- [31:27]
Sean Wilentz
Well, you said it. And you actually, you wrote a book.
- [31:29]
Unknown Speaker
You wrote a book with that title.
- [31:31]
Sean Wilentz
I think I did. I did. But, you know, I'm gonna condemn the entire party by any means. I mean, you know, a guy like Hakeem Jeffries, for example, is, you know, he's a black politician in Brooklyn who's actually. Whose uncle was Leonard Jeffries, who. A real black nationalist, Afrocentric character. But, you know, Hakeem's not a. He's a. He's a pragmatist. So it's not as if everybody was that, but in the way that it would reflect it. In the midst of all of the craziness of 2020, amidst the COVID and the George Floyd and all of that, I don't think the Democrats did a very, very particularly good job of separating themselves from the excesses of all of that, whether it was taking down statues of Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson and all of that. Actually, Trump did a better job of owning that than the Democrats did. So I still think there's a problem that a guy like Clinton instinctively understood, in part because he's from the South. That makes a big, big difference. Southern politicians, black and white, have an advantage over other politicians. Because they live through a situation that most Americans don't live through. To be a Democrat in Arkansas in the 1980s and 1990s was a boot camp or training in how to be a politician, how to be a national politician, reflecting ideas that the rest of the party might not have been able to do.
- [32:43]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting you say that because a lot of people. And again, I was only 16 years old at the time. I remember this, this attitude among some. Well, who's this guy from Arkansas? The governor of Arkansas. But as you say, that actually was training ground to be a national politician at that period of time.
- [33:00]
Sean Wilentz
Exactly, exactly.
- [33:01]
Martin DeCaro
Does the question, Governor Brown, of Mr. Clinton's recent problems lead you to believe that he has an electability problem? Yeah, I think he's got a big electability problem.
- [33:11]
Sean Wilentz
Well, what do you think it is?
- [33:12]
Martin DeCaro
I want to tell you what it is. He's right in front of the Washington Post today. He is funneling money to his wife's law firm for state business. That's number one. Number two, his wife's law firm is representing clients before the state of Arkansas agencies, his appointees. And one of the key is the poultry industry, which his wife's law firm represents. And to read the local Chicago Tribune, there's 270 miles of Arkansas rivers that are polluted with fecal coliform bacteria and are unsafe for humans or fish. So it's not only corruption, it's an environmental disaster. And it's the kind of conflict of interest that is incompatible in the kind of public servant we expect.
- [33:50]
Unknown Speaker
It doesn't sound like you could run.
- [33:52]
Martin DeCaro
As his vice president. No, it doesn't. Mr. Clinton, do you want to take a swing in all that stuff? I feel sorry for Jerry Brown. I served with him as governor in the late 70s. He asked me to support him for president once. Did you? Of course not. You know, he reinvents himself every year or 2. In 1990, he was pleading with the courts in California not to impose any limits on contributions. His law firm took $178,000 of taxpayers money. Money. Taxpayers money to beat a contribution limit initiative in 1990. And so I don't think you can take much of what he says seriously. Now, let me tell you this. Well, can I, can I just interject something? I mean, this guy just accused you of having so many funnel legal fees to your wife and the poultry and whatever, all that. Well, his wife. Is that true or isn't it? Is it true or isn't it true? Governor Clinton. Wait a second. Wait a minute. You're always trying to. Mr. Brown. You never answer the question. Mr. Brown, let him answer. Let me tell you something. Something, Jerry. I don't care what you say about me. I knew when Pat Cadell told me what you were going to say, that you were going to reinvent yourself and you were going to be somebody else's mouthpiece. You would say anything. But you ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife. You're not worth being on the same platform. I'll tell you something, Mr. Clinton. Don't try to escape it. Ralph Nader called me this afternoon. He read me the article from the Washington Post. Does that make it. I was shocked by it. I was shocked by it because I don't. I don't think someone in government should be funneling money this time. Governor Clinton, you were poking your finger at him. He poked it backwards. It's your turn, Governor Clinton. Jerry comes here with his family wealth and his $1,500 suit and makes a lying accusation about my wife. She's in Washington Post. That doesn't make it true. Are you saying they lie? I'm saying that I never funnel any money to my wife's law firm. Never.
