← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. We were made to help you and your friends find a place on the beach with a pool and a marina and a waterfall and a soaking tub. Expedia made to travel. Sasha hated sand the way it stuck to things for weeks. So when Maddy shared a surf trip on Expedia Trip Planner, he hesitated. Then he added a hotel with a cliffside pool to the plan, and they both spent the week in. You were made to follow your whims. We were made to help find a place on the beach with a pool and a waterfall and a soaking tub and, of course, a great shower. Expedia made to travel. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome, I think, for the first time, host of the GD Politics podcast. Also, GD Politics on Substack formerly hosted the 538 Politics pod, and he's got a recent piece in the New York Times arguing the Democrats need their own Trump for 2028, but not in the way you're worried about. It's Galen Druke. What's up, man?
- [01:20]
Galen Druke
Hey, how's it going? Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [01:23]
Tim Miller
It's going well. It's going well. I mean, I don't. Should you have just gone with the goddamn America podcast? Are you a little concerned about the GD there? You know, just whether that's sending the wrong signals to any. Any potential Christian subscribers?
- [01:38]
Galen Druke
Well, I thought of that, which is why I also purchased gosh darn politics.com when I was setting up the site. So we have gdpolics.com galendrugpolitics.com and gosh darn politics.com because we're. We're an inclusive community, you know.
- [01:54]
Tim Miller
Okay. Gosh darn Politics. That is. That is sweet. I think maybe I'm voting for that one, but we'll see how it goes. All right, I've got a bunch to talk to you about. I want to get eventually to that Trump article, which we agree with passionately, fervently. Hence, you coming on the pod, you know, because I want. I like to have passionate agreements with people, and so we'll get to that, but we got some new stuff we got to do first. So since we taped yesterday's pod, the bbb, the One Big Beautiful Bill act, which is no longer called that, actually, Chuck Schumer got a big win. I don't know if you saw this in the Senate yesterday. He Got a big win and he forced the Republicans to change the name of the bill. So big kudos to Chuck Schumer on that. It's passed the Senate. It's going over to the House right now. You either said or wrote that this looks to be the least popular major legislation passed since at least 1990. So I just want to start biggest picture before we get down into kind of the vote, the politics, the vote itself. Like, why do you think it's so unpopular? Talk about that.
- [02:53]
Galen Druke
Yeah. So this was actually some analysis from Chris Warshaw at George Washington University, who looked at the popularity of major legislation that's been passed since at least 1990. And this looks to be the least popular. Less popular things have been considered, like repealing the Affordable care Act in 2017. That was less popular, but it failed.
- [03:15]
Tim Miller
And looking at w Social Security privatization, where did we fit? Where did we fit on that, my boy?
- [03:21]
Galen Druke
Well, Tim, that didn't actually happen, so it wasn't included in the big legislation that got passed. But I have to imagine that somewhere near this and where this polls on average is about 25 percentage points underwater, looking at four recent polls from reliable pollsters. And so it's pretty bleak. And why is this happening? I think it's because this is an issue that Americans care increasingly about health care. It's also an issue where Republicans start with a deficit. You know, even throughout Joe Biden's unpopular presidency, Democrats still had an advantage on the issue of health care. And it's also an issue that's becoming increasingly salient. We see it moving up in the ranks of concerns for voters. And unlike, I would say, the Tax Cut and jobs act of 2017, that was quite unpopular when it passed, the media moved on. Democrats kind of moved on and argued about other things. This is the kind of story that if it ultimately gets signed into law, sticks around because there's going to be stories about folks losing their health insurance. You know, there are projections that 10 million people will be put off Medicaid and that another 6 million or so might lose their subsidies through the Affordable Care Act. And that's not only something for Democrats to talk about, it's also something that the media is going to report on. And I'll just add here as I'm spewing out all of these numbers, like the Yale Budget Lab did some rigorous work looking at how this shifts around funds for the American public, and it found that the bottom 20% of Americans will end up with $700 less per year if this becomes law. While the top 20% will end up with about 6,000 more. And we break that top 20% down even more to like the 0.1%. So people making over $3 million a year, they're going to get over $100,000 more a year when all is said and done. And so if you want to make an argument against the billionaires, against the oligarchy or whatever, and you're a Democrat, you were just handed a gift.
- [05:23]
Tim Miller
I guess my follow up is I've done a little Googling while you're talking and it feels like Social Security privatization was significantly more popular actually than this bill. So suck on that, maga. There is also some data out that shows, like, a lot of people don't actually know what's in this bill. So, like, how do you kind of parse that? Like its unpopularity with also the lack of familiarity?
- [05:46]
Galen Druke
Yeah. So I think a couple things are going on and to your point, actually, about Social Security privatization being more popular, in some ways, Republicans haven't even done the work to try to convince Americans that it's worth cutting Medicaid. Right. Like in the Bush era, there would be some intellectual argument about how we need to make these programs solvent, what or why work requirements are actually a good thing. And by the way, when asked in abstraction if there should be work requirements for Medicaid, a majority of Americans agree and a majority of Democrats even agree. And so in some ways, they've tried to do this in the dark of night, not really talking about it very much. And that may be to their deficit because there are probably some areas where they could win over at least more Republicans because you, even Republicans don't have the best view of this legislation at this point. It's like only 2/3 that view it favorably. And when it comes to Americans not knowing much about it, I have seen, I've been watching the polling as this has all played out. Increasingly Americans do know about it. So today when you ask them, like, will this increase the deficit? A majority of Americans say yes. Who will this benefit the most? I was just looking at YouGov polling this morning. 57% of Americans say the wealthy will when compared with other groups of Americans. And so I think that they have a general vibe they might not know all of the provisions that affect green energy or the provisions that affect, I mean, I think people are also aware of the tax and, sorry, the repealing attacks on tips to a certain extent. But I think that they will probably learn more. And it's, I would say, unlikely to get more popular I want to get.
- [07:23]
Tim Miller
Into the particular peculiarities of Lisa Murkowski, who you did a very interesting podcast with recently, and why she decided to become the tying and essentially tie breaking vote on the bill next. So, like just putting her aside, like, what, what's your theory of the case on why they did this? Like, they really didn't have to do this. Like, they could have done a two separate bills, one that was just border security, one that was just extending the Trump tax cuts that would have also been bad on the deficit. But like, so was this. So you know what I mean? Like, they could have just done popular stuff. Like that was an option to them. And that was something Donald Trump was pretty deft at in 2015, 2016, like focusing on just doing things people like. So, like, why don't you think they did that?
