Mark Leibovich: Democrats Are Too Afraid of Hurting People’s Feelings

Summary

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The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Mark Leibovich: Democrats Are Too Afraid of Hurting People’s Feelings
Date: February 18, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Mark Leibovich (The Atlantic)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tim Miller welcomes Atlantic staff writer Mark Leibovich to dissect the Democratic Party's malaise, its branding woes, coalition difficulties, and general anxiety facing the post-Trump 2.0 reality. Drawing from Leibovich’s recent reporting and a wide range of interviews with Democratic operatives, candidates, academics, and voters, the conversation scrutinizes the party's failure to redefine itself, its hesitance to ruffle coalition feathers, and the consequences of these shortcomings amid autocratic threats and shifting U.S. politics.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The State of Trump and the Post-2024 Republican Party

[02:49-06:36]

• Vibe shift on Trump: Both Miller and Leibovich sense a decrease in Trump’s momentum and note more visible, though still limited, Republican Party dissent.

  • Leibovich: “He is a lame duck. … The level of defiance in the Republican Party is out there. It’s still pathetically small, but… retirements have an effect.” [04:07]
  • Noted the shock and demoralization among Democrats after Trump’s return, but now there’s a gradual, if uneven, reawakening.

• Role of defiance: Leibovich emphasizes how resistance, in moments like protests, can slowly galvanize opposition, but true momentum is still lacking.

2. Foreign Policy Wildcards: Trump and Iran

[07:13-11:43]

• Reporting from Axios about Trump considering war with Iran alarms both Miller and Leibovich. They debate the political and substantive implications:
  • Leibovich: "Trump certainly seems to be proceeding like he doesn’t really care… He seems to be taking these big sort of legacy swings." [08:18]
  • Congress’s continued marginalization in actual war authorization is noted with sarcasm and worry.
  • Miller laments Democratic tentativeness: “This is another area of foreign policy where sometimes Democrats have felt a little unsure about whether they want to go full bore after Trump.” [10:24]

3. Democratic Focus Group Malaise

[13:10-15:21]

• Miller reads a list of words from Democratic voters: “Spineless, complacent, paralyzed, afraid, incompetent, suffocated, sold out, suckers, immobilized… Can I say ‘no balls’?” [13:11]
  • Summary: Democratic rank-and-file are deeply frustrated and self-loathing regarding their party’s perceived brand and leadership.
  • Leibovich affirms these sentiments are widespread and mirror the findings from dozens of interviews for his recent reporting.

4. The Autopsy and the Candidate Conundrum

[15:21-17:33]

• Every lost election brings introspection, white papers, and “autopsies,” but these rarely lead to change.
  • Leibovich: “If you could just resurrect a party based on pure tonnage of white papers and autopsies and after-action reports, Democrats would be set up for years.” [16:11]
• Parties are ultimately defined by their candidates, not their platforms. Most Democratic victories are candidate-driven rather than party-driven.

5. The Failure to Redefine the Party

[17:33-20:07]

• Miller critiques Democrats for failing to truly redefine themselves, instead retreating to safe messaging.

  • “I don’t see how they’re redefining themselves that much from the Democratic establishment.”
  • Leibovich pushes back: “They have biographies to stand on… if Roy Cooper gets elected in North Carolina, he has a biography to stand on.” [19:31]

• The only real energy is coming from the populist/progressive left (Sanders, AOC, Mamdani), but most others aren’t standouts or don’t galvanize new voters.

6. Message Blandness & Coalition Anxiety

[24:06-27:39]

• Simon Bazelon, quoted by Leibovich: “It’s reflective of a broader problem within the party that we’re scared of ever making anybody in our coalition upset.” [24:06]
  • The safety-first approach: “Trump bad, billionaires bad,” plus generic “affordability” messaging.
• Realness and unpredictability, exemplified by Trump, are still mostly missing on the Democratic side. Leibovich expresses a hunger for authenticity: “There is a real shortage of, for lack of a better term, just realness.” [26:25]

7. Candidate Spotlights: Graham Platner, Bernie, Sherrod Brown

[27:43-37:36]

