Najeeb Mamini (5:10)

Right.

David Sirota (5:10)

I mean, the programs in the big ugly bill that just passed the United States was making real, genuine, actual progress on clean energy.

Al Letson (5:22)

But that's all gone now.

David Sirota (5:24)

Much of it is absolutely gone. We made the decision, for reasons that are still unclear other than Donald Trump paying back his fossil fuel donors, we made the decision, we were actually succeeding and we made the, our Congress made the legislative decision to repeal that progress at the same time that we've seen this flood, for instance. Right. I mean, Congress passes this bill to repeal the clean energy programs and days later there is this flood disaster. It is like, when are we going to look up. So that's not really an answer answer. That's just my frustration speaking.

Al Letson (6:02)

There's a quiet disinformation thing going on. Like, I mean, I've seen recently that people are talking about weather modification.

David Sirota (6:10)

Oh, my God, you know what the best response to that was. I've seen that like all the. Oh, it's geo. The government is secretly altering the weather or people.

Najeeb Mamini (6:17)

Right.

David Sirota (6:18)

I've seen that. And it's like, actually there is a conspiracy to alter the weather. There's a conspiracy by a group of very powerful corporations to pump as much carbon into the atmosphere as possible and to pretend that that's not causing these weather.

Najeeb Mamini (6:34)

Right.

David Sirota (6:34)

I mean, I'm being tongue in cheek here, but the point is, what's incredible is instead of just saying, hey, all that science out there that's telling us, that's been telling us this, that this is happening. Yeah. That's actually what's at issue. It's like, what about the conspiracy right in front of you? It's right there.

Al Letson (6:55)

Yeah, yeah.

David Sirota (6:56)

One of the tragedies is how climate became a partisan topic. Because I think people can't even remember. It didn't used to be a partisan topic. It really didn't. It wasn't that long ago. It was in the late 80s into the early 90s. James Hansen testified on Capitol Hill. Republicans like George H.W. bush, John McCain were saying this is an emergency. You know, the Pentagon, not exactly a sort of left wing organization, was saying this is a huge problem.

Najeeb Mamini (7:22)

Right.

David Sirota (7:22)

The scheme to turn climate change and to controversialize it and turn it into a party as an issue is one of the most dangerously successful political schemes that we've ever lived through. And frankly, in a lot of ways I'm not sure all of us are going to live through it.

Najeeb Mamini (7:40)

Right.

David Sirota (7:40)

Like the climate casualties are mounting. And so we have to. I think one thing we have to do is try the best that we can to not depoliticize, but to make this less of a partisan issue. It is right there. Like that flood in Texas was not a Republican flood or a Democratic flood. That flood, climate change is not a Republican or Democratic issue. It is a physical scientific fact.

Al Letson (8:08)

So I wanna move to what's happening in Congress with Trump's big beautiful bill. Tell me how you think this is gonna play out politically because a lot of people are gonna be affected.

David Sirota (8:19)

It's a real political quandary. I mean, here's my take on the bill is this. First of all, this bill is out of any bill that I've seen in my adult lifetime. This bill is the class war in legislative form. Just, I mean, mathematically, right. I mean, the lowest income folks according to the Republican led Congressional Budget Office will lose. I think the estimate was somewhere between $1,000 and $1,600 of income. A year from this, the highest tenth of the income earners will gain. I think it was $12,000. So the point is this is literally taking from the poor and giving to the rich. I think the politics of it are confounding before we even get to the electoral politics. The politics of this are bizarre in this way. The Republican Party's base of voters has become a more working class base of voters. That coalition, this bill disproportionately harms working class voters. To put a more fine point on it, it arguably disproportionately harms Republican voters or at least Republican trending parts of the electorate. A Republican bill, and here's the other crazy part, it helps affluent voters which are becoming more Democratic. It is absolutely bizarre. And I think that the Democrats responsibility now is to sort of make the point to Republican voters. The pain that you're going to experience is because of this bill. There are complicating factors, as you mentioned, that the seemingly good parts of this bill, or at least the sort of the bones that Donald Trump is pretending to throw to working class voters, the no tax on tips thing, the no tax on overtime, the you can write off more of your car interest, these are relatively small things, but those things come before the election. And the healthcare cuts come after the election. There's a problem, a political problem for Democrats that heading into the election, a lot of the health care cuts that are coming have not come into effect for Democrats to point to. They could point sort of over the horizon to say they are coming. One other part of the political problem, it sounds so small, but the Medicaid cuts, like the heart of the, of the class war of this bill, okay? Most states, the Medicaid programs are not called Medicaid. They have all sorts of different names, right. In Oklahoma, it's SoonerCare.

