The Divisions Roiling Beneath the Democratic Party’s Joyful Exterior

Summary

Podcast Summary: Matter of Opinion – "The Divisions Roiling Beneath the Democratic Party’s Joyful Exterior"

Episode Information

• Title: The Divisions Roiling Beneath the Democratic Party’s Joyful Exterior
• Host: Lydia Polgreen
• Guests: Jamelle Bouie and Carlos Lozada
• Release Date: October 11, 2024

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Introduction

In this thought-provoking episode of Matter of Opinion, host Lydia Polgreen delves into the intricate and often hidden fractures within the Democratic Party as it gears up for the 2024 presidential election. Joined by fellow New York Times columnists Jamelle Bouie and Carlos Lozada, the discussion navigates through the party's diverse coalition, internal conflicts, and the strategic maneuvers aimed at uniting various factions against a common adversary.

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The Democratic Party Coalition

Lydia initiates the conversation by questioning the current state of the Democratic Party, emphasizing the broad and sometimes conflicting groups within its coalition. She remarks, “there's a little bit of all things to all people,” highlighting the party’s attempt to appeal to a wide spectrum of voters (00:40).

Jamelle Bouie describes his political stance, positioning himself as “center left” and expressing frustration with certain factions within the Democratic Party that he believes are “overly solicitous, especially of big tech and big business” (04:18). Meanwhile, Carlos Lozada identifies as a social democrat, advocating for a “large and robust social insurance state” and emphasizing the importance of pragmatic governance over highfalutin ideas (04:23).

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Key Divisions Within the Democratic Party

The conversation zeroes in on the myriad of internal divisions threatening the party's unity. Lydia points out the complexity of Kamala Harris’s coalition, which includes “a mix of Bernie's Sanders supporters, Dick Cheney fans, and even figures like Taylor Swift” (11:00). This eclectic mix raises questions about the driving forces behind the party’s strategy.

Jamelle Bouie asserts, “the Democratic Party is organized about stopping Donald Trump” (11:51), suggesting that opposition to Trump has become the primary unifying goal, potentially at the expense of addressing substantive policy differences within the party.

Carlos Lozada echoes this sentiment, noting that the coalition's main objective is to hinder Trump's resurgence, thereby encompassing a "big tent coalition" focused on a singular goal rather than cohesive policy-driven unity (13:38).

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Foreign Policy: The Israel Divide

A significant point of contention within the party revolves around foreign policy, particularly the United States' relationship with Israel. Carlos Lozada identifies this as the "most consequential" division, distinguishing it from other foreign policy issues like China or Ukraine, which ostensibly enjoy broader consensus within the party (21:09).

Jamelle Bouie elaborates on the sensitivity of this topic, stating, “I have some degree of sympathy with Kamala Harris for indulging the Israeli government more than I would like to see” (23:01). He anticipates growing dissatisfaction among younger Jewish communities who are increasingly critical of Israel's policies and their alignment with American interests.

Lydia observes the domestic implications of this divide, noting the absence of diverse voices, such as transgender or Palestinian American speakers, at significant party events like the DNC (17:34). This exclusion signals a prioritization of winning over representing the party's diverse base.

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Economic Policy: Ambitions and Contradictions

Turning to economic policy, Carlos Lozada highlights an unexpected trend where the Democratic Party has become more ambitious economically as it attracts more college-educated and affluent suburban voters. He cites Kamala Harris’s recent initiatives, such as her proposal to expand Medicare to cover home care, as evidence of the party's growing economic aspirations (32:59).

However, Jamelle Bouie points out contradictions arising from this expansion, particularly the influence of tech billionaires and the crypto industry. He mentions, “the crypto industry seems like so monumentally sinister” and criticizes the party’s accommodation of influential tech figures who may not align with progressive economic policies (35:26).

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Influence of Tech and Crypto

The podcast delves into the problematic influence of tech moguls and the crypto industry within the Democratic Party. Carlos Lozada describes crypto as “a gigantic scam” and criticizes the substantial financial support it provides to campaigns, which undermines legislative efforts against monopolistic practices (35:28).

Jamelle Bouie adds that the crypto industry's aggressive political spending, such as Mark Cuban’s $30 million campaign against Sherrod Brown, exemplifies the undue influence of wealthy tech figures. This dynamic poses significant challenges for the party’s ability to pursue meaningful antitrust reforms, as it grapples with balancing the interests of its progressive base against powerful economic stakeholders (35:26, 37:11).

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Future Directions for the Democratic Party

Looking ahead, Lydia queries her guests on the ideal direction for the Democratic Party post-2024. Jamelle Bouie advocates for a politics of optimism and global engagement, encouraging the party to embrace interdependence and collaborative progress. He emphasizes the need for the party to project a forward-looking vision that resonates beyond defensive posturing (44:11).

Carlos Lozada envisions a revitalized Democratic Party that rebuilds deep connections with diverse communities and invests in institutional reforms. He stresses the importance of addressing constitutional issues exposed during the Trump era, such as electoral college reform and criminal liability for the president, to prevent future political upheavals (46:30).

Lydia expresses hope for a renewed Democratic Party that fosters a dynamic and interconnected vision of progress, diverging from the stagnation and divisiveness currently plaguing the coalition (43:24, 44:11).