- [08:12]
Galen Druke
Well, the parties do have a problem with overinterpreting their mandates, if you'll remember. Joe Biden start off, started off with, you know, a decent amount of popularity and the idea was to do popular things. And quickly they started also doing unpopular things. I mean, we don't have to rehash the whole thing. But on immigration and on inflation and things like that, he actually wasn't with the majority of Americans. And there was a backlash, which I expect to be the case here. And so on one hand, it's Trump overinterpreting his mandate and saying, I want to do this, I want to do that, and we'll put it all in one bill. It's also the Republican Party, I mean, you're intimately familiar with this, the Republican Party being drawn in different directions. So there are now the conservative populists like Josh Hawley who say that they like Medicaid, although he voted for, for this bill, obviously. And then there are also the budget hawks like Rand Paul who, you know, obviously didn't vote for this, but say that they're very concerned about the debt and deficit. And so how do you both, you know, try to not explode the deficit so much? So you are going to cut benefits like Medicaid and SNAP benefits and also Affordable Care act subsidies, but also try to, you know, be something of a conservative populace while also incorporating all of these promises that Trump made on the campaign, like no tax on tips, you know, no taxes on your interest payments for your car loan and the like. And what you end up with is something that kind of, I guess it accomplishes a little bit of each, but it also does quite a bad job on the deficit. It does ultimately take away people's benefits. And ultimately, you know, the things that Trump said he wanted to do for folks, like no tax on tips and the like will expire at the end of his term.
- [09:57]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, like, in a strange way, you hate to hand it to Bannon, but like, the Bannon version of this bill would have been more popular. Right. Like if they did, like, not extending the top tax bracket and, you know, not doing as much on the benefit cuts and I don't know, maybe adding more money for like an alligator moat around all of the jails instead of just one. Like, I think that kind of combination of policies feels like more popular than what they did.
- [10:25]
Galen Druke
Yeah, I mean, that's what Susan Collins was pushing for as well. She tried to add an amendment that would bring the top tax rate back up to 39 and a half percent from 37%, which I forgot to mention, if you want to do all those things that are priorities for different parts of the Republican Party and then also not raise taxes on anyone, you're going to end up with something that kind of offends everybody in some way.
- [10:47]
Tim Miller
My theory of the case on this is, and part of this is just inertia and Trump want to get something done and it's stupid legislative, it's like old, you know, same problem with every legislature where everybody's trying to get a little bit of what they want. But I think maybe the fundamental sin is that like a shocking number of congressional Republicans believe their own bullshit when it comes to, like, them being fiscally responsible and the Democrats not being fiscally responsible. And so, like, they convince themselves that they have to do these cut to maintain their self perception, their identity as a fiscal, as a fiscal hawk would be in doubt if they didn't do the cuts part of this. And so they are going to kind of lap on these unpopular cuts to a bill that still is bigger than anything Biden did or Obama did as far as increasing the debt. Like, I think that's like literally it. Like, they fooled themselves into doing this.
- [11:46]
Galen Druke
Yeah. I think there are plenty of people within the Republican Party that believe in work requirements for Medicaid and reducing benefits. I should also say here that there is a cynical aspect to this, which is, yes, we hear a lot about Trump doing better with lower income, lower education level voters, but Democrats still do quite well with the poorest people in America and then the upper middle class and wealthy in America. You know, Harris won outright the top income bracket that exit polls look at. And this is going to hurt most the people at the very bottom of the income ladder that actually Republicans don't rely on quite as much as they do the middle class. Right. This is going to benefit the wealthy the most, but at least it's not going to have sort of the deepest negative impacts on the people who are the prime Trump voter. You know, everyone gets lumped into the working class here. But when we're talking about the working class, we're talking about people making, you know, 50, $60,000 a year. We' talking about the people who are making, you know, according to this Yale budget lab, if you're in the bottom 20%, you're making very little money a year and you're seeing the, the deepest cuts and the most negative impact from this bill. As Josh Hawley argued in the pages of the New York Times, there is some push within the Republican Party to care more about the worst off among us. But here it seems like there may be some electoral calculations as well, because what they weren't doing was, was slashing Medicare.
- [13:15]
Tim Miller
That's a good point. And they also ended up adding in a bunch for rural hospitals. I note that a huge chunk of money then goes to help support rural hospitals, which is needed and. Right. But nothing to help low income hospitals and urban neighborhoods like effort at sort of targeting your base versus versus the other sides. Trip planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. We were made to help you and your friends find a place on the beach with a pool and a marina and a waterfall and a soaking tub. Expedia made to travel. Speaking of efforts to do that, Lisa Murkowski. So you talked to her at an opportune time. When was it, like a week ago, Two weeks ago? Time is a flat circle. Yeah.
- [14:02]
Galen Druke
Yeah.
- [14:02]
Tim Miller
She ends up being like the vote that is needed here to get to 50. The Republicans could only lose three. They had lost Paul Tillis and Collins. And so Murkowski was kind of the teetering vote at the last second. She ends up supporting it extremely reluctantly. In a very unusual post positive vote interview, she says that she thinks it's a bad bill, it's going to hurt people. So we're going to psychoanalyze that next. But I want to play just a little bit from your interview with her where you ask her specifically about kind of this carve out for Alaska.
- [14:39]
Galen Druke
Is this something where you could get to yes for this if there was a waiver for Alaska on those Medicaid provisions, Or do you think there are other places in America like the situation you've described in Alaska? Well, I think I think that there.
- [14:52]
Tim Miller
Are other pockets where, again, you have limited economic opportunity.
- [14:59]
Galen Druke
Right.
- [14:59]
Tim Miller
In some of our really rural areas.
- [15:04]
Galen Druke
And so, again, that's one example is work requirements. And I'm trying to be specific because I think it helps people. I'm not saying Alaska needs to be.
- [15:14]
Tim Miller
Carved out of everything.
- [15:16]
Galen Druke
What I'm saying is I've got to have some flexibility. I have to have some appreciation that.
- [15:22]
Tim Miller
Not all states are equal in terms.
- [15:26]
Galen Druke
Of how you're able to implement.
- [15:29]
Tim Miller
What'd you make about. I obviously, you asked her that question. So you kind of felt like this was coming. I just kind of look at it and it's like it's kind of a small car in the grand scheme of things. I don't know. It's not like Alaska got something like avoided getting punished. Right. And so I don't know. What did you make about her kind of, you know, making the decision to vote for this after. After some of those changes?
- [15:52]
Galen Druke
Yeah. Honestly, at the end of my conversation with Lisa Murkowski, I thought she's a yes for this bill because she was pretty clear that she'd been working with her caucus, with leadership, with the White House, pursuing things that she wanted to pursue. And I mean, a big priority for Murkowski is, you know, energy resource production in Alaska, which ended up, I believe, being part of this bill, although things were getting added and subtracted at the last minute. So I'm not 100% sure on that. But Murkowski is somebody who said all along that I'm out here for Alaska. And she repeated that again and again in the interview. And so ultimately, I think she felt that she got what she wanted. And because there were so many carve outs made and so many sort of concessions in some ways made for Alaska in this bill, at least that they considered probably she would have lost a lot of faith amongst her colleagues if at the end of all of that, she voted no. And so you get this situation where she feels like she has something good for Alaska, but then she comes out and says, I don't think this is a big good bill for America. So what we can say is that's probably not the greatest political strategy to get folks to, you know, admire the work that you're doing, necessarily. And so in some ways, like she's being honest, she said, I'm here to represent Alaska and I got what I wanted for Alaska. And so I voted yes.