- [35:37]
Unknown Speaker
To my earlier point about problems of the Democrats today, unable to communicate with normal, ordinary people, Clinton in the Reagan style, different politics, but in the Reagan style, maybe even more genuine than Reagan. You get into this, into your book, the Age of Reagan. He was a storyteller and he was able to relate to people. The famous moment in that debate I mentioned where a woman asks George H.W. bush, how does the deficit affect your life? If you can't relate to ordinary people, how are you gonna solve our problems? And Bush gave a defensive answer. Clinton gave a human answer.
- [36:12]
Sean Wilentz
Can't remember what he said. Martin, remind me.
- [36:14]
Martin DeCaro
She's saying, you personally, on a personal basis. How has it affected you? Has it affected you personally? Well, I'm sure it has. I love my grand grandchildren. I want to think that. I want to think that they're going to be able to afford an education. I think that that's an important part of being a parent. If the question. If you're. Maybe I won't get it wrong. Are you suggesting that if somebody has means that the national debt doesn't affect them? I'm not sure I get. Help me with the question and I'll try to answer it. I've had friends that have been laid off from jobs. I know people who cannot afford to pay the mortgage on their homes, their car payment. I have personal problems. With the national debt. But how has it affected you? And if you have no experience in it, how can you help us if you don't know what we're feeling? I think she means more the recession.
- [37:02]
Unknown Speaker
The economic problems today the country faces.
- [37:06]
Martin DeCaro
Rather than the, you ought to be in the White House for a day and hear what I hear and see what I see and read the mail. I read and touch the people that I touch from time to time. I was in the Lomax AME Church, it's a black church just outside of Washington D.C. and I read in the, in the, in the bulletin about teenage pregnancies, about the difficulty that families are having to meet ends, make ends meet. I talk to parents. I mean, you got to care. Everybody cares if people aren't doing well. But I don't think it's fair to say you haven't had cancer, therefore you don't know what it's like. I don't think it's fair to say, you know, whatever it is, that if you haven't been hit by it personally, but everybody's affected by the debt because of the tremendous interest that goes into paying on that debt. Everything's more expensive. Everything comes out of your pocket. In my pocket. I'm glad to clarify. Tell me how it's affected you again. You know people who lost their jobs and lost their homes. Well, I've been governor of a small state for 12 years. I'll tell you how it's affected me. Every year Congress and the president sign laws that make us do more things. It gives us less money to do it with. I see people in my state, middle class people, their taxes have gone up in Washington and their services have gone down while the wealthy have gotten tax cuts. I have seen what's happened in this last four years when in my state, when people lose their jobs, there's a good chance I'll know them by their names. When a factory closes, I know the people who ran it. When the businesses go bankrupt, I know them. And I've been out here for 13 months meeting in meetings just like this ever since October with people like you all over America. People that have lost their jobs, lost their livelihood, lost their health insurance. What I want you to understand is the national debt is not the only cause of that. It is because America has not invested in its people. It is. It is because we have not grown. It is because we've had 12 years of trickle down economics. We've gone from 1st to 12th in the world in wages. We've had four years where we produced no private sector jobs. Most people are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago. It is because we are in the grip of a failed economic theory. And this decision you're about to make better be about what kind of economic theory you want. Not just people saying, I want to go fix it, but what, what are we going to do?
- [39:35]
Unknown Speaker
It's hard to beat that.
- [39:36]
Sean Wilentz
Bingo. Yeah. I mean, look, he was running against supply side economics, but he made it relatable to ordinary people, cashing in on the fact that he was the governor of the small states, so he knew everybody's name, so that he was intimately aware of people's situations. But he was saying, look, the problem here is the way these, these Republicans have been running the country since, since Ronald Reagan. And what he means by Invest in America, he found the words for it. What he meant was social spending, on education, on things that would, that are universal. Not shoveling money to a particular group or race or whatever. Yeah, I mean, he reinvented the New Deal in a way that people could understand. Up against what had been an attempt to outlaw, which has now gone nuclear, but an attempt to undo the New Deal, indeed, undo everything going back to the progressive era. He understood that, and he made it.