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Conclusion

As the Democratic Party stands at a crossroads, Matter of Opinion underscores the critical internal debates that will shape its future trajectory. From foreign policy schisms and economic ambitions to the pervasive influence of tech and crypto industries, the party faces multifaceted challenges in uniting its diverse base. The guests collectively advocate for a reinvigorated approach that balances pragmatic governance with visionary ideals, aiming to build a resilient and cohesive coalition capable of steering American democracy toward a more inclusive and progressive future.

Notable Quotes:

• "The Democratic Party is organized about stopping Donald Trump." — Jamelle Bouie (11:51)
• "The crypto industry seems like so monumentally sinister." — Jamelle Bouie (35:26)
• "A politics of optimism, is really connected to what you were talking about earlier, which is a politics that is open to the world." — Jamelle Bouie (44:11)

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For full access to Matter of Opinion and other insightful New York Times podcasts, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Transcript

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[Ross]

It's Ross, Michelle, Carlos, and we are actually not in this week's episode. Lydia Polgreen is handling things all by her lonesome, but we're here to tell you. Well, what are we here to tell you?

[Lydia Polgreen]

So in case you missed last week's episode, I just want to quickly remind you that we've got a new subscription feature. If you're a New York Times subscriber, just link your Times account on Apple Podcast or Spotify and you'll get access to our full Fullback catalog and wild.

[Michelle Goldberg]

Bonus episodes, which we're cooking up as we speak.

[Jamelle Bouie]

And if you're not yet a subscriber.

[Lydia Polgreen]

You can find out how to become.

[Jamelle Bouie]

One in the link in this episode's show Notes, which is a place that.

[Lydia Polgreen]

I never actually visit.

[Ross]

Fortunately, everyone else does. And just so you can really have a window inside the glamorous life of podcasters, we are recording this promo just after recording the bonus content that will appear in your feed next week. And just so you know, it's going to be very spooky boos. So if that is an enticement enough, I can't imagine what would be. And now, on with the show. On with the show.

[Lydia Polgreen]

From New York Times Opinion, I'm Lydia Polgreen, and this is Matter of Opinion. Last month, Ross brought our fellow columnist David French on to debate whether voting for Kamala Harris is the best way to save conservatism. In this episode, we're going to talk about whether voting for Kamala Harris is the best way to turn a Democrat into a conservative. Just kidding. But really, I've been thinking a lot about the very disparate groups hoping to elect Harris as the next president and wondering about the lingering divides within this coalition on a variety of issues ranging from Israel and foreign policy to the economy. There's an open question as to who the Democrats are anymore and where they're going. So to help me unpack that, I've invited my fellow radical leftists Jamelle Bouie and Michelle Goldberg on the show today. Michelle Jamel, thanks so much for joining Me.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Hi, Lydia, thanks for having us.

[Carlos]

Thank you for having us.

[Lydia Polgreen]

It's a pleasure. Don't tell the NYPD that Antifa is having a meeting here. So let's just dive right in. And maybe before we get into what the Democratic Party even is right now, it would be helpful to kind of place ourselves in that broader world. We've all covered politics from a broadly progressive, left of center perspective for a long time. So I'm wondering how you guys situate yourselves. Like where in the political spectrum do you find yourself most? At home, if anywhere. And where do you feel the most discomfort? Who wants to go first?

[Jamelle Bouie]

So, I mean, I always describe myself as center left. You know, I'm kind of somewhat of a bog standard liberal as opposed to a leftist. If I could personally install my ideal president, it would be Elizabeth Warren. And so I am someone who votes blue no matter who, and has very little sympathy or patience for arguments for third parties unless people have actually done the work to create a ranked choice voting system in which a third party vote isn't just a spoiler vote. And I'm somewhat impatient with parts of the left that I think have unrealistic expectations about what politicians can do and still get elected and also have a lot of frustration with the parts of the Democratic Party that are overly solicitous, especially of big tech and big business.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Yeah, a lot of that resonates. How about you, Jamel?

[Carlos]

I very much don't like classifying myself, but I think that if you were just to sort of read my columns, it would become very clear very quickly that I'm very much a social Democrat. Someone who believes in a large and robust social insurance state, who believes in broad unionization and broad worker power within the economy, someone who thinks that the United States would be better off if we took more experiments with the democratic allocation of wealth. Having said that, when it comes to politicians, I find myself with a real affection for politicians who are less concerned with like, highfalutin ideas and more concerned with the give and take of actually trying to govern and construct things and deliver things to ordinary voters. When I think about the politics I admire most in US history, whether they are guys like John bingham in the 19th century, like a workaday Ohio politician who ends up crafting the 14th amendment, or Robert Wagner of New York, the kind of famed Tammany politician of the 1930s who constructed a good deal of the New Deal, or even Hubert Humphrey, who people have complicated feelings about, but who has ideals, but fundamentally recognizes that politics is about the pursuit of the Possible. Those are the kinds of people that I find myself admiring and who I tend to align myself with.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Jamel, is there anyone today that you think is really in that tradition?