• Graham Platner (Maine): Noted as messy and authentic, Platner’s “real” style might translate well, but authenticity alone doesn’t guarantee victory.
  • Leibovich: “I think people appreciate the sort of messy journey that Graham Platner has had in the course of his life.” [28:16]
• Bernie Sanders (West Virginia): The only major Dem who still fills venues with working-class crowds.
  • “Unlike a lot of Democratic crowds, this is a working-class crowd. … You don’t see NPR tote bags.” [32:54]
• Sherrod Brown (Ohio): Over-performs national Dems, keeps his focus “nitty gritty on health care,” stays away from national party culture wars.
  • Leibovich: “He keeps it very nitty gritty… He does not go big on democracy… He seems to have a formula that is not particularly media savvy.” [36:19]

8. Autopsy Reports & the Missing Rural Appeal

[37:36-42:51]

• Leibovich recounts research showing Dems’ rural voters feel overlooked—Democrats’ implicit message to towns like Canton, Ohio: “You should move.” [39:14]
• Trump is perceived as “centering” these voters, while Dems’ policies seem more like lifelines than aspirational visions.
  • “He paid lip service to the fact that they were pissed about how other elites had fucked him up.” [41:06]
• Media deserts and conservative information bubbles have intensified this dynamic.

9. The Party Committees & DNC Dysfunction

[44:23-48:49]

• Miller and Leibovich agree that party committees have far less control and relevance in 2026 than in decades past.
• DNC’s internal issues include friction over returning to in-person work and the optics of staff unionization leaking grievances—“It’s a terrible look.” [47:55]
  • Leibovich: “Any party chair is in over his or her head. There’s just no question about it.” [46:42]

10. Democrats’ Reluctance for Introspection

[48:49-51:00]

• Miller laments elected Dems’ refusal to engage with “time machine” questions about what they would redo if they could revisit 2016 or 2020.
  • “Nobody could ask me, ‘Go back to start the Jeb Bush campaign, what would you do differently?’ And I’d be like, ‘Nothing really.’ … At least have a theory of the case.” [48:49]
• Leibovich notes the DNC’s own autopsy was never released—presumably because of damaging contents—reflecting fear of internal discord.
  • “Democrats are terrified of hurting each other’s feelings.” [49:55]

11. Areas Where Dems Are Actually Fighting

[51:00-52:56]

• Miller argues recent redistricting and shutdown fights show Dems are increasingly willing to go on offense.
  • “They fought pretty damn hard on the redistricting thing. They won the shutdown fight. They're doing better than they were doing last year. And that's not nothing.” [51:49]
• Leibovich gives credit to Gavin Newsom for galvanizing Dems post-Trump 2.0, especially on tactical and social media fronts.

12. Trump, Media Consolidation, and Authoritarian Threats

[52:56-54:46]

• Recent Jonathan Alter report: Trump will block Netflix’s Warner bid, giving himself control over multiple major networks—a chilling move toward a media monopoly.
  • Leibovich: “It’s extremely alarming… This is how an authoritarian… this is how it runs now. This is what there is to compete against. Polls say that voters don’t like this, but look, it’s not going to—It’s very consistent with everything we’ve seen to this point.” [53:35]
• The silence of mainstream Republican leadership is flagged as a critical enabler of authoritarian consolidation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tim Miller: “There was for a period of time in the beginning of Trump 2.0… everyone was just frozen. … That level of kind of Trump momentum… has… been reversed.” [05:12]
• Mark Leibovich: “Defiance has proven to be an extremely important and empowering tool of all of this… It hasn’t come easily, but it’s happened gradually.” [06:44]
• Focus Group List on Democrats: “Spineless, complacent, paralyzed, afraid, incompetent, suffocated… no balls.” —NYT focus group as recited by Miller [13:11]
• On Democratic Messaging: “There is a real shortage of, for lack of a better term, just realness.” —Leibovich [26:25]
• On DNC Dysfunction: “If you want to go, you’re signing up to work more than a 40 hour work week. That’s like the point of going to work for a party committee.” —Miller [47:36]
• On Democratic Introspection: “Democrats are terrified of hurting each other’s feelings. … [Their] autopsy report … they didn’t release it. … Presumably they were afraid of what it said.” —Leibovich [49:55]
• On Trump & Media Control: “This is how it runs now. This is what there is to compete against. Polls say that voters don’t like this, but look, it’s… very consistent with everything we’ve seen.” —Leibovich [53:35]