- [40:20]
Unknown Speaker
Relatable at the very beginning of Clinton's response. If listeners go back in the podcast, hit reverse. You can actually hear George Bush, the president, gasp or say, oh, God, he was spitting disdain about this guy. Bush just couldn't understand why anyone would take Clinton seriously because people on the right thought he was sleazy or a phony or whatever. But as you say in your book the Age of Reagan, Clintonism was not an ideology. And he was trying to lead a party that had become a congressional party, as you say on page 325, an unreconstructed party averse to the work of politics, compromise and maneuvering. Something that could be said about many Democrats today. I mean, they just don't know. They don't know how to do politics. Well, what was Clintonism then? It was an approach to politics, not necessarily an ideology.
- [41:12]
Sean Wilentz
It was essentially based in basic, certain liberal principles, which is that the federal government should be active in ways that would benefit the entire country, not just a small segment of the country. And that's a kind of vague idea, but that's there. But other than that, it was highly pragmatic. There were many strands to Clintonism. It was no one thing, but it all kind of fit together. You know, questions of economic policy, industrial policy. If you Want to call it that, but also that he wanted to overcome the idea that the government ought to be there to just coddle people. The nanny state, as they called it, the Republicans called it, that the welfare state was there basically to enrich black people at the expense of white people. He was going to counteract that by being much more universal in his ideology, which actually appealed to people of all colors and races in ways that. That a lot of Democrats may not get. They may not understand today. Not all by any means, but some generalize.
- [42:03]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, he did. I should not generalize, but yeah. So James Carville, who. I think you know him fairly well, Sean Wilentz, he has often said the purpose of a political party is to win elections. And this is tough. There's only been one New Deal where, you know, a president wins four elections, but then he builds a lasting electoral coalition to consolidate those gains, remain in office, and also then. And preserve the institutional changes that you've enacted through legislation. Clinton hoped. I'm sure every president hopes to do this, but we know how things went in the 2000 election. I should never bring that up with you because I know how you feel about what happened to Al Gore. Nelson Lichtenstein's book, A Fabulous Failure. He argues that by the end of Clinton's eight years, he had embraced what we call neoliberalism, deregulation, excessive financialization of the economy, nafta, which became politically toxic, as we all know. China in the wto, globalization, other policies that maybe in hindsight, we can say help lead the way to Trump. I don't know. I guess my question here is what endured from Clinton's presidency? You know, what was his lasting mark on politics? Because today Clintonism is out of favor among Democrats, at least some.
- [43:19]
Sean Wilentz
With all due respects to my friend, old friend Nelson. I mean, he's just wrong. He's just wrong about all of that. One thing after another. Whether it's the repeal of Glass, Steagall leading to 2008. Nonsense. Just complete nonsense. The idea that the crime bill led to mass incarceration, that this is all neoliberalism, vaguely racist policies that Clinton was embracing. It's just poppycock, to be polite about it. People on the left who criticize Clinton, they forget the 1990s. The 1990s was a period of growing prosperity across the board for lots of different. Every different group. It was reversing the great divergence, the social divergence that Reagan had helped introduce with the tax cuts, et cetera, et cetera. It was an extraordinary period of economic growth. For more Americans than usually get involved in it. And in 2000, you know what I have to say about that? I mean that election was stolen. It was stolen by the Supreme Court. Had Al Gore. I've sometimes thought about writing a. It's not science fiction but a kind of fictional account called the administration, the presidency administration of Albert Gore and what it might have looked like. And for one thing he would not have invaded Iraq. One of the great hallmarks of the George W. Bush administration.
- [44:26]
Unknown Speaker
It's funny you mentioned that. You know I had Steve call on last year to discuss his fantastic book about Saddam Hussein and American politics going back to the Reagan time. He believes the regime change policy that Clinton adopted without really explaining how to do it, that Gore may have done something if not a full scale land invasion but. But would have taken some action at some point against Saddam Hussein.