[Carlos]

Yes, actually, Nancy Pelosi obviously, like, comes to mind. Nancy Pelosi may be sort of like the apex of that kind of politician alive today. Joe Biden is that kind of politician. You know, this might be a little controversial, but I kind of think AOC has that in her core. I think that is, like, that is what motivates AOC and what makes her so interesting is that she is the combination of someone who can speak the language of high ideas and high ideals, but is very much a how can we move a piece of legislation from point A to point B kind of politician. And I think the left needs much more of that. Like Pelosi especially. I'm not gonna say I've agreed with every single thing Nancy Pelosi has ever done.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Right.

[Carlos]

This isn't fandom, but when I think about who has been just a extremely effective legislative leader and legislator over the course of her career, it's kind of hard to think of anyone in, like, two generations who is better than Nancy Pelosi, especially if Harris does one in November. And Pelosi is kind of what's important part of moving Biden out. If Harris wins, I think you can make a very strong case that Nancy Pelosi is one of, like, the five most important legislators to ever grace the halls of the House of Representatives.

[Lydia Polgreen]

That sounds about right to me, too. Yeah. So I feel like I'm kind of off on a different planet from you guys, because my primary orientation is actually more global. So I think a lot about ideas of progress that go beyond borders. And so I feel a little bit homeless in that it seems like both major political parties in this country feel like they've walked away from a lot of the commitments to thinking about what a. You know, I know globalization is a dirty word, but what a moving forward of the world together and cooperation and all of those things. And so I feel a little bit lost in this particular moment because I think I'm a kind of a bit of a global internationalist in more of the kind of Kwame Nkrumah decolonizing world sense.

[Jamelle Bouie]

In a nationalist moment.

[Lydia Polgreen]

In a nationalist moment. And I'm also a big believer in international cooperation in a moment when that is very much falling out of fashion. So I want to start us with a question that we'll probably spend the entire episode talking about and trying to answer, but I want a Quick diagnosis. What is the Democratic Party now and where do you place it on the political spectrum in October 2024?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I mean, this isn't, I don't think, unique to the Democratic Party. This is true of a lot of Social Democratic parties in Europe, that it's basically a coalition of urban professionals, people of color, the labor movement. This is, I think, specific to the United States because we don't have a parliamentary system. So the right leaning suburbanites who are horrified by populism necessarily get absorbed into the Democratic Party in the way that they wouldn't get absorbed into a Social Democratic Party. In a parliamentary system.

[Lydia Polgreen]

You'd have the Liberal Democrats like in the UK or some other kind of place. Yeah, all of that. And apparently Dick Cheney in 2020 sort.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Of fits in that.

[Lydia Polgreen]

I'll be honest, I would say that.

[Carlos]

The Democratic Party is what it's always been, which has always been this kind of interest group brokerage party. Even going back to the Jacksonian Democratic Party. If you step back and look at what were the constituen of that Democratic Party, it was new immigrants to the urban center, to the north, it was yame and farmers throughout the old United States. It was new frontier y farmers in what was called the Old west like Ohio and Michigan, it was southern slaveholders. This was the Democratic Party. And I think at every stage in the party's history since then, it has always been a big and unwieldy coalition of groups with lots of internal antagonisms and internal contradictions. And Michelle pointed to one of the big ones right now, which is that because Trump has reshaped the Republican Party in his image and essentially purged it of any figure or groups of voters who are uncomfortable with that. The Democratic Party has taken in a bunch of right leaning voters who like the status quo, who don't think that there needs to be big changes to the nature of American society or whatever. And so that's just made the Democratic Party even more unwieldy than it typically is. But also I think given it a kind of small c conservative cast that like the Democratic Party is a party of conservation of America's, abnormal of normality of America's political institutions. But that's all to say the entry of former Republicans into the Democratic Party has given it this small c conservative orientation and cast that I think is shaping things. I would be remiss if I didn't mention this kind of dynamic also happens all the time in American history that even the Republican Party at one point the OG Republican Party comprised of former Whigs, anti slavery Liberty Party members, antislavery free Soilers, and a bunch of anti slavery Democrats. So it's like this happens. This is part of how American political parties form and change. And I think we're in this moment of party not realignment, but sort of like things are getting shaken up a bit.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Yeah, well, but who's driving, I guess, is the question. We're in this extraordinary situation where there's an incumbent president who decided not to run again and his vice president is now the nominee, and she seems to be Kamala Harris, a little bit of all things to all people. I mean, you know, at the VP debate, you had Tim Walls thinking this unlikely coalition of Bern, Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney, Taylor Swift, you know, I mean, it's really a grab bag. So I take your point, Jamel. But you know, when you have this many different parts in the coalition, what's driving that coalition forward? Is it just Trump right now?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I think that the Democratic Party is organized about stopping Donald Trump. I mean, Joe Biden's presidency was in many ways an effort to make the Democratic Party much more than that. He had this extremely robust industrial policy, he had this robust economic policy that he wasn't going to be bound by the kind of austerity that hamstrung Barack Obama. Right. That he was going to try as best he could to govern in a much more both social democratic way, but also in a much more protectionist way, certainly a much more pro union way. And it's actually gotten him very little. You know, in some ways it has turned a lot of people's assumptions about policy upside down. I think a lot of people hoped that if you had a Democrat who governed in an economic populist manner, that it would cut into some of the appeal of right wing populism. You know, certainly that they would be rewarded for it by the labor movement. And I don't want to overstate the amount of the labor movement's defection from the Democrats. Right. Most unions are supporting Kamala Harris. But nevertheless, you do have more union support for Donald Trump than you have for previous Republican presidents. And so I understand why Kamala Harris, looking at this situation that she has inherited, would think that she has a better shot at winning by reaching out to some of those kind of small c conservatives who are appalled by Trump, but not necessarily looking for sweeping social change.