- [17:14]
Tim Miller
You kind of landed there. Then on the. There's a two pronged rationale for a decision, which is the Alaska Focus in the brand, which she was very adamant about in your discussion, but also the social, like, literally, it's high school cafeteria stuff a little bit. Like, she does have relationships with Thune and with, like, the leadership in a way that maybe she wouldn't with some of the more recent MAGA guys in the caucus, and I think felt like she had an obligation to, like, work with them in good faith or whatever.
- [17:47]
Galen Druke
Yeah, I mean, I think they knew from the jump that they needed her vote, and the way to do it was to put positive things in the bill for Alaska. And. And, you know, when we talked, it was, you know, about two weeks ago at this point, it was clear that they had been working on this for a while, and she had raised plenty of issues regarding Alaska that were being considered. And she said in the interview, you know, they have to consider my concerns for Alaska because they need my vote to pass this bill. So I think that was an open part of this whole negotiation from the jump.
- [18:22]
Tim Miller
There's another section of the interview which I played last week, which was kind of this question of, you know, whether she might be interested in forging some kind of coalition government with Democrats or with other independent, you know, types, depending on how things go off in the midterms. You were like a dog with a bone on that question. That went on for, like, seven minutes. So I could only play a little clip of it on this podcast. But what did you make about that whole exchange and how do you look at it now after seeing kind of how the last week has played out?
- [18:55]
Galen Druke
You know, to her credit, she could have just said no and ended the conversation. So at the very least, I think she tries to be honest when she's answering questions, which is if this is something she would ever consider. She didn't say flat out no, which is what led to a conversation that I think it was even longer than that, because I first started by asking if she would ever consider being unaligned or independent. And then I said, okay, well, if Democrats win three seats in the Senate at the midterms and they need a fourth in order to have a majority, would you ever consider caucusing with them if, once again, they promised that you could pass good legislation on behalf of Alaskans, and she could have just said, no, I'm a Republican. I'm going to stay this way. But the conversation kept going for about 10 minutes, which tells me it is something that she has considered. It's not a secret that I think she has pretty. You know, I'm going to speak in, like, Memeable language here, but deep reservations with the Republican Party. And she talks at length in her book, which is why she was doing these interviews about places where she's broken with her party and her reactions to January 6th and her concerns for her own security. There are people who are. Who are spending time behind bars because of threatening her. And she said in the interview itself, it's no secret that my party has, you know, rejected me or something, something along those lines, has not embraced me, I think she said. And so there's obvious discomfort there. You know, she says that also she doesn't like Democratic policy. I think you aired that clip with Nicole last week, and I think that that's probably also true. And so I think oftentimes we look at these folks in Washington and they're super cynical and they're egotistical and. And they're. They're kind of like unlikable people. I think she's truly conflicted. You know, I think that she is not a cynical politician. I think that in some ways, she's got a lot of feelings. She wants to represent Alaska, and she oftentimes lands in places that piss off Republicans, and she oftentimes lands in places that piss off Democrats. And it works for her in Alaska in some ways because of the electoral system that they have there, with open primaries and then a ranked choice voting system in the general. But I would imagine that under any other system, she'd be booted.
- [21:03]
Tim Miller
And maybe the answer to that is that, like, she's conflicted and she's working through it, because part of me comes to the question of. And please take this in the greatest spirit in which it's intended, because I love and honor the GD Politics podcast. But it's like the fact that she's doing that interview. I mean, I don't know, maybe you're just palace with the chief of staff or something, but, like, she's not coming on my podcast. She's not really going on MAGA podcasts, right? You know what I mean? Like, she doesn't have a natural. You know, usually if you're a politician that's selling a book, right, you would find the podcast that fits your natural constituency as you would go on that, because you figure that the listeners would really like you. You know what I mean? Like, if Abigail Spanberger was doing a book next year, she's going to come on the Bulwark podcast because she figures people will like her. She doesn't have that right. And so I guess my question is, who is she trying to reach the.
- [21:54]
Galen Druke
GD Politics podcast listeners. No, I mean, look, I. I struggle with that myself.
- [21:59]
Tim Miller
I am trying to reach statistical nerds, you know, cross tab divers.
- [22:05]
Galen Druke
Well, you know, in a world where everyone sort of retreats to their partisan corners, I struggle with that, too, because the work that I do and have done for the past decade is not really about sort of telling people what they should think or, you know, sort of sharing my moral values necessarily with folks. It's more just saying, this is the world as it is.
- [22:25]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [22:26]
Galen Druke
There are parts of it that you'll probably like. There are parts of it that you probably won't like. And, you know, hopefully we can go along on this ride together and have a sense of humor where appropriate along the way. And it is a tricky space to occupy in an era when it's just way easier to find your tribe and kind of celebrate with them. And so in some ways, I understand that. Sort of tricky in between. It's easy to end up pissing a lot of people off.
- [22:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [22:52]
Galen Druke
Or providing opium to no one. And, you know, Lord knows.
- [22:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that's. That's true. Hey, who doesn't? We honor that here, too? Or she could go hang out with Elon. Elon's trying to start a new party. And, you know, it's kind of like the ketamine and deficit hawk party, and they could add on Alaska drilling to that, and boom, there we go. You. You might have a ticket. The interesting thing, I guess, just. Just finally closing on the Murkowski thing, which I'm wondering what you made of it, is like. Like she's not up until 28. I guess the argument against for her going the coalition government route that you guys were talking about is, like, why she ends up voting for this bill. She thinks that she can get what she wants out of John Thune, and that working the inside game with that is a workable path for her right now. And so she doesn't need to blow it all up over her feelings about the ICE Police state that we're going to run.
- [23:46]
Galen Druke
Yeah, I think that it's probably less likely at this point in this very moment that Democrats feel like they want her on their team. But people have a short memory in politics, and folks are going to move on and there's going to be another vote. And if Murkowski wants to. You know, at the end of the day, Murkowski has an awful lot of power in Washington, and if she wants to maintain that power in a different environment, remaining the gettable vote is a good way to do that. Yeah. And you know, given how she's voted in different ways, it's probably not entirely worthless for Democrats to try to pursue some moderate Republicans here and there. And obviously they were successful in doing that during the Biden administration. And so in a future administrator especially, look, you know, the piece that I wrote in the New York Times that we're going to discuss a big piece of, it was like, okay, I think Democrats can win future presidential elections by being top to bottom partisans because they'll rely on mediocre candidates from Republicans. And what we've seen over the past decade is kind of a race to the bottom in terms of candidate quality for, you know, these national presidential elections. But if Democrats want to have any kind of meaningful majority in order to legislate, they got to win majorities in the Senate, too. And so you either have to sort of put together a policy platform that appeals to Americans in states that are have currently been written off, or you have to pursue folks like Lisa Murkowski. And both of those are probably unappealing to top to bottom partisans. But that's the world that we live in.