- [44:48]
Sean Wilentz
But he was not having the likes of Paul Wolfowitz. He was not having that neocon cadre that really pushed for that invasion. That war basically exploiting 9 11. Osama bin Laden was not going to be called to account until he got to Barack Obama. So completely misdirecting what was a real crisis. I don't want to pooh pooh that, but taking it into invasion of Iraq was madness.
- [45:12]
Unknown Speaker
So let's though return because it's related to the topic Democrats problem today and the Clinton policies. Whether you agree with Nelson's book or not. I actually did enjoy that book. I learned a lot about what was going on in the 90s. But I think it's true. NAFTA did become politically toxic China in the wto. Right or wrong? I mean we're talking about how people perceive things here.
- [45:31]
Sean Wilentz
We can argue about all that. I mean NAFTA was at the time looked like adapting to the facts of life in terms of trade. How are you going to undo it?
- [45:37]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, there's a consensus across the world. We can argue when Democrats today, Sean Wilenson, you consider yourself a capital D Democrat trying to figure out what to do. Are we too liberal on social issues? Are we not liberal enough on economic issues? You go back to Clinton and his success. A lot of Democrats today say that's, that's not the right recipe for the, the problems we're facing now. So what is?
- [46:00]
Sean Wilentz
Well, what is their recipe?
- [46:01]
Unknown Speaker
I'll give you a quote here from an article. I know I'm talking too much, so thank you for your patience. Article in the New York Times by the sociologist Arlie Russell. Yeah, she spent seven years in eastern Kentucky to write her book Stolen pride. Kind of an anthropologist, in a way, getting to know people in this very diverse country of ours. I've never really been to Eastern Kentucky. In the 2024 election, 81% of Kentucky's 5th congressional district, the whitest and third poorest in the nation, voted for Donald Trump. This was once full of New Deal Democrats. 81%. That used to be the bedrock of the Democratic Party. Rural, white, working class people. One of the bedrocks. Somebody she interviews, explains around here, Democrats come off as against this and against that and not for anything. They have no alternative vision. I mean, how the hell did this happen? It didn't happen overnight, correct?
- [46:58]
Sean Wilentz
No, I mean, that's absolutely right. When the Democratic Party gets its act together, it's going to be. There's going to have to be a faction of the Democratic Party which is going to be relentless and powerful to understand how to take Democratic Party values and adapt them to the world we live in now. And the world we live in now is not the world of coal mining in the 1930s and 40s, is not the world of FDR. Things change.
- [47:19]
Unknown Speaker
It's not the world of Bill Clinton.
- [47:20]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah, and not the world of Bill Clinton. Exactly. And we have foreign policy questions that have to be addressed that are simply. We're not talking about the end of the Cold War here or the near end of the Cold War. We're talking about a whole different situation. I don't bore you with that.
- [47:33]
Unknown Speaker
No, no, it's true, though, as well.
- [47:35]
Sean Wilentz
The damage that has been done now, the damage post Trump is going to be immense. So it's going to take the Democratic Party to basically reinvent itself the way that it reinvented itself or that a faction of it did reinvent it in the 1980s and 1990s. And the idea that somehow that was a neoliberal move to try and distance the Democratic Party from its own roots and to become basically indistinguishable from the Republicans, which is basically the line of the left, is total nonsense. It's a recipe for defeat, eternal defeat. If people think that the coal miners of eastern Kentucky are going to align with the Democrats, if they move further and further to the left, they're crazy.
- [48:15]
Unknown Speaker
I guess it depends on the issues, though. Economic. I say maybe what some people call social democracy. On economic issues. I think there is some call for.