[Carlos]

So the question is, what's driving the Democratic Party right now? Yeah, I do think that it's mostly just opposition to Trump. This is a big tent coalition whose main goal right now is to keep Trump out of power. I think that the end of Roe v. Wade has also sort of like been another broad, like, energizing issue. On everything else, there is lots of internal debate and factitiousness of what's the best path forward. I would say one way to think about the Democratic coalition right now and one way to think about like the chief divide in American society. Honestly, it's just between high trust and low trust people, right?

[Jamelle Bouie]

Absolutely.

[Carlos]

That's the unifying thing for the Trump coalition is less these days race or gender or education than it is a lack of trust in the institutions of American life. And this is what made Biden's gamble that maybe you could cut into Trump support by governing with an eye towards raising wages for working people. The mistake he made was that that entire gamble depends on working with institutions. Right. It's accomplishing something through the usual institutional pathways. Distress.

[Jamelle Bouie]

But I don't think, I mean, I don't know how to say this, but I think on the one hand it didn't work, but I don't think it was a mistake, if that makes sense.

[Carlos]

No, I don't think it was a mistake either. It's one of those things where there's, you have to do something, right? Like you can't not do anything.

[Jamelle Bouie]

And it's also the right thing to do even if it doesn't pay political dividend.

[Carlos]

It was the right thing to do, for example, for the Biden administration to focus much more on keeping unemployment as low as possible during pandemic recovery than worrying so much about prices. That was objectively the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do for the Biden administration to do as much pandemic aid as possible. The child tax credit, for example, cut child poverty in half for the year that it was in effect. And neither Biden nor the Democratic Party got literally any credit for it whatsoever. And I think part of that is simply you're not going to have a good easy time attracting low trust voters by touting what you're doing with the government. And the thing Trump, I wouldn't say figure out, I think it's very instinctual. It's just that him being himself a low trust voter, sort of like embodying that for this portion of the electorate, they look at him doing nothing right, but they still perceive it as him acting in their interest because he shares their distrust of the political system. But in any case, I think that's the divide and I think the Democratic strategy right now, the Harris Strategy is like, can I get every single possible, like moderate to high trust person into this tent? And if I can do that, then I can win. It's noteworthy that in the interviews Harris has done, no one has asked her, really, what are your three top legislative priorities? What are the three things you wanna do, if you could have done?

[Jamelle Bouie]

People have asked her. She just doesn't really.

[Lydia Polgreen]

She doesn't really have an answer.

[Jamelle Bouie]

I mean, she'll say, like, strengthen the middle class, some version of that.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Is she basically responding to the political environment that Jamellis does?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I think absolutely.

[Lydia Polgreen]

And that's how you end up with Dick Cheney as a kind of showpiece and you end up with a D that's got plenty of space and room for various Republicans to speak. But other parts of the coalition feel that they're pushed to the side. I think this was the first time in a couple of election cycles that there hasn't been a transgender speaker. There was no Palestinian American speaker who was allowed to speak at the dnc. And so there's been a very clear message that based on the description that I think both of you are sort of coalescing around, makes a good deal of political sense, that it's about just sort of getting the gettable voters rather than trying to tell a real story about. About where you want to take the country. But I wonder, like, is that good or bad for the future of the Democratic Party? I mean, does that. Where does that leave you?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I think that within, you know, the kind of, you know, given that Kamala Harris didn't just fall out of a coconut tree and, you know, exists within the context of all that came before, within that context, what she's doing makes total sense. This is, from my point of view, such an existential. And it makes sense to me for her to try to win in the safest possible way. I do think that, you know, inshallah, if she does win, a lot of people are going to be disappointed by whatever comes next because, A, because there's. It's not obvious what direction she's going to try to move us in. B, it's not obvious that her administration would be able to accomplish anything at all, given that she's likely to end up with a Republican Senate who's going to be kind of completely intransigent and nobody has ever been able to really level with the American populace about all the choke points in her system and just about how kind of broken the legislative process is right now and the scale of changes that would be necessary to unstick it. And so I think there will be euphoria. Well deserved because I do think that a Donald Trump presidency would be the end of the version of American democracy that we've all come to take for granted to some extent. But once Trump is off the scene, we'll be confronted with these much more enduring structural problems.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Yeah, that is a good place for us to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to dive into some of those divides and what that might mean for the future of American democracy. Stick around.

[Michelle Goldberg]

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[Ross]

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[Lydia Polgreen]

We'Ve been talking about this campaign and its singular goal of defeating Donald Trump once again. But as we've said, there are some very real divisions roiling beneath the surface in the Democratic Party. And whether Harris wins or loses in November, we're going to see them deepen. So I'm curious from each of you, of all the divisions that you're watching play out in the Democratic coalition, what's the most consequential one to your mind? Jamel, you want to go first?