- [25:32]
Tim Miller
Well, let's just do it. Let's just get into that because the core of the Dempsey new Trump argument that you made in the Times is speaking about national politics. And I do want to close with some commentary on the draft you did about the Democratic nominee in 2028. And I have some negative feedback for you on that. But while it's true about the national political presidential candidates, the argument you're making, I think it's also true about Democrats in the Senate. And essentially I'm going to make the short of the argument. Then you can kind of exp on it. When you say demons need a new Trump, you're talking about the fact that Trump took heterodox positions in both directions. He came in and offered the Republican base a lot of red meat when it came to immigration and issues such as that. But then he also hedged to the middle, if you want to call it that, on other things like Social Security privatization, which you mentioned earlier, like the wars. Right. And that the Democrats haven't really had a lot of candidates that have tried that. And that could be a successful recipe. So anyway, is that a good summary of the argument and expand on that.
- [26:43]
Galen Druke
They haven't had a lot of candidates try that, at least not recently.
- [26:46]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [26:47]
Galen Druke
And I should say that another important piece of what Trump did was at the time that he ran the Republican Party was very unpopular, about as unpopular as the Democratic Party is today. Now, listen, the Republican Party is also unpopular today, but it is more popular than the Democratic Party. And so he was dealing with a pretty disillusioned electorate, primary electorate, and he ran pretty aggressively against the Republican Party. And so that's another piece of this. I think that's a good point. Ambitious Democrats should consider trying to break with an unpopular Democratic Party by running against it. Sort of showing I'm going to be a different type of Democrat. And here's the evidence. I'm not one of the Democrats that you've become familiar with during the Trump era, the Biden era, the Hillary Clinton campaign, et cetera.
- [27:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Let me just add on this point on Trump, because just in the Trump nature, Trump didn't just run against the unpopular Republican Party. He was withering. Oh, yeah, in a way that, like, and that was part of why a lot of people didn't think it was going to work. Like, myself included. Right. I was like, I believed that you could run as whatever, a nationalist, far right Republican populist guy and win. That person probably would have won in 2012 if they were a good candidate. I was skeptical of Trump in 2016 because I didn't believe you could do that and, like, go after these, like what you had thought would be sacred cows of the Fox Watchers, like, you know, people that had George Bush brooches and elephants, you know, paraphernalia around their house, wouldn't vote for somebody that like, actively shit on that legacy. But that was wrong. Like he, you know, he didn't just kind of run away from the Republican Party, he ran at it in a very aggressive way. And you think that that same type thing could work here.
- [28:27]
Galen Druke
Look, and maybe he didn't have those people necessarily early on. He was winning those early primaries with 30 some percent of the vote, but clearly those people could still get on board. And one thing about, you know, public opinion is on issues that are uncontested, you don't really know where the public lands. So if you had polled in 2015, what do you think of George W. Bush? What do you think of John McCain? What do you think of Mitt Romney? Republicans would have said, oh, you know, great, you know, today Democrats, 75% of Democrats, which is still, you know, comparatively low, will say that they have a favorable view of Biden. But if somebody starts trashing those things that you are kind of inspired by, you find charismatic, you might change your opinion. And so I think a lot of folks who had been sort of along the ride for the ride with The Republican Party did change their minds once Trump came onto the scene and made that pitch. And, look, I started by saying that both parties are unpopular in America today. And so when you're running in a competitive election for folks in deep red or deep blue seats, you can tune this out. You want to run to the extremes, if that's what floats your boat, I guess, go for it. The primary electorate's going to keep putting you back into office. But if you want to win in a part of America that's actually competitive, one of the best ways to do it is to not be seen as fully one thing or the other. Not fully Republican, not fully Democrat, but something else. And Trump was able to do that. By the time voters went to the polls in 2016. They viewed him as the less extreme of the two options, despite the fact that he had taken extreme positions throughout the campaign. And they saw him as less conservative than any Republican nominee. Going Back to George H.W. bush, which is as far back as the data went. And, you know, we haven't seen a Democrat try this recently, but we have seen Democrats do this. I mean, I mentioned in the piece Bill Clinton, who, you know, Democrats were very disillusioned when he came onto the scene. If you'll remember, Mario Cuomo didn't even run in that primary because he thought it was so fated for George H.W. bush to win reelection. And, you know, he had his moments where he broke with the Democratic Party, and then he also ran to the right on crime and the debt and deficit, and he ran to the left on health care. He was also a very charismatic person who was able to bring people along for the ride. I mean, Obama as well, we think of him now as like the most establishment figure in the Democratic Party, but at the time, he was running against the establishment. He, you know, was running against Hillary Clinton on her Iraq war vote, while he was to the left on that. He was actually to the right of Clinton on healthcare, for example, and then also talked a lot about sort of putting partisanship to the side and rising above the fray. And that is one of the best ways to win over sort of marginal, persuadable voters is by saying, oh, that negative caricature that you think of when you think of a Democrat, that negative caricature that you think of when you think of a Republican. I'm neither of those things. I have these sensible popular policy positions that I will pursue on behalf of you and sort of try to cut the partisanship out of it in this piece. In particular, some positions I mentioned that a plausible candidate could take. And again, the issue landscape will change between now and when this becomes applicable. But is something like run pretty heartily to the left on healthcare and move to the right on immigration, in particular border security. Run to the left on housing and run to the right on the debt and deficit. That may not sound coherent to a top to bottom partisan, but again, the marginal, gettable, swingable, moderate people who code as moderate have, you know, views that don't fit one party top to bottom.
- [32:00]
Tim Miller
I want to hear a couple of models for what you think might look like in a Senate race, because I think that the Senate race is a little different than a presidential race in particular, because for Democrats to win a marginal Senate race, you're trying to win the marginal voter in Iowa. I think that's what we're talking about right now, really. We're not talking about the Maine or North Carolina race. We're talking about how do the Democrats win Senate seats outside of the purple states. So I think that model looks like.
- [32:22]
Galen Druke
Which Democrats still haven't been able to do in Maine over the past decade.
- [32:25]
Tim Miller
Right, good point. But I'm just saying that you could probably win a Maine with a more traditional type of campaign with some caveats applying in Iowa. You're gonna have to do something different. Right? And so it's a little different on a Senate race than a national campaign. But on a national campaign, looking at the Democrats need a Trump model, I think that somebody could win a Democratic primary in 2028. Like being absolutely the most withering person possible about how awful the Republicans are and just being absolutely against. Not just Donald Trump, but J.D. vance, but Mike John, you know, but the BBB, just a withering attack on their policies while also taking very strange, like, weird anti, you know, weird positions, like against the. On any series of issues. Like literally, you could pick the buckets. Could be fucking A.I. you know, it could be phones, could be schools, like, you know, you could do. You could do a bunch of different stuff. Do you think that's right? Like, do you think it's about affect, like being like you win over the partisans by. By being, you know, like Trump was good at fighting the other side and then you went over the moderate voters with a couple of random issues or do you think that it has to be policy based?