- [48:25]
Sean Wilentz
That, but it's not as if the Democrats have been against that. That's fine, but it has to be adapted to the current world. Look, coal mining is not going to be the future. And Part of what I think Arlie talks about, and I respect Arlie a lot, but she talks about is a way of life that was undone, but that was not undone because of neoliberal politics. That was undone because coal mining is not the wave of the future in terms of economic development in the United States. Now, how do you come up with a policy that is. Is that's going to put people first, as it were, and still be adaptable to the 21st century or into the second quarter of the 21st century? How are you going to be able to do that? Talking great about Medicare for all or whatever the slogans might be? They are not in and of itself going to be the answer that people need in order to move forward with their lives. You can't look backward to look forward at the same time. I'm a historian. I look backward all the time. But the fact is, you have to have a future. You know, have to look to the future. And I don't think that going back to the solutions of the past is necessarily going to lead you into what, not only in terms of policy, but in terms of politics, get you into the future.
- [49:24]
Unknown Speaker
We can learn from the past, though, the importance of being good at politics, knowing how to do politics. I'm not here to propose policy. I'm not a policy Wonka. I don't really.
- [49:32]
Sean Wilentz
But Martin, that's true, but that's an abstraction. The point is, how do you do good at politics in the current situation? That's what pragmatism basically is. And I don't know anybody that's actually come up to my mind, to my vision, as, you know, a compelling idea of what the world looks like now. That's what we really need.
- [49:48]
Unknown Speaker
So there's the vision part of this, but also opportunity and timing. It's not like Democrats didn't have a good opportunity here to seize back the mantle right after the first Trump term and his callous and incompetent handling of the pandemic. And then, of course, January 6th, which is a national historic, national disgrace. But it didn't last. I mean, I look back on Trump's first term at the time. Oh, this is an anomaly. And we'll of course correct Biden. Older than Clinton, Joe Biden, he never would have been the President of the United States had it not been for those unique circumstances. He becomes president, and now he looks like the anomaly because Trump is back in power. Democrats fumbled an opportunity here. Arlie said in her article, you know, around here, just Democrats just don't seem to care about us anymore.
- [50:35]
Sean Wilentz
I mean, now you have people living in silos, living only getting their information from Newsmax or something like that. And it's very, very difficult to deal with that. And that's. I don't have an answer to that question, but it's something that makes it much more difficult to break through. The idea that all Democrats hate all white people, which I've heard, basically.
- [50:51]
Unknown Speaker
Yes, yeah, yeah.
- [50:52]
Sean Wilentz
I mean, it's that crude. The problem with 2024, I ascribe it actually to Vladimir Putin and not in the way that you might imagine. I think that the invasion of Ukraine struck Joe Biden very, very hard, and I think he saw it in a way that I agree with as an attack on the West. This was the test of democracy of our time. This was the great test of our time. And I think that may have helped persuade. This is pure speculation on my part. I have no way of knowing for sure. But it may have persuaded Biden that he was the man who had to stay. He couldn't be a bridge to a new generation, that he was the one who had the sensibilities to Carter, because through. And that is not completely untrue in terms of his sensibility, because he is who he was or he was who he is, or he is who he is. But my point is that if, for example, after the midterms, where the Democrats did extremely well, much better than people would have thought in 2022, if he had then said, okay, I'm not going to run again, I'm going to find another person to do this and we're going to do the transition, or in some way or another, you never wanted to declare yourself a really lame duck. But nevertheless, had there been a transition, it's very, very possible the Democrats could have won that election. You know very, very well that didn't happen. And it didn't happen for reasons that are not about Biden's vanity or being old. I mean, there's a whole bunch of reasons why it happened, but that was terrible. It didn't work out.
- [52:09]
Unknown Speaker
But he was too old, though. He should not have run for a second term. I do want to ask you.
- [52:13]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah, I agree with you, but that didn't happen. And I'm trying to understand why it didn't. That didn't happen because he himself said it was going to happen and then it didn't happen. And I think it was that coming off of 2020, but also coming off of the invasion of Iraq, of Ukraine rather, that there was a world historic crisis it is remains a world historic crisis. Unfortunately, the decisions that he made helped to elect the one guy who's the pro Putin lackey, as far as I can see, and that's Donald Trump. Martin, you know this as well as I do. This is the tragedy of history. History is never, you know, without its own sense of unintended consequences, of things not working out the way that you hope they would work out, the way that they should work out. If you put it down on paper, it's not going to add up. But sometimes, as you know, as a sports fan, you put it down on paper and then it doesn't happen that way. And there's a lot of reasons for that, because in the end, you play the game and people are people and things don't work out and tragedy is there. I mean, unless you have a sense of tragedy, you cannot understand history.