[Carlos]

I mean, if the obvious most consequential one is just that where Democratic Party elites and where Democratic, Democratic voters are on the question of the United States relationship to Israel is, that's like the division, that's the one that is most likely, I think, to create the most acrimony going forward, it's clear that everyone has sort of suspended it for the moment. I think part of Biden not being in the race really helps in that regard. Everyone's sort of been like, okay, Harris is not Joe Biden. Harris did not actually lead the Biden administration. So we're gonna kind of bracket for now this through the fall, through the general election. But it's certainly clear to me that if she wins, that's going to be the big question about her foreign policy. How do you relate to America's relationship with the Israeli government? There are obviously other foreign policy issues, but there's not really like a big internal Democratic Party debate. Right. About China. Right.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Or about Ukraine.

[Carlos]

Or about Ukraine. Right. Like, for the most part, Democrats, like, we should be supporting Ukraine. For the most part, Democrats have been on board with Biden, sort of like we have to bring manufacturing capacity back to the United States, treat China as much more of like a rival and a competitor. There are no Democrats who are like, no, we got to be easier on the Chinese Communist Party. That's not a thing that happens. There's no Democrats who are like, we got to be easier or less harsh on Putin's Russia. But Israel is where there's a real divide. And it's a divide that exists, I think, principally among the voter base versus elected officials, but it's creeping up among elected officials too.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah.

[Lydia Polgreen]

I mean, I think that this truism that American elections are never really decided on foreign policy probably remains true, but. But Israel feels like the closest thing to a domestic foreign policy issue. But I don't know, Michelle, I'm curious, do you think it's as deep a divide within the party as it seems?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I mean, the number of people who vote on Israel, Palestine is certainly relatively small, or at least that's what all the polls suggest. To me, one of the most difficult things about grappling with this from a political point of view is that I can't think of another issue or what I consider the right thing to do and what I consider the politically savvy thing to do are so far apart. So it's because of that that I have some degree of sympathy with Kamala Harris for indulging the Israeli government more than I would like to see. Because I think that the domestic political costs of breaking with Israel are so high. I think that will change because the Jewish community itself is changing so much. And younger Jews are aghast. Not universally, but much more so than older Jews at what Israel has become and about the aggression of the Netanyahu government, the complete disinterest and contempt for American attempts to push forward a two state solution. I think that there's going to be increasingly an understanding that even if the two state solution is ideal, and I think it is to some degree, inasmuch as it's an impossibility. It's a way of kind of avoiding the one state solution that exists right now.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Yeah, yeah. Well, this also seems like a place where the decoupling of what public opinion is kind of broadly from the price that politicians pay for taking particular stances feels just incredibly vast. And you know, there are politicians, I think, that who have taken pro Palestine stances who are also very good at constituents services and things like that, who've managed to fend off challenges to them. But you've also, Michelle, written about politicians like Jamal Bowman who had other issues, but clearly was someone that was seen as quite vulnerable.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Well, part of it was that he was genuinely at odds with such a big part of his constituency. Aipac, and for that matter, the crypto industry, which we're going to talk about in a minute, dropped just like an unbelievable amount of money on his head. But he had already alienated so many of his voters. I mean, his district is not typical because it has so many highly engaged Jewish Democrats. But in general, while it's true that there's like a big gap between public opinion and public incentives on Israel Palestine, part of it is just, you know, public opinion doesn't necessarily measure how important an issue is to you. Right. So like a ton of people out there might say that they support limitations on aid to Israel or an end to aid to Israel, but the number of people who are voting on that issue, there's this very intense pool of voters for whom support for Israel is non negotiable.

[Carlos]

It's a similar situation to Republicans in guns, basically.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Right, That's a really good way to put it. Yeah.

[Carlos]

That there's obviously a broad number of Americans who support lots of gun, different kinds of gun reform. But, but most Americans don't vote on gun reform. The people who do vote on gun reform do not want gun reform and they're a pretty critical part of the Republican coalition. And so I would say that where Democrats are heading on Israel is similar to where Republicans are on the question of guns.

[Jamelle Bouie]

No, I don't think that that's right because I don't think Democrats are radicalizing on Israel.

[Carlos]

No, no, that's not the nature of the analogy I'm making. I'm just. The analogy I'm making is sort of like the difficulty of trying to be more in line with public opinion here is simply that there's strong preference intensity amongst a number of Democratic voters and that they will vote on that in a way that similar to how if you are a suburban Republican in like Northern Virginia, you probably have a bunch of voters who would support common sense gun reform, but you also have voters who will do everything they can to defeat you if you support common sense gun reform. And so you kind of, you're kind of boxed in by the existence of this group of people with strong preference intensity.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Yeah. And highly motivated by those sets of beliefs. One last thing, on the matter of foreign policy, I feel like I can't let go of the party touting the endorsement of Dick Cheney. He's just such a Darth Vader figure and so dark and part of such a dark chapter of American history. And so his reemergence just really sets off a lot of alarm bells for me around the kind of neocon march to war after 9 11. That was a period that really led us so directly to where we are now. And the idea that holding up Dick Cheney as this guy is now with us, coupled with the fact that Kamala Harris, in an interview on 60 Minutes this week, when she was asked, who do you see as the biggest threat or the United States biggest adversary? Right.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Iran.