- [33:39]
Galen Druke
So I think you bring up a very important point, which is that voters cast ballots based on a lot of things that have nothing to do with policy because campaigns oftentimes get waged over policy. How you talk about Policy is one way to communicate information about yourself beyond just what you might do in office. Because, remember, Donald Trump didn't do a lot of this stuff once in office. It was mostly about telling people what kind of person he was. And it's. It's right. That you bring up that he didn't just attack the Republican Party. He spent a ton of time also attacking the Democratic Party, the media, the left, all, you know, so I'm not saying here that this sort of Democratic Trump, who, again, to be clear, I'm not talking about violating Democratic norms or, you know, attacking institutions. I'm talking more about this. This triangulation sort of thing, is somebody who would, you know, heartily attack the Republican Party.
- [34:32]
Tim Miller
Well, Fetterman is just the example of this. Just really quick, like, we'll get to what Fetterman's done the last year. He's run against the Democratic Party, but them only, like, you almost never hear him talking about how terrible or. And he does from time to time, but, like, he doesn't do it in a way that gets attention. Like, his provocations are all aimed left. That is not what will work.
- [34:51]
Galen Druke
Absolutely.
- [34:52]
Tim Miller
You have to have provocations aiming right and left. Yeah.
- [34:56]
Galen Druke
And especially during the primary, you focus on the red meat to your base. And so for Trump, that was immigration, but for this person, I don't know if AOC would ever take Right. Positions on some of these things or say it's Josh Shapiro or whatever. You talk a lot about a public option. You talk a lot about how health care is broken and Republicans have broken it even further. And you really get people riled up believing in you on that issue. And also maybe bring up some issues that aren't fully polarized, fully partisanized, like housing, for example, and, you know, talk about affordability there. The Democratic Party is unpopular, and Joe Biden's presidency wasn't particularly popular. So there are a lot of opportunities to create those differences, create those distinctions by just attacking what's already been done that's unpopular. And, you know, you don't have to probably go as far as Donald Trump did in 2015, 2016. But again, you're right that it's not just policy, it's also charisma, it's also celebrity, and it's authenticity. Right. And, you know, for Donald Trump, being that kind of brash, off the cuff, whatever kind of person was authentic to him, I think that whoever Democrats field, it'll be important that the path that they take is authentic to them. So when thinking about this strategy, it's harder for somebody like Pete Buttigieg who was part of the Biden administration or somebody like Gavin Newsom, who has become, who at least was something of a poster child for the Democratic Party to then go and like, run against the Democratic Party. It would probably be easier for a lesser known person like a Josh Shapiro, like an Andy Beshear, somebody like that. Like, I'm not saying that those are necessarily the strongest candidates for Democrats in 2028. I think in so many ways, time will tell, the issue landscape will change. Exactly how unpopular Donald Trump is and the specific areas in which he fails or succeeds are yet to be seen entirely. But I think you're right to point out that authenticity, charisma, celebrity, even just going viral can mean an awful lot.
- [36:59]
Tim Miller
You keep trying to drag me into the 2028 Hot Stove discussion and we are saving it for dessert. Okay, that is saved. I have three other topics I want to get to. Just as leaning in on the Senate, for example, the Democrats are going to, and I talked with this Iglesias a couple of weeks ago. If the Democrats are going to have any kind of majority where they can do anything in the Senate, they have to win in places like Texas and Iowa this time. Like, there's just no other. Like, even if they sweep all of the blue and purple states, I think that their ceiling is like 54, 53 or maybe 52 even I don't have in front of me. But it's like not, not a high number of senators.
- [37:36]
Galen Druke
Well, Tim, let me, I'll get, I'll do the math for you. They got to win four seats in order to win the majority in the Senate. Their top pickup, especially now with Thom Tillis retiring, is North Carolina. Their second best opportunity is Maine with Susan Collins up for reelection, although that has eluded them for a decade. Then after that, it is, take your pick. But states that Democrats have not done well, and it's Iowa, it's Texas, it's Alaska, those are probably their best options from there. I don't know, maybe Kansas. Those are probably their best options from there. And then they also have to defend some of their seats, you know, in Michigan and the likes.
- [38:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I was, I meant more like long term. Like if you're like, playing, like playing this out into the future, if the Democrats also want to, like, have a governing majority, you know, because you don't have a chance to win the Pennsylvania seat back for six years or whatever. But like, if you play it out a decade, even if you win all of the blue and purple seats now, like, the ceiling is still very low. Like, there's not a lot of seats to pick up there. You have McCormick, you got Ron Johnson, you know, just a couple. So then the question for you is, like, what does a candidate look like that wins in. In Texas and Iowa? And I want to put aside the caveat that, you know, we lost 30,000 jobs last month. Maybe we go into a Great Depression by next October and the Democrats don't have to do anything and they accidentally win a couple Senate seats. But so let's put the exogenous event aside. Like, what is a Democrat that would even have a chance for you in Texas or Alaska or Iowa or Kansas?
- [39:05]
Galen Druke
I think it's probably the mold that I mentioned. So what is Americans biggest concern today? It's still the economy and the cost of living. And so you want to present probably more progressive policies on something like that, which I know we're holding off the Zoran Mamdani conversation until later.
- [39:25]
Tim Miller
Oh, that's next. That's coming up next.
- [39:27]
Galen Druke
But you probably present, like, run something of a. Of a single issue campaign on the things that Americans care most about, while also, I think, pivoting on some of the areas where Democrats have been least popular. I think in a place like Texas, in particular, border security. I mean, that was one of Joe Biden's worst issues. It was pretty clear to people, I think, at this point that those were policy choices that exacerbated the migrant crisis. And so sort of letting that be known. I don't know if you want to touch this stove, but there are even plenty of arguments that the American rescue plan was significantly too large and inflationary in its own right. I mean, by the end of 2021, the San Francisco Fed had concluded that it added 3 percentage points to annualized inflation. And so there are areas where, you know, Democrats have fallen down on the issues that Americans care most about. And I think by breaking with the party or even just giving voice to it, like, I know that Pete Buttigieg is trying to do this in places where he's like, oh, we kept schools closed too long and the like. But saying, you know, Democrats fucked up here and there, I think to a Texas audience, is going to buy you a lot of credibility with folks who might not naturally be in your corner. And then in addition to that sort of juicing enthusiasm, boosting enthusiasm by talking a lot about the most important issues.
- [40:49]
Tim Miller
Like cost of living, I think that you're not even thinking big enough. I think you just lost by five points. In Texas.
- [40:56]
Galen Druke
Okay. All right. Go for it with your candidate.