- [53:06]
Unknown Speaker
Well, as a New York jets fan, if I were a Kansas City Chiefs fan, every day would be sunshine and puppy dogs. My earlier question wasn't phrased all that well, but it is about this opportunity. And The Democrats of 2020, 2024 are not the first political party to squander an opportunity to seize back power. It's rare that you can build a lasting coalition that endures with policies and also electoral wins. It's difficult. In the Great Depression, it happened. Happened with fdr and the New Deal made the Democrats dominate Congress. Right. For a quarter of a century. Politics are different now, and I probably misjudged that moment. I thought after January 6th, that was a chance for both parties to eschew this poisonous thing that's infiltrated or politics and work together on things. And it didn't work out that way. It's not just because of Biden's decision. But I do want to get back to that, but go ahead.
- [54:01]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah, but here's what I say. Would I would look at it differently, which is that basically the Republican Party doesn't exist anymore, and it didn't exist in 2024, and it didn't exist really after 2016, and it's become a MAGA party. And the MAGA party is based on that 30, 35% of the American people, which is caught up in a cult, literally a cult of Donald Trump. He can do no wrong. That's what a cult is all about. Right? You have a charismatic leader who literally, he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Well, anything can be explained away because the cult leader is divine, literally divine. As far as the Christian nationalists are concerned, this is Nothing that American politics has seen before. Where the Democrats face is having to deal with. I don't want to call it a party. It's an entity that calls itself Republican, but is not really Republican at all, that has intimidated those people who still think themselves as Republicans. People on Capitol Hill, Republicans, they loathe Donald Trump. Trump. But this base, which is unlike anything we've seen before because we've never had quite this cult of a political leader before, stymies them because they can do all kinds of things. Plus the fact, and this is people. People have to take this very seriously. This is a regime that's run not simply on political fear, but on physical fear, that there are congressmen who literally are worried about their families, worried about being physically attacked by the Trumpites if they break with him. And social media has a lot to do with doing all of that. There are a lot of reasons why Trump managed to sustain himself. My point is only that in 2024, I mean, the reasons that we think of as being disqualifying for Trump are precisely the reasons that he's president now. The cult rises to that, and the cult makes that there, and it intimidates all Republicans, and Trump is all. And that's going to last for as long as Trump lasts.
- [55:45]
Unknown Speaker
So I underestimated the power of that after January 6th. But you're right.
- [55:49]
Sean Wilentz
I mean, January 6th for these people was Lexington and Concord. I mean, it was the beginnings of the revolution that they now see coming out. That's what it was about. And unless you understand that, then you can't understand what American politics is at these days. And it's something the Democrats certainly have to take account of, that you're not dealing in normal politics anymore. Normal politics.
- [56:09]
Unknown Speaker
Listen to this sentence. A sitting president incited a mob to attack another branch of government to try to steal an election, and that person is back in power. It just. I'll never understand it if I.
- [56:22]
Sean Wilentz
Well, but it's understandable only if we understand what Donald Trump has done to American politics and which the Republican Party allowed him to do. And in effect, the Republican Party created Donald Trump without quite realizing it. I mean, here, the real tragic figure, but also tragic in a sense that I'm not sympathetic to, is Mitch McConnell, because Mitch McConnell, on January, whatever it was, had the power to basically eliminate. Maybe it was after January, February, in the impeachment, after the election, he had the power to turn the Senate in a way that would have removed ex post facto removed Trump from office and disqualified him for ever running again. And he knew. He knew that that was what was necessary, or at least he knew that that's what Donald Trump deserved, and he didn't do it as much as anything having to do with thinking back on Joe Biden and what his mistakes were. I blame Mitch McConnell much more than I do any Democrat for what happened in 2024, because he had the ability to disqualify Trump and didn't do it. And didn't do it for reasons that are very, very weird, but are certainly out of touch with the realities of American politics as of 2020.