[Lydia Polgreen]

She said Iran. And I just, I don't know, like, my head went into my hands and I just thought, like, are we back in 2003 again?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I think that answer about Iran upsets me more than, than the Dick Cheney thing. A lot of people that really set them off. It didn't to me, even though, I mean, it's funny, I remember covering the George W. Bush campaign in 2004, and there would be a lot of, like, even Reagan would never, you know, even Reagan would have never. And I actually remember saying to someone, can you imagine if we're someday talking about George W. Bush like that? And of course, now we are. Right? I mean, now kind of everyone in the George W. Bush administration seems to me preferable to everyone around Donald Trump. And that's not an endorsement of them. It's just a kind of way of talking about Donald Trump's unlimited depravity. And so, I don't know, it doesn't bother. I'm just such a big believer that the threat of Donald Trump requires a popular front. And if you want to send a message to Republican defectors who you need in states like Arizona that they're welcome in this party, I mean, there was just this poll, the New York Times poll that just came out that shows Kamala Harris ahead for the first time in a couple of these polls, also shows a pretty significant number of Republicans voting for her, for her, more than Democrats who are going in the other direction. So I think that this Republican outreach, I mean, we'll see. But. But there's reason to believe right now, based on the data we have, that that is an effective strategy.

[Carlos]

It's difficult at this stage to say what kind of consequence these things are gonna have. Right. Like in the 1980 campaign, you know, Reagan, I'm sure, touted some Democratic endorsements. In the end, it didn't really. I mean, he. Reagan, ideological conservative, had an ideologically conservative administration, worked with Democrats because Democrats didn't control the House at that point. But, like, there was a large faction of conservative Democrats who could easily work with.

[Jamelle Bouie]

I mean, the emergence of the Reagan Democrats was transformative and transformed the kind of nature of our political coalitions. So.

[Carlos]

Right. But the point I'm making is less about the voters and more about sort of like the administration. Right. Sort of like the existence of Democrats who voted for Reagan didn't all of a sudden make the Reagan administration less hostile to, like, the social insurance. Right. It just was sort of like, oh, we can win elections with these people. With these people. And in the same way, it's unclear to me at this stage if there is, like, a big Republican section, if there are gonna be all these Harris Republicans, what difference that actually makes when it comes to governing? If that translates to trimming the sails of a political program, then that's significant. But if what it means is basically the President uses some Republican friendly language and then appoints the same cast of characters who ran Biden agencies, then it's just sort of like, okay.

[Jamelle Bouie]

And a lot of those people, I mean, a lot of those former Republicans are now like hardcore Democratic partisans. Right? They're like kind of, you know, people who mainline MSNBC and, you know, are.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Just kind of Good Morning Joe addicts.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Right.

[Lydia Polgreen]

All right, we're going to take a quick pause, and when we come back, we're going to turn to the economy and all the Democratic divides on that issue. We'll be right back.

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[Lydia Polgreen]

All right, let's turn to the economy. What surprises you about the Democratic Party's approach to economic policy? And where do you see the divides and contradictions?

[Carlos]

One of the interesting things, I mean, this is actually, this is very interesting, and I don't think people really anticipated it, is that as we have this education polarization in the electorate, as more college educated voters are supporting Democrats, one of the theories is that the Democrats would become more moderate on like an economic agenda. But actually the revers. As the Democratic Party has become more reliant on college educated voters, more reliant on affluent suburbanites, it's become more ambitious about the kinds of economic programs it wants to pursue. And I honestly would expect that to continue even if there were a bunch of Harris Republicans. On the day we're recording this, Kamala Harris did two things. First, she had an interview on the View where she's like, I'll put a Republican in my Cabinet. And she announced an expansion to Medicare to cover home care and home assistance, which is a big program. Right. That's actually a major expansion of the.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Program and a huge pain point for millions of American families. Right. I mean, this is a big, big deal.

[Carlos]

It's interesting to me that the campaign did not see these two things as incompatible. Like I don't have to trim my sails when it comes to expanding a major government program if I'm going to appeal to Republicans. I think it's interesting and maybe says something about the policy consequences or lack thereof of trying to attract Republican voters.

[Lydia Polgreen]

But I guess there are a couple of places where there does seem to be some real friction and incompatibility. So Mark Cuban, for example, the entrepreneur and tech company guy who's a vociferous supporter of Kamala Harris, has been saying, if it was up to me, I'd get rid of Lina Khan, who's the head of the Federal Trade Commission and has been going after a handful of tech companies for wielding too much power. And then just in general, there's this sense that mainstream Democrats, Democrats have gotten a little too cozy over the years with Wall street and big money.

[Jamelle Bouie]

But I think this is less about these sort of like affluent suburbanite, formerly Republican voters joining The Democratic coalition. And it is just about the gargantuan power of tech billionaires and the sinister role that they're playing. I mean, I see their kind of power in our politics is at once a symptom and a cause of, of Democratic sclerosis and the crypto industry specifically. There's a really good piece about this in the New Yorker this week that everybody should read. We've never talked about crypto, so I don't know how you guys feel about it. I mean, to me, the crypto industry seems like so monumentally sinister.

[Carlos]

It seems like a gigantic scam to me.

[Jamelle Bouie]

It's a gigantic scam. Right? I mean, it's so telling to me that the one person they put forward is their moral exemplar was Sam Bankman Fried. But they just have so much money that they are willing to spend so aggressively. I mean, like $30 million against Sherrod Brown, who is both a Democrat from a swing state, but also just kind of one of the best Democrats, period, in terms of populist economic policies. And they're just so willing to play this sort of smash mouth politics and intimidate politicians who have to be really, really committed to walk into this. Buzzsaw. To me, this is less about kind of the reshaping of the Democratic coalition and more just about the unbelievable power of these technologists and monopolists.