- [41:00]
Tim Miller
I don't think that there's a great answer to this, but. But, like, I think that if you do what you're the playbook, you just laid out, and you have a really heavy focused on cost of living. That's as a candidate, and that's your number one issue. And that goes from health care to housing to all that. And there's some populist economics in there. Like, that's fine, but I. To pair with that, you need to, like, own a gun store or. Or, like, be actively, like, have some. Have a view, a passionate view about a cultural issue where you think the left is really wrong. And like that. And that's not just like a random thing you mention sometimes, but that's like the second most important thing that you talk about. And people. When you ask people in Texas, like, what do you know about this person? It's like, well, they want to make cost of living better. And they also really care about trans sports being only. Only boys and girls.
- [41:53]
Galen Druke
I don't.
- [41:54]
Tim Miller
This is why I would not be a good candidate for this, because I'm a cultural liberal. But, like, I don't. I think you have to be a hard cultural pivot away from the Democrats on something.
- [42:03]
Galen Druke
Yeah. And I think that's probably in a place like Texas on immigration. It's not sort of how you necessarily treat people who are already in the country who came in illegally, but more how you deal with the border. I think that probably the trans issue gets overplayed a little bit in the role that it played in 2024. It's a clearly an 8020 issue. The Democrats have been on the wrong side of this, but it's just not a salient issue. Americans don't care that much about trans.
- [42:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah, but it's a signaling thing. Sure, it's a signaling thing, but you have to figure out something to signal to people that you are not like, one of the elite libs that they don't like. And so that. So, like, for that, it's like, that would just be a signaling.
- [42:41]
Galen Druke
And Americans care a lot more about immigration. And it's also. The two parties have become highly distinguished on that issue. And so breaking with your own party on that, I think would also accomplish the same thing.
- [42:53]
Tim Miller
Thing. Let's do the immigration thing. Because I think the immigration part is complicated. So I'm about to argue against myself a little bit, and maybe not really, because I think the thing might be different if you're an Iowa Senate candidate. In 2026. And if you're a Democratic presidential candidate in 2028, it's different for a variety of reasons. But I feel like the immigration issue is going to become so salient over the next year and a half that it is going to become very hard for Democrats to zag towards Trump on it in a way that makes sense. Like, I think they could have done that with effect in 2022, zagging against Biden by saying we needed to be harder on on the border. But trying to do it in a way that triangulates between what Trump is going to do and whatever. What some Democratic policy would be, I think is going to be very challenging. And I just, I want to use one example of this. I play every clip of this that I find. But in the manosphere recently, we've had Andrew Schultz saying he's uncomfortable with what's happening with immigration. We've had Rogan saying what's he's uncomfortable with what's happening with immigration. Here is a barstool sports podcast that I was listening to earlier this week, and I want to play it.
- [44:00]
Galen Druke
I totally flipped on immigration.
- [44:02]
Tim Miller
Oh, okay.
- [44:03]
Galen Druke
I guess under 100%. So for years I thought if you're not here legally, you shouldn't be here at all. I flipped. I think the people who are working, the people who are paying taxes, those people should be able to stay.
- [44:19]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [44:20]
Galen Druke
And the other people who are doing bad things, we need to find those people and get them out.
- [44:23]
Tim Miller
Okay. So reasoned. Yeah.
- [44:26]
Galen Druke
You know why my thoughts switched on immigration? Well, I was talking to my girlfriend in bed one night, and she knows I'm.
- [44:31]
Tim Miller
I'm a little.
- [44:31]
Galen Druke
Right. She knows that. And she was like, just talking. She's like, can we talk? I was like, yeah, sure.
- [44:38]
Tim Miller
She's like, this is up.
- [44:39]
Galen Druke
Like, what's up? Talk to me.
- [44:41]
Tim Miller
She goes, they explained to me, you.
- [44:43]
Galen Druke
Know, you know, how her family got here, all that stuff. And I was like, you know what? You might be right. Oh, wow.
- [44:48]
Tim Miller
There you go.
- [44:49]
Galen Druke
It might be right because there are.
- [44:51]
Tim Miller
People here who work very hard to.
- [44:52]
Galen Druke
Pay taxes and they should be able.
- [44:54]
Tim Miller
To live in America. Shout out to Jersey Jerry's girlfriend not giving out blow jobs until he switches on immigration, I guess, but that was him with big cat on barstool.
- [45:03]
Galen Druke
Yeah. Enticing pillow talk.
- [45:05]
Tim Miller
Very enticing pillow talk. I don't know, man. Talk about the immigration polling. I think that sometimes the Democrats are fighting the last war on this one, and I think that the divide on immigration is going to be less about the Border. And more about why are masked agents nabbing people off the streets in a free country.
- [45:23]
Galen Druke
Yeah, let me throw out one other thing that I just remembered while we were listening to that that I do mention in the pieces. Another way you can signal sort of your openness to non fully partisan ideas is the debt. Like every 15 years, the debt and deficit takes on a new role in electoral politics and people start talking about it again. I think especially after this recent, you know, tax and spending bill. Voters, I think prime to hear an argument about how the debt and deficit are too big and it's not natural territory for Democrats. But if they want to be the people who do that, I think that could help them to significant effect in the places that you mentioned like Texas, Iowa, Alaska. Alaska and the lake. And it's also kind of finally a.
- [46:06]
Tim Miller
Bulwark Democrat or green eye shade bulwark Democrat running. And if only. Do we have any contributors live in Iowa? We got to move Amanda Carpenter out of West Virginia somewhere where she can run.
- [46:17]
Galen Druke
Now, look, pretty much everyone who runs on the debt and deficit doesn't actually do anything about it, but it is a way to also fight the establishment because it's an area where you can say both parties have fucked up on this. Donald Trump during his first term spent more deficit dollars than any other president in American history. You know, Democrats have not cared about it as well. You can even like bend the idea and talk about it in different ways. Like it's about generational equality. The more money we spend today, the less money we can spend on young people's education and healthcare tomorrow. And so are we going to bankrupt ourselves for the boomers or are we going to sort of put together some policies that millennials and watch out for millennials and Gen Z. There are many different ways to talk about an issue if you want to frustrate it in people's minds. Anyway, I'm not. I'm beating around.
- [47:06]
Tim Miller
Well, thank you for pandering to the host thank you for pandering to the host on debt and deficit issues. But what about on the topic of do we think that the immigration polling is. This might be hopium on my part?