Najeeb Mamini (10:56)

Right?

David Sirota (10:56)

I mean, there's all these different names. And I think one of the political.

Al Letson (10:59)

Problems is they're disconnected. People don't understand.

David Sirota (11:02)

They're like, oh, there's Medicaid cuts over there. That's not me. I'm on SoonerCare. Right?

Al Letson (11:06)

It's the same problem with Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act. Like a lot of people realize that. They think that they're on the Affordable Care act and they hate Obamacare and it's the same thing.

David Sirota (11:16)

Exactly.

Al Letson (11:18)

Where do you see us as a nation right now, specifically through the lens of Politics?

David Sirota (11:23)

Look, in 2007, I wrote a book called the Uprising. It was my second book. And it was at a moment that feels like this moment does now. It was a moment where it was the second term of the Bush administration. We are now in the second term of the Trump administration. I think there's a lot of disillusionment, people feeling angry at the status quo, by the way, on both the right and the left. And there felt back then like there was an opportunity for this, this anger was going to go in one direction or the other. And my view is that what happened at that point back in 2007 was that the Obama campaign ended up successfully taking the anger on the center left and channeling it into the Democratic Party and really the Democratic establishment and the right ended up channeling the right of center anger into the Tea Party and the like. And I think what happened was that when Obama got in office and in my view really did not deliver on his populist campaign promises of hope and change, when he took that mandate and turned it into a mandate to essentially rescue Wall street while and the bankers who were foreclosing on millions and millions of that created a lot of, I think, disillusionment and fuel for the right of center anger in the country, among other things. And it created the conditions for Trump's first successful run for president. Fast forward to today. I think we're in a similar situation where there is anger on both the right and left and there is a, once again, I think a potentially momentary situation in which the anger on the center left can be channeled into something more like a so called Tea Party movement, not channeled into a particular political party for one particular politician, but into a larger movement to be more reflective of a kind of populism, center left populism that a lot of Democratic rank and file voters want. That's, I think, the moment that we're in. But I'm not sure that what I've just laid out will play out. I thought back in 2007 it might play out that way. And, and the sort of premise was it's going to go either in a right or left direction. And back then it went in a right wing direction.

Al Letson (13:56)

I think when you're laying that out to me, the thing that comes to mind for me is that it feels like the Democratic Party is far too fractured for that to actually happen. That the Democratic Party gets caught up in arguing on things that, and I'm not saying whether they're valid or invalid, but I would say that the Republican Party basically has a discipline that the Democratic Party does not have. And so I'm curious if you think that that's gonna get in the way.

David Sirota (14:25)

Well, let's take the historical view of that though. I mean, the Republican Party wasn't always that way. If you go back to the mid-1970s, I mean it's kind of incredible to imagine, but in the mid-1970s, 1976, you had a Republican primary where the incumbent non elected president, appointed President Gerald Ford was in a presidential primary with Ronald Reagan, where the primary was the liberal wing of the Republican Party and the newly ascendant conservative wing of the Republican Party. And they duked it out in that primary. Ronald Reagan lost very narrowly, of course, came back in 1980 and won the presidency. And I bring that up only to say that the Republican Party was fractured in a very deep way for a long time. And what ended up happening, I think over the course of decades was that the conservative movement through its organizing ended up unifying that party around its message. Now I think there are pitfalls to that if you, there's a, there's a fine line between unifying a party completely around one set of ideas and creating essentially a cult. And I think the today's Republican party sort of 30, 40 years later from that 1970s moment, I think frankly does in some ways behave and like a borderline cult when especially cult of personality when it comes to Donald Trump. But I guess what I'm saying is I think at the same time that happened with the Republicans, I think the work to actually unify the Democratic Party around a cogent economic message, a popular economic message and platform, I think that work really wasn't done. I think a lot of work was actually done to divide the party. There was a lot of work done by the sort of corporate wing of the Democratic Party to try to separate the party from its New Deal Great Society legacy on economics. And I think that that movement had great success in dividing the party, perhaps unifying the party only around so called identity politics issues. My larger point is, is that I think this is a moment where the work to reunify the party around a set of popular economic policies, where the diagnosis is that economic power, corporate power has become too concentrated in this new Gilded Age, that that work has an opportunity to happen in and an accelerated way right now because we're living in such an unequal moment.