- [57:29]
Martin DeCaro
By the strict criminal standard, the president's speech probably was, was not incitement. However. However, in the context of impeachment, the Senate might have decided this was acceptable shorthand for the reckless actions that preceded the riot. But in this case, the question is moot, because former President Trump is constitutionally not eligible for conviction.
- [58:03]
Unknown Speaker
If we as a people, and I do want to wrap up by bringing it back to the Democrats and their credibility problem here, but if we as a people cannot agree that somebody who does something like what Donald Trump did on January 6th should never hold office in our country again, I think our republic is in trouble. So Democrats do, however, have a credibility problem. You did meet President Biden early in his presidency. He invited select historians.
- [58:29]
Sean Wilentz
It wasn't early, it was in 2022.
- [58:31]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Some prominent scholars, such as yourself, were invited to the White House to talk to him about the subject of democracy. We talked a little bit about those meetings. You weren't really. You weren't able to disclose what was going on inside the meeting. But I never got the sense that you came away from those meetings thinking Biden had lost his marbles the way he had later in his presidency, where he clearly had lost it. The people around him, him, his wife, his inner circle, his advisors, the vice president. But then again, what was she supposed to say? I mean, they perpetrated a fraud. You're going to say the other side's constantly lying, and then you do something like this. And I'm talking about, again, the people around Biden. I shouldn't generalize. All Democrats. Right. But certainly, I mean, there are people who probably understood what was happening, and maybe they felt like they couldn't say anything publicly.
- [59:15]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah, I mean, it looks bad. I mean, I did meet with Biden twice, actually, and on both occasions, I didn't come away with an idea that. That he was unqualified to serve. Quite the opposite. Now, why that was, am I, you know, easily duped, maybe? I mean, that could be But I've asked other people who were there after the fact, and they were, you know, he was old. Old is not necessarily a bad thing, if you've got wisdom. You know, I last saw him in January 2024. I didn't have a clue that he was fit. And in fact, you know, I was always of the idea that, look, however old the guy is, he's doing his job, he's doing it competently. The country's in good shape, relative, relatively good shape. And he knows a whole lot more about running the country than Donald Trump ever would. So on. For all these reasons, you know, it didn't seem to be a bad deal. I wonder that the person that I saw in the White House, I can certainly say this in January, was it very early first week, the 5th or 6th of January, in 2024, was not the person who showed up for that debate in Atlanta, wherever it was, that was so disastrous. It was just not the same person. So the question then becomes in my mind, what happened between the time I saw him and that event?
- [60:22]
Unknown Speaker
Old age happens. My grandmother was fine until she wasn't.
- [60:26]
Sean Wilentz
Exactly this happens, you know, so maybe that was what it was. I mean, this is somewhat self serving on my part because I want to believe that what I believed, what I saw was what was real. This can happen, you know, and it can take people by surprise. Nevertheless, I do wish that despite Ukraine, where I think Biden was great, you know, he really stood up as tall, he rallied NATO and so forth. Despite all of that, he could have used that moment to find someone to say that I'm going to work like hell to stare down Vladimir Putin and make the world better and blah, blah, blah, and all those things, and for you people, et cetera, but your leadership be carried forward. And then if that didn't happen, it was too bad, you know, that was the tragedy.
- [61:06]
Unknown Speaker
Well, he was already receding from public view. He didn't do that many public events and his news conferences did not go well. I mean, his staff was trying to keep him out. You can't do that if you're the president. We found out why at the debate.
- [61:18]
Sean Wilentz
I didn't keep track of all of that as much as I did when I saw him. When he did appear in public, he was strong.
- [61:22]
Unknown Speaker
I mean, he would have moments like his State of the Union address where it seemed like he, yeah, the State.
- [61:27]
Sean Wilentz
Of the Union 2024 was fantastic. I mean, there he was being heckled. Marjorie Taylor Greene was calling him everything but a son of God. You know, he Reacted very, very well. So that was the Joe Biden that I saw in the White House in early January, which leads me to believe that something may have happened afterwards.