- [47:16]
Galen Druke
Yeah, I think you are 100% correct that the polling is changing. This is going back to the idea of politicians, presidents in particular, overinterpreting their mandate. We saw that happen with Biden, you know, at the end of Trump's first term, higher numbers than ever before said that immigration benefited the country. We should be more open to it. And we're very down on Trump's approach to immigration. Biden comes into office, there's a migrant crisis. They don't do very much to sort of stem it at the border. Obviously, it became clear in blue cities and blue states with sort of like busing migrants up to those places. And Biden became very unpopular on the issue. And for the first time ever, Americans said, oh, actually, you know, because when he first ran, this wasn't actually a popular policy outside of his base. Americans said, we should build the wall. We should do mass deportations. Americans turned sharply to the right on immigration in reaction to what they perceived as Biden's de facto open borders policy. Now we are seeing, we call this thermostatic public opinion in the industry. Now we are seeing Trump come back into office, over interpret the mandate once again pursue deportations in what in a way that many people see as inhumane, ad hoc, and not even sort of in line with what they envisioned as his priorities. And so increasingly, we're seeing folks move against him. I was just looking at a Quinnipiac poll this morning where the number of Americans who say that most immigrants in the country illegally should be given a pathway to citizenship has increased by 10 percentage points over the past month or so. And so Trump is going to now make his own policy platform unpopular by doing it in a sort of careless, ad hoc, you know, potentially inhumane way. And, you know, I want to, I want to say something here about, like, how do you critique that as a, as a Democrat without going full 2019, like, abolish ICE, decriminalize crossing the border, all of that kind of stuff. For one, views on the border itself hasn't changed. Like, Americans are happy with the way that Donald Trump has decreased, for the most part, decreased encounters at the southern border. And, and that, that data is pretty clear in terms of what has happened there. But, and the data has been slow to update here. So I think the most recent data we have is from 100 days in on Trump's first term. He has made more arrests, but deported fewer people than Biden in his last year in office. And fewer of those people have criminal records. So even if you take the promises that he made, which is worst, first deport, you know, people with a criminal record, he is not doing it as effectively as some past Democrats have done. And you can use Obama as an example as well.
- [50:11]
Tim Miller
Part of that is just because Biden was deporting people that just came across the border, they're going right back.
- [50:15]
Galen Druke
But, but anyway, but maybe then emphasize, emphasize the part about the criminal record.
- [50:19]
Tim Miller
Yeah, but this is where your stats nerds sometimes fall apart because, like, it is, it is a difference to people. If you're deporting somebody that just came across the border, that's sitting in some place in Texas waiting for a hearing versus taking the Iranian mother out the suburbs and, like, sending her across the border. Right. And so, like, because there's fewer border encounters, there's also fewer deportations of the kind that people are okay with, if that makes sense.
- [50:42]
Galen Druke
Okay, well, then we can look at Obama's situation, right? He was far more effective at doing the thing that Trump says he wants to do than Trump himself. So because they have sort of been careless in this and now they're. They were pursuing workplace raids and then they kind of did a u turn on that. There are lots of different areas to critique the Trump administration on immigration, but you're right that the humanitarian issue is absolutely one of them. And he has made his own approach to this unpopular.
- [51:09]
Tim Miller
What did the path to citizenship number rise from? And to do you know, do you have it offhand? Quinnipiac number?
- [51:15]
Galen Druke
I do have it offhand. So nearly 2/3 of voters, 64%, say they prefer giving most. This is Quinnipiac, by the way. They prefer giving most undocumented immigrants in the United States a pathway to legal status, while 31% say they prefer deporting most undocumented immigrants in the United States. This is a change from roughly six months ago. So I stand corrected. It. It was not a month ago. In Quinnipiac University's Dec. 18 poll, 55% of voters said they preferred giving most undocumented immigrants a pathway to legal status. So Trump himself has moved public opinion against himself by 10 percentage points since he's been in office.
- [51:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's interesting. I think that an aggressive. We're going to pass a law to make ICE agents show their face and put their names on it, and we're not going to deport anybody that hasn't committed any crimes. I think there's a way to go at him that way, aggressively. For Democrats, that is a winner, not a vulnerability. And I'm just worried that some Democrats are scared of that.
- [52:11]
Galen Druke
Tim. I think one of the challenges is that, and we're seeing this change a little bit. But the people in American life for whom immigration is a number one issue are almost all Republicans. And, you know, for Democrats, their top issues are, you know, well, one, the economy and affordability. But health care is really high up there. Even some of the most liberal younger voters, when you looked at polling in 2024, it showed that it was all like jobs, housing, affordability, that kind of stuff. And so I think making the central focus of a campaign an anti Trump message on something that is just not Democrats biggest priority, while that probably will scratch an itch for the MSNBC set, because I think that people are very offended by what Trump is doing. I don't know that that expands the tent or sort of increases enthusiasm amongst more marginal voters in the way that you were describing. But I will say that one of the reasons that when sort of folks who do a lot of research into Latino voters, part of the reason that they were so solidly part of the Obama coalition, what they'll tell you is that that was when the conversation was focusing on people who are in the country today and not the border. Right. During Biden, the conversation was about the border. During W. Bush Jr. The conversation was about the border. And that's just going to be bad terrain for Democrats because Americans trust Republicans more on border security. But once you start talking about people who are already in the country, it gets a lot easier for Democrats to make that case. And I think obviously, you know, you know, we saw Latino voters shift 7 points to the right between 2016 and 2020, and then another 9 between 2020 and 2024, being a total of 16 percentage points to the right in two presidential elections. I think if Republicans want to keep those voters, they should be careful about signaling to the broader Latino electorate. Like, you know, having a secure border is something that Latino voters are broadly positive about. But signaling to people that, like, you don't give a shit about, like Latinos who are in the country, including some people who are in the country illegally, is probably bad for Republicans long term with the Latino electorate.
- [54:33]
Tim Miller
Right. I'm going to give you a preview of where I'm going with the 2028 draft review by telling you that we're going to lump the New York mayor conversation into that. So that's how we'll close the podcast for listeners. Galen did a draft with Nate Silver where they picked who they thought was going to be the most likely to be the Democratic nominee. There was a very complicated point system which I do want to put to the side for this because I think that my listenership is going to be less interested in the game theory of what Nate had put together as a, as a kind of a complex point system. So just, just for the basics, like, you get more points if they're the nominee, and you also get some points if they decide to run. Your first pick was aoc. Nate was mad at you because that was also his first pick, which I think is interesting. I want to talk about that. Then he picked Josh Shapiro as his first pick. And now I want to go just go down your top five. This is, this is what I'm going to call your team. Your first five rounds.
- [55:30]
Galen Druke
Oh, no.
- [55:31]
Tim Miller
Aoc, Kamala Harris, Pete Ruben Gallego and Jared Polis were your first. Were your candidates. Nate's five candidates were Josh Shapiro, Cory Booker, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Andrew Cuomo. And I would like to be invited into the game. I'd like to be invited into the game. At first I was like, can I take the field against both of your first five rounds? But then I decided I actually want to be invited into the game and I would like to. I get to start at round six and I'm going to take Wes Moore, Raphael Warnock, Andy Bashir, JB Pritzker and Zo Run. And I'm roll and I'm rolling my squad against either of your teams. And I want to talk about why in a second. But what do you make of that?