Al Letson (16:57)

Coming up, David explains why he thinks some Democrats are panicking over Zoran Mandani's recent primary win in New York City.

David Sirota (17:06)

I think what the freakout is about is about a perceived or at least a fear of a loss of political control, a fear that democracy is actually working and it means they can't decide every single political outcome.

Al Letson (17:24)

Before we get to that. Listen, we don't like to have our own freakouts here, but the truth is public media is under threat and the fact that you are listening to this podcast right now tells me that you value public media and the deep conversations and investigative reporting that Reveal brings to you every week. So we need you. We need you to help spread the word, tell your friends about us, give us a rating or review to help others discover the award winning reporting from Reveal. And don't worry, I'm still your host. You, me and you. I can be spread around. Other people can listen to it and love it. But I'm yours. Don't worry. All right. More with David Sirota coming up.

Unknown (18:13)

Hello listener. My name is Najeeb Mamini and I am a producer here at Reveal. Reveal is a nonprofit news organization and we depend on support from our listeners. Listeners like you. Donate today@revealnews.org donate. It helps fund the stories that we tell and helps me feed my cat. So thank you.

Al Letson (18:43)

This is more to the story. I'm Al Letson and I'm back with journalist and former political advisor David Sirota. So, David, I grew up in Florida, which I've seen flip flop over the years. In the past it had Democratic governors, but now it is solidly red. A lot of that has to do with things that I don't know if you can change. The political culture seems so solidified. How do Democrats break through in a state like that?

David Sirota (19:11)

Today's Democratic Party is more of a cultural identity politics orthodoxy. You can be a corporate friendly, corporate coddling Democrat and still be welcomed into the Democratic Party. It's harder to be a Democrat who is a cultural moderate who happens to be an economic populist. I bring that up because what it says is that's where the real orthodoxy is. It's on culture and identity. And I think that you have to look at. So. Well, then what happened? Well, when the Democratic Party became the party identified as the party that rammed NAFTA through Congress. Let's take that as an example. There's a lot of data out there to show that some of the most Democratic districts, congressional districts in the Deep south, quickly, over eight years after that, became some of the most Republican districts in the country. Now the question is why? One very interesting study said that because the culturally conservative voters in those districts who had been hanging on to the Democratic Party, willing to overlook their differences with Democrats, Democrats on cultural issues prior to NAFTA were still willing to Stick with the party because they felt that the party was at least on its side economically. Then NAFTA happens, hugely high profile. And that cohort of voters culturally conservative, but still sticking with the Democrats is like, you know what? The Democrats are now screwing me on economics. Fine, I'll just go be a Republican.

Najeeb Mamini (20:38)

Right.

David Sirota (20:39)

The supremacy of culture in our politics and that as a dividing force in our politics, I think comes at a time of mass disillusionment when, okay, listen, neither party is really on my side economically, so politics is just a game, a contest of culture because both sides are not really delivering for me economically.

Al Letson (21:01)

I don't think that either party is serving its constituents. I think that when you look at where Americans are, I think what we're seeing in the voting booth and the lack of people at times coming out to vote is because they feel like no matter what they do, it doesn't matter. The system is broken for both sides.

David Sirota (21:21)

I absolutely agree. And I think that disillusionment serves, ultimately it mostly serves or tends to serve anti government conservatives who basically say, look, the government doesn't do anything. It can't do anything for you. It's not even trying to do anything for you. So just keep voting for us. We'll keep tearing apart the government. It's sort of a self fulfilling cycle. We'll make the government work even worse than. Oh, that fuels our anti government argument. I mean, give them credit, I can guess as a political strategy, the right and the Republicans have sort of a self fulfilling ideology here that works for their political project. And I think part of the problem here is that Democrats have done a bad job of. They are the party of government, but they have done a relatively bad job at governance and at selling. Exactly explaining what they are doing.