[Carlos]

It's interesting to think of crypto as like a low trust institution. The selling point for it is that, like, you can move money without, you know, the government peeking in. And there is a contradiction there. Right. If you are trying to attract the support of Mark Cuban and those like him, it's hard to maintain that while taking a hard line on crypto. Taking a hard line, crypto alienates the kind of low trust people that you're trying to attract with your Mark Cuban support. Like that is a real contradiction. And that's honestly like you. That's one of the unanswered questions of a Harris administration. Like how much are you gonna listen to these people, Mark Cuban saying you should fire Lina Khan. Are you gonna take that seriously?

[Jamelle Bouie]

And I just wanna say, if Harris were to fire Lina Khan, which I think would be kind of catastrophic both for her other parts of her agenda, which run through the antitrust. Right. Which run through antitrust. I mean, if she really wants to take on price gouging, Lina Khan is.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Gonna be shoulder to shoulder.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah, right. And so my understanding, and we should check this, is that if she were to fire Lina Khan, it would be Extraordinarily difficult for her to get a replacement through a Republican Senate. Which is one reason why I think Lina Khan's job is safe. Besides the fact that she's so beloved by an important part of the Democratic base, I'm more worried about, like, Gary Gensler, the head of the sec, who's been like, very aggressive in trying to regulate crypto as he should be, and who they hate with such a fiery passion that isn't really matched with any kind of pro Gary Gensler movement out there. I mean, that just seems like a really easy head for her to serve up.

[Carlos]

I think it's meaningful that none of the pressure to fire Gensler or fire Khan is coming from within the Democratic coalition. That's one reason I think that it probably isn't gonna. There aren't that many prominent Democrats being like, you gotta get rid of these people. It's Silicon Valley billionaires who have been wishy washy about supporting Democrats, who. Half of them are like, we're all for Trump right now.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Well, not half. I mean, Harris has very deep support in Silicon Valley, but there's sort of the big names.

[Carlos]

There are some big names are lining up behind Trump. And so, I don't know, part of the unanswered questions here is that we've never actually seen Kamala Harris sort of have to negotiate these kinds of coalition conflicts. And so we don't really have a basis for saying what she would do. Like, she's never had to do this kind of thing. And one of the kind of truisms of presidential politics is that, like, things actually do look different when you're in that office. Like, when you're sitting in that office, what might seem like, yeah, I'll fire this person as a thank you to this part of my donor base or this part of my coalition. Looks very different when you're actually sort of like, oh, I have this job now and I'm thinking about A, B, C and D in addition to X, Y and Z.

[Lydia Polgreen]

And to Michelle's point, I have to get my cabinet through a very hostile Senate and like, I'm gonna pick my shots and just keep people who I don't have to put up. Again, we've all been talking about Harris waltz administration. If, you know, God forbid, Harris doesn't win. Do you think any of these factions are likely to be part of the story? Are any of these divisions likely to play into her defeat? Or is it simply about, you know, whether there are enough of those voters?

[Jamelle Bouie]

I mean, it sort of depends on what States. Right. Like if she ends up losing Michigan because she alienated a critical mass of Arab American voters, then we will obviously look back on this and say that Israel and the Democratic Party's support for Netanyahu was part of that story. Which doesn't necessarily mean that she wouldn't have lost even more voters if she had taken a more hardline position on Netanyahu, as much as I think that's the right thing to do for its own sake. And also, if Donald Trump wins, people are going to credit some of his phenomenal support from Elon Musk and figures like that. Although my guess is that parts of the Democratic Party will say we have to be even more friendly to crypto and do even more outreach. But I would imagine that at least part of the Democratic Party will polarize against the tech industry, which it increasingly is just. It makes things that make everyone's life worse and plays such a monstrous role in our politics that you would hope, I would hope that there would be some kind of populist reaction against that.

[Carlos]

Jamal, I've been thinking about how the Democratic Party might fracture if Harris. Harris loses because so far, right, if Biden were still in the front seat and he loses. Right. Very easy to see how the Democratic Party fractures. It's sort of like, well, there are a bunch of Biden should drop out and he didn't and look what happened. And that's sort of like that's the dividing line. But if Harris loses, depends on the nature of the loss. It depends on the extent of the loss. I think one thing you'll see are at least some Democrats that's resigning themselves to this. They'll say, Trump obviously represents some segment of the American population that when they come out, we cannot win an election. So we have to figure out how to appeal to them. And you'll like to see the Democratic Party become even like, you know, it's already moved to the right on immigration. It will become even like more draconian on immigration. I would expect them also to become much more friendlier crypto. I would expect that the kind of economic management that define the Biden pandemic response to kind of fall out of favor. Because one of the things people point to is inflation killed.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Yeah, you're like never escaping austerity for basically a generation after that.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Which, by the way, is where Europe is right now.

[Carlos]

Right.