- [61:43]
Unknown Speaker
As you know, public opinion polls, though, showed that a majority of even Democrats thought he was too old to give it another run. He was never able to overcome that. And also inflation. I mean, we're not going to recapitulate the entire.
- [61:54]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things that were going against the inflation stuff. Covid, I mean, you know, it was rough.
- [62:00]
Unknown Speaker
I don't think he was doing a good job in that final year of his presidency, really, at all. I know you probably disagree with me there, but.
- [62:05]
Sean Wilentz
Oh, I disagree with that. I think he was doing a good job. It just that he was not getting ready to run a good campaign, which takes energy and. Yeah, it takes energy. It takes. It takes a lot of things. But also, look, one of the things that he didn't do as president even before he was to set people up for the inflation question, because that caught people unawares. But it was all predictable. I mean, coming off of COVID you knew that they would be trained, supply chain, etc. Etc. It should have been a way in which you kind of play those politics better than they did. So, you know, I'm on Monday morning quarterbacking, and that's not fair, but I'm not a politician, so people should have been better at it than I was. I'm just a historian.
- [62:44]
Unknown Speaker
Are you a partisan?
- [62:46]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah. Well, yeah, but not when I come back. When I write my history, I have the ability to suspend those.
- [62:53]
Unknown Speaker
I always say, whatever one thinks of Sean and Wolance is capital D. Democratic politics. Your scholarship is tops. I am holding the age of Reagan here. You brought up inflation. I brought up inflation. You know, the opening chapters are about how poorly Jimmy Carter handled that situation.
- [63:10]
Martin DeCaro
It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit. Spirit of our national world.
- [63:19]
Unknown Speaker
Carter was a lousy politician at the national level as president.
- [63:22]
Sean Wilentz
Well, up to a point, he did win the nomination, and he would come out of Georgia and he was another Southerner. And that's an important thing to realize is that the Southern Democrats, white Democrats and black Democrats especially, were a force in the party that was very, very strong for all sorts of reasons that diminished. But still, that's a strength, I think, that the Democrats have to look to. I'm not a particularly pro Southern guy. I'm not, you know, I'm, from what I'm saying, from Brooklyn but nevertheless, historically, that's a real asset because they understand things about the country that others don't.
- [63:49]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. No one who becomes president is truly a lousy politician. But you get my point. As president, under the pressures of the presidency, Carter, that's an F without being completely self serving.
- [63:59]
Sean Wilentz
Read my book.
- [64:00]
Unknown Speaker
The best line in your book about the Carter years. Let me find it here. The best single sentence in the Carter chapters of your book, page 74. Carter's Best Day as president may have been his first.
- [64:13]
Sean Wilentz
Yeah, well, he had a great first day. You know, he marches down Pennsylvania Avenue with Amy and Rosalind and, you know, it looks like it's a new day. And it was a new day.
- [64:23]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Speaking of which, you know, Democrats probably thought after Watergate, Vietnam, we're set. Never gonna be a conservative president in this country.
- [64:31]
Sean Wilentz
Absolutely. Everybody thought that was true. When in fact they could have realized that what Watergate did was was to empower Ronald Reagan. Nixon was Nixon and Nixon was not a Reagan. And Reagan was starting to challenge Nixon in 68, was going to challenge Ford in 76. Much more effectively. He nearly won the nomination then. In terms of the balance of Republican party politics, Watergate in some ways was the making of Ronald Reagan.
- [64:56]
Unknown Speaker
Timing is everything in politics.
- [64:57]
Sean Wilentz
Timing is everything.
- [64:58]
Martin DeCaro
The economic ills we suffered have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now, as we've had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom in this present crisis. Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.
- [65:35]
Unknown Speaker
On the next episode of History as it Happens. When President Trump bombed Iran, it raised fears the United States was about to get caught in another war in the Middle East. The unintended consequences of military intervention. President Trump also did not consult Congress before bombing Iran. And that led some to say, well, President Obama did the same in Libya. Obama and Libya Next, as we report History as it Happens. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter comes out every Friday. Sign up at history as it happens.com or just go to substack and search for history as it happens. And you can now find us on Facebook.
- [67:11]
Sean Wilentz
SA.