- [56:19]
Galen Druke
So I think many of those people were eventually picked. You know, I would say that I made the mistake of going into the exercise thinking a lot about my first pick because I thought it was something of a hot take and not thinking enough about my subsequent picks, which obviously Jared Polis, sometimes when you're doing this, you pick people to make a statement more than you do to suggest that they will. They're actually the likeliest to win the nomination. But maybe Polis and Harris weren't the best picks in that case. I mean, I probably would have picked AOC then Josh Shapiro if, if I had my druthers. But yeah, I mean, the reason I picked aoc, which again is to say that I viewed her at the time as the likeliest nominee, not necessarily the likeliest sort of the best option to win a general election or the person that I wanted or whatever. For what it's worth, I'm not a registered Democrat. So in New York state I can't vote in a Democratic primary anyway. We have closed primaries here, which was also the case in the New York City mayoral race on a couple weeks ago, a week ago. And so the argument that I was making is that Democrats, I think are ready for some someone who can offer something anti establishment e that it's likely to be a really deep field in 2028. And when you have a deep fractured field, somebody who's well known and has an energetic base of support, can sort of win those early primaries with 30 some percent like Trump did in 2016, where whereas like, you know, the rest of the field may be fractured between Wes Moore and Josh Shapiro and and Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigieg or whoever else, that having a sort of strong, energetic, charismatic message and being kind of a celebrity in your own right can be to your benefit.
- [58:12]
Tim Miller
It was interesting that you guys both picked aoc. So since that's the thing you spent the most time thinking about and that was your hot take, I hear everything that you're saying there. Do you not think that she is bogged down too much by her presence during the, you know, great and wokification of America during the 2000 and twenties? That's why I kind of like it's cheeky. But we get to Zoran. Like Zoran is really the closest right now to the Obama emerging figure. Like somebody that emerges kind of after that period. You know, Obama was not bogged down by any Iraq baggage like Harris was Zoran, he was on Twitter, so he was posting, you know, about queer liberation and stuff. But like his image did not emerge during that time. Someone like that, I think that is interested in trying to triangulate themselves. That emerges in kind of more of a the end of Trump versus having been involved in the Trump era and having done all of the Ibram x Kendi stuff. I don't know. What do you make of that as.
- [59:15]
Galen Druke
Far as Ron Ramdani is concerned? You know, I don't know that he has presidential ambitions, but also just from a mechanical perspective. He was born in Uganda and is a naturalized citizen. And so from what I understand, you know, the Constitution's rules for who can run for president are at odds with those presidential ambitions anyway.
- [59:35]
Tim Miller
Because it's not really a serious suggestion. It's more of just a commentary on like what type of person is going to be able to run against the Democratic Party.
- [59:43]
Galen Druke
So I think that you make good points about why AOC might not be a good general election candidate, but I don't think that those come into play as much during the primary. Historically we've seen that Democratic voters say they care more about electability than somebody who shares their views on the issue. But that's shifted a little bit as Democrats have, I think become exhausted by, I don't know, being force fed the establishments. Like middling presidential candidates like Democrats have not had a sort of strong charismatic contender since Obama and then Bill Clinton before that. And so a whole generation has has missed out on that, you know, charismatic, semi populist, whatever kind of figure within the Democratic Party. And obviously Sanders losses made people who were looking for that maybe not complacent but upset, disillusioned with the Democratic Party. So I hear those concerns from a general election perspective. She and Zoran and look, Zoran was, he obviously ran for assembly during the Trump era in a sense and he has a lot of stuff on record that is also on the 20 side of the 8020 issues. And they're both running pretty aggressively against that version of the Progressive Party. They're not trashing what they said, but they are not talking about it. I mean the fight the oligarchy tour from AOC was all about, you know, partisanship, doesn't matter, like we just need to fight the rich. It was so Obama esque in the sort of bid to kind of putting partisan divides behind us. Zoran Mamdani totally backtracked on defunding the police during his campaign. And while he didn't backtrack on other things, really didn't talk about them, was really laser focused on affordability. And you know, he didn't run against a primary election candidate who had enough of a campaign to really bring those things up. And so part of the reason we haven't heard about them or it maybe seems like he doesn't have that history is because Andrew Cuomo didn't run a real campaign against him.
- [61:41]
Tim Miller
It's interesting. I just think that the, and maybe that's just wrong, I don't know. And a lot of it will depend on what happens with Trump. But as I was watching you guys draft, I was just like the person that is able to most run against the party is also going to have to run against the era. And having been a major figure of the era, I think is going to make things very challenging for AOC and for Gavin and even for Pete kind of, you know, like people that. I do think people kind of are going to want something like someone and maybe no one else will have the charisma to emerge and they'll kind of fall back on a Gavin or somebody that they know and like. But to me, I guess that's my, that's where I agree with you most on the Trump thing. I think that somebody that has the ability to emerge and say to people, guys, like, I'm going a totally different direction for all this. My focus, my passion is different. These guys are bogged down in that would probably benefit them. And again, I'm being cheeky by suggesting that could be Zoran. But the fact that nobody knew who Zoran was three months ago demonstrates that really could be. I think the options are much greater than maybe people are thinking maybe they.
- [62:46]
Galen Druke
Wouldn'T be up for it because they have two strong ties to the Democratic Party. But do you think a Josh Shapiro or Wes Moore type could fit that role in your mind?
- [62:54]
Tim Miller
I think Wes could for sure. Yeah. Shapiro, maybe these are now we're now into my people. Josh Shapiro is great. I've interviewed him. I've interviewed Wes. I think Josh is immediately going to get bogged down and all of the, you know, it's just not his fault. But like all the Israel, Palestine fight and, you know, if you're running for president, you become a national figure. Like the hatred for him among the far left. Well, I think bogging down on that, like west west is a little bit more of a blank slate. I think Wes could do it in a way that, that it would be a little tougher for Shapiro.
- [63:25]
Galen Druke
And from what I understand, there are plenty of powerful Democrats who want that to happen. And for everything I said, the Democratic Party has during the past decade been pretty good at getting its wishes when it comes to triangulating in the presidential primary. So we'll see.
- [63:39]
Tim Miller
Galen Druk. I'm going on vacation, so I'm on a podcast marathon today. I'm doing like 19 podcasts today. So this is it. This is over. I wanted to go person by person and give you negative feedback on all of your draft picks. But we'll do that as a special bonus substack segment in August when we're more bored. How does that sound?
- [63:55]
Galen Druke
Well, I'm glad I filibustered long enough that I've now given myself some months to prepare for all of that feedback. But most importantly, enjoy your vacation, you know.
- [64:04]
Tim Miller
Thank you, brother. Super nerds go sign up for GD Politics or not. Or normies that like, you know, want to just drop fun polling facts with their pals. Yeah, GDP is a substack for you. And we'll be back here tomorrow with the last pre vacation edition of the Bulwark Podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace. Running up with your love to keep one around. The time zone changes two weeks ago and it feels like ages thinking. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.