[Lydia Polgreen]

I feel like Europe is locked in a really toxic combination of anti immigrant politics and austerity that sort of feed on one another in this very ugly loop. Right. And you know, America, like the idea that we would go down that. I mean, this was the moment that J.D. vance was talking about immigration as not being linked to prosperity and said we would be the most prosperous nation in the world. And it's like, what do you think Hungary is the most prosperous?

[Carlos]

That was very. It was very funny. It was frightening. But it also very funny that. That moment. He was on CNBC or something, right?

[Lydia Polgreen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carlos]

And he said immigration made America the most prosperous nation in the world.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Which in fact it is.

[Carlos]

I'm looking. I'm looking here on ChatGPT.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Yeah, but I just think that that to me is like, if we end up with two parties trying to out compete for the dead end that is the European present, Lord help us all. But I'm curious, where do you guys hope that the Democratic Party can move post 2024 election? This sort of motley coalition of the willing, to use a very unfortunate, unfortunately and redolent phrase, that stinks of Dick Cheney. Like, what is the coalition that you would like to see to actually, like, really move the Democratic Party forward into a, you know, a powerhouse? Because, I mean, if the Republicans lose and Donald Trump hopefully is done, they're gonna have a long period of rebuilding. So what is the Democratic Party that you'd like to see? Michelle, you go first.

[Jamelle Bouie]

So a lot of people have been contemptuous of the kind of politics of joy that Kamala Harris represents or talks about. And I understand that that can seem sort of vapid and without content. But I actually think that a politics, if not of joy, of optimism, is really connected to what you were talking about earlier, which is a politics that is open to the world, that sees engagement with the world and immigration and. And globalization, if not of manufacturing, at least interdependence, that sees all those things as additive rather than zero sum, rather than zero sum. And that's something that I feel we're roughly the same age that I feel nostalgic for from when I was younger. There was a sense that the world was only becoming more integrated and there was a huge amount of excitement about the ideas that we could find all these. I mean, I'm going to use a word that I hate, but, like, find all these synergies and ways to collaborate. And so there are the various kind of downstream policy ramifications for that. But I do think that, like, in America, that is not such in a defensive crouch where we don't constantly feel like we're just trying to fend off something apocalyptic.

[Lydia Polgreen]

You're searching through the Kind of like grab bag of discredited words of our youth, which I so deeply identify with. You know, synergy like barf. You know, we're just, like, so scarred by it. But I think, like, point in the direction that you're talking about and that I very much share, which is some sort of new language and new way to talk about human progress. But I think there's also some way to talk about dynamism, this sense that's not just like globalization, all boats rising, completely coupled to a kind of libertarian idea about capitalism, but is more sort of based in some sort of interdependence, you know? And my hope is that the future Democratic Party can, through a combination of unearthing and invention, come up with a new set of ideas about human progress that we could all get excited about and look forward to. Jamel, what about you?

[Carlos]

When I think about the question, what do I hope to see in the Democratic Party? I'm gonna take this very literal and mean in terms of, like, what do I want the literal Institutional Democratic Party to be? Because I think what the Trump era has revealed is the extent to which the Democratic Party still lacks the kind of deep connections to communities of voters that help make it more resilient in the face of opposition and help it muster the kinds of majorities necessary to actually do anything. There's a lot of ambition among Democrats. There's a lot of ambition to do bigger things. And I sense that there hasn't been this kind of ambition among rank and file Democrats to really try to pursue big aims in a long time. But the only way you're going to do those things is if you can win elections and persuade voters to trust you. And building that trust is a long and difficult thing. And so I would like to see a Democratic Party that takes some of this money it's raising and if they win, and really begin to do the kinds of investments in actual communities, like building up a real party organization that gets. That has a presence beyond election years, as when it comes to Democratic lawmakers. I would like to see a Democratic Party that recognizes that part of the challenge of moving on from the Trump years is. Has to be institutional reform. It has to be like, what we've witnessed is the extent to which, like, broken institutions or ones that have been, like, hijacked for ill purpose have facilitated Trump every step of the way. And so I would like to see the Democratic Party that takes that kind of stuff more seriously, whether that's court reform, whether that's, whether that's electoral college reform, whether that's thinking seriously about proposing constitutional amendments that address some of, I think, kind of the big issues that come out of the Trump years, like is the president criminally liable? Is a thing that probably needs to be addressed constitutionally at this point. And the extent to which the party has become very small c, I think makes this difficult. It makes it difficult simultaneously to say we are the party of normalcy and status quo. But also there are these major constitutional problems that have been revealed by the Trump years that we have to address. But I, you know, that's the direction I would like to see national Democrats go towards because I think it's necessary. I think if it's, if we don't kind of work on these things now, we're just setting ourselves up for this again.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Yeah. Well, I am all for almost spiritual renewal in the Democratic Party that would. Amen to that. Well, Michelle Jamel, thank you so much for coming by to chat with me.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Thank you.

[Carlos]

My pleasure.

[Lydia Polgreen]

Thanks for joining the conversation today. Send us your questions about the election by calling 212-556-7440 or emailing them to us at matterofopinionytimes Matter of opinion is produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Phoebe Lett and Andrea Batanzos. It is edited by Jordana Hochman. Our fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Original music by Isaac Jones, Afim Shapiro, Carol Sabaro, Sonia herrero and Pat McCusker. Engineering by Maddie Masiello. Mixing by Pat McCusker and Carol Sabaro. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie Rose Strasser.

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