Al Letson (22:15)

That's the thing that I agree with you that Democrats do poorly. I also think that while Republicans are constantly talking about tearing the government apart and they have pushed this thought process in the American public that I feel like I never hear any pushback on the idea that, well, so and so is a good businessman. The government should run like a business.

David Sirota (22:39)

You know, I've come around a little bit on this topic. On the run government like a business. I absolutely 100% agree that when that phrase is invoked it makes no sense. But here's one nugget that I think is important in that metaphor. The government has not done a good job of making what it delivers clear, simple and easy. Right now think about this. Here's a stat that might blow you away. The American public, including Democrats rank Amazon as one of the top institutions that they have confidence in. But why does the average person say they have trust in the institution of Amazon? My theory is, is because Amazon has invested, whether you love it or you hate it, it has invested a lot of time and resources into making everything you do on that site easy. And my point is, is that that is the opposite of the experience of most people when they deal with the government.

Najeeb Mamini (23:49)

Right.

David Sirota (23:49)

When you deal with the irs, you're on hold forever. You can barely get through to anybody when you have to file your taxes. When you're dealing with any government agency, typically the experience is, is, can be miserable.

Najeeb Mamini (24:02)

Right?

David Sirota (24:02)

And unnecessarily miserable. So that's a long way of saying, I do think there's one thing, and this goes back to Democrats, if you're the party of government, you better be making sure that the programs that you're creating are delivering what you say they're gonna deliver in a really efficient, easy, pleasant way.

Al Letson (24:22)

Let's talk about the relationship in the Democratic Party between corporations and oligarchs. Is it fair to view the party as a clash between corporationalists and oligarchs?

David Sirota (24:34)

I would say this. Oligarchy is a term, I think, that has been used a lot lately as a kind of catch all for everything from the billionaire who inherited their wealth to the large Fortune 500 company to the sort of Washington swamp of lobbyists. It's essentially the money power. And I think the Democratic Party's fundamental conflict right now, and it has been this way really for 40 years when that movement I just mentioned to kind of take the Democratic Party away from its New Deal roots, that the party is caught, caught in a, in a kind of conflict that, that I think frustrates a lot of people. And, and I explain it this way, that on the one side, you have what the public and Democratic voters want. Things like universal healthcare break up, you know, large monopolies, better regulate and limit the power of Wall street private equity and the financialized forces of this country. Right. That's, that's stuff that the public wants. Over here is stuff that the donors want. The donors, the oligarchy want none of that stuff.

Najeeb Mamini (25:48)

Right.

David Sirota (25:48)

So the Democratic Party is sort of the Venn diagram is what does the public want that the donor class can tolerate and accept? And what you end up with is a very narrow set of issues that typically do not challenge the power of the donor class, even if they are important causes. Right. Like, and I'm talking about, you know, know, reproductive rights. We're talking about, you know, civil rights. We're talking about things. Again, not unimportant things, but in many ways not things that challenge the fundamental economic and political power of oligarchy. And the problem is, is that for. For the party is that what the public wants goes way beyond that. That what a public wants in. In a time where of a sort of nationwide affordability crisis. I can't afford healthcare, I can't afford electricity bills, I can't afford, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What the public wants are policies that the donor class does not want, because the donor class, the oligarchy, is profiting off the current dystopian status quo.

Al Letson (26:58)

So how does the Democratic Party get past that? Because if the donor class is actually paying for these campaigns and funding the party and politicians are listening to them, but the people disagree with those decisions. And, you know, how does that pan out? I think a really clear example of this is the mayoral race in New York City, right? So the donor class does not want Zoran Mamdani to win, but everyday New Yorkers seem very much in favor of the policies he's laying out.

David Sirota (27:32)

Well, here's why I think the oligarchy, the donor class in New York is freaking out so much. And by the way, let's take a moment to note that this is not just a typical kind of donor freakout. This is like an epic nervous breakdown that we've seen. My view is they're not really freaking out at Mamdani's particular policies. I mean, his policies are not really radical at all. I mean, they've been portrayed as radical, but we're talking about things like, you know, sort of limiting rent increases. We're talking about a couple of publicly funded grocery stores in food deserts. We're talking about free buses.

Al Letson (28:12)

Yeah, I would say they're not radical for you because, like, the way you think about Democratic politics, I think most of the donor class would think that you're radical.

Najeeb Mamini (28:22)

Right?

Al Letson (28:23)

So it's like, for sure.

David Sirota (28:24)

I'm saying, speaking in terms of the world.

Al Letson (28:27)

Sure, I hear you. I hear you.

David Sirota (28:29)

I just wanted to frame that. No, that's fair. That's fair. I'm saying, like, if you look at major cities, I mean, look, Orlando, Florida has a free bus system, right? I mean, like, Orlando, Florida is not. And Mamdani's proposal for some free buses was portrayed as this like, insane, crazy idea, right? So I'm just grounding it in the idea that, okay, he's proposing policies that I think are far reaching. They're different for New York. But I don't think the average corporate CEO in New York is like, I just can't tolerate free buses in the city. Like, I don't think that's what's really at issue. What I think is really at issue here is that the oligarchy, the donor class, has gotten so used to deciding elections, deciding political outcomes, that Mamdani winning was a situation, an election that they were prepared to fight. They fought really hard, they spent a lot of money, and they still lost. I think what the freakout is about is about a perceived or at least a fear of a loss of political control, a fear that democracy is actually working and it means they can't decide every single political outcome. So we have to ask the question. To go to your earlier question, well, what about this conflict between the people who are paying for campaigns, what they want, and what voters want? How does that circle ever get squared? Well, I think when you look in New York, how did Mamdani win? One of the big factors, it's not very sexy, hasn't been talked about. Guy has a great message, obviously, great media savvy, good videos, etceter, et cetera. But one of the factors that really hasn't been talked about is New York City has a robust system of publicly financing campaigns. So Zoran Mamdani was able to raise the sort of. The deal here is if you raise about a million bucks off of very small donations, the city matches that. I think it's 8 to 1. So he raised a million dollars. You can't really fully compete in a New York mayor's race with $1 million. But then you get $8 million and enough resources without having to go to big oligarch donors and beg them for money in exchange for legislative favors. He had enough public money to actually compete. And that's what short circuited, I think the typical formula where sort of huge billionaire donors stomp in and just buy the election. And it's no wonder that the oligarchy, the donor class, is freaking out because all of a sudden, wait a minute. In the capital of global finance, you're telling me that we can't dec every single political outcome and there's a system here to allow people like Mamdani to be competitive. That must freak them out.

Al Letson (31:22)

But that can't be replicated on a national level though, right?

David Sirota (31:25)

Well, look, it's happening at the New York for the first time at the statewide level in New York, there are cities and even in some state programs that have publicly financed campaigns. They haven't been funded as well as they need to be funded. But I mean, a place like Florida, for instance, instance, a deep red state, has a publicly financed system of statewide elections. And the reason I spotlight this is because I think if people are looking for answers, how do we actually make the playing field more fair for democracy? One of the answers is go to your town, go to your city, go to your state, start exploring how to replicate publicly financed systems of elections. I want to be clear, this is.

Al Letson (32:06)

Not a cure all, but it's a step.

David Sirota (32:09)

It's a step. It is a step, right?

Al Letson (32:12)

Yeah. David Sirota, thank you so much for coming in and talking to me today.

David Sirota (32:16)

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Al Letson (32:23)

That was journalist and former political adviser David Sirota. You can find his work at the investigative news outlet the Lever. I also recommend his award winning podcast, Master Plan. It traces the 50 year history of how money has permeated and often corrupted US Politics. And if you like this conversation, you should check out our reveal. Episode 2024 broke the can they put themselves back together? It's about the many fissures within the party following Donald Trump's reelection and how Democrats might find a unified path forward. Lastly, just a reminder, we are listener support supported. That means listeners like you, you can help us thrive by making a gift today. Just go to revealnews.org gift again, that's revealnews.org gift and thank you. This episode was produced by Josh sanburn and Carl McGurk. Allison theme music and engineering helped by Fernando my man, Yo Aruda and Jay Breezy. Mr. Jim Briggs, I'm Al Letson and you know, let's do this again next week. This is more to the story from prx.