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Essential Timestamps

• Trump & GOP Shifts: [02:49-06:36]
• War with Iran Rumors: [07:13-11:43]
• Dem Message Focus Group: [13:10-15:21]
• Autopsies/Party Branding: [15:21-17:33]
• Populist Left & Message Stagnation: [17:33-20:07]
• Coalition Dilemmas & Authenticity: [24:06-27:39]
• Candidate Spotlights: [27:43-37:36]
• Rural/Working Class Disconnect: [37:36-42:51]
• DNC’s Structural Weakness: [44:23-48:49]
• Reluctance for Introspection: [48:49-51:00]
• Areas of Fighting Spirit: [51:00-52:56]
• Trump, Media, Authoritarianism: [52:56-54:46]

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Conclusion

This episode delves deeply into the Democratic Party’s internal struggles: its aversion to confrontation, hollow branding, coalition management anxieties, and a preference for safe, pollster-approved messaging and candidates. Yet, it also finds signs of life—a more aggressive recent posture and a few populist or authentic outliers amid the sameness. Both hosts agree: genuine redefinition, risk-taking, and authentic candidate energy are vital if Democrats hope to recover lost ground, broaden their coalition, and effectively counter growing autocratic threats.

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Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show. Staff writer at the Atlantic, author of thank you for your servitude in this town. That first one is. That's not a. That's not an S M book. Well, it kind of is, I guess. It's about the Donald Trump Republican Party. His name is Mark Leibovich.

[Mark Leibovich]

You can put it in whatever category you want. You know, you could. You could adapt. Sure.

[Tim Miller]

I guess I put it as it didn't turn me on. It might be for some people. Some of the senators. Cotton seems to like it. It's good to see you, buddy. Been too long. You wrote an article that the headline was taken from my colleague Sarah Longwell's quote about how Democrats aren't built for this. So, obviously, I had to have you on. You know, there are several. A couple of work mentions there, as a matter of fact. But before we just, you know, kind of waft in the Democratic malaise, can we talk about the Trump administration for a second?

[Mark Leibovich]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

What's been happening? You know, you're a keen observer of this stuff. It feels to me like there's been a vibe shift out there from last year to this on Trump we've been talking about a little bit. But then other times, I wonder if that's. I don't know, that's opium, as they're saying. And I'm just wondering what you're feeling around the corridors of Washington. Do you think is Trump losing his grip at all, or are we all just doing Charlie Brown with football again?

[Mark Leibovich]

I'm certainly wary. I think a lot of us are wary of the second factor here. But, yeah, I mean, I think hopium might not be the right word in this context, because it's not really anything great or sort of resolved that the opposition is doing. But, yeah, I mean, I think there's a perception that. That the administration is. Is screwing up in a big way. It's reflected in the numbers. It's reflected in the, you know, the inflation numbers, the, the immigration numbers and, and what have you. But, yeah, I mean, we. We've been here before. I mean, there is a large group of people in this country that hates everything that Trump is not. I mean, the original premise of Trump running against whatever it is that we represent, that liberal elites, whatever, represent still out there.

[Tim Miller]

I have a liberal elite now. Did you just we me is that we, me and you?

[Mark Leibovich]

No, I didn't, and I didn't mean to we myself. Did I say liberal? I guess I did. I mean, just like, look, the, the people who are not maga, the people who are not with him, the people who are Trump haters, the people who read whatever we are, people who aren't buying that. Right. It certainly feels. And, you know, it's more than just feels, it's. It's datafied in some ways that, that, that there is a shift happening. He is a lame duck. I mean, he's been a lame duck for, you know, since he started. It's starting to show more. The level of defiance in the Republican Party is out there. It's still pathetically small, but, you know, I think the Tom Massey's of the world, the Don Bacon's of the world, the. I don't know, Thom Tillis, whatever. I mean, I think that that all has an effect and I think the retirements have an effect. But, yeah, I mean, it certainly feels like something is happening. But again, buyer beware on this.

[Tim Miller]

I don't mean it to say that something is good in the air out there. And I do think it, yeah, it's a little offensive to Tom Massey to lump him in with Don Bacon and Thom Tillis, but we can hash that out another time. But I guess I just meant.

[Mark Leibovich]

There.

[Tim Miller]

Was for a period of time in the beginning of Trump 2.0, and this kind of does relate to the Democrats article. There was a feeling of just total. Everyone was just frozen. They kind of couldn't believe the victory, the magnitude of the victory, how quickly everybody got in line. Took a little bit longer for the protest movements to sprout up that feeling that he had those like, holy shit, I don't know, maybe this country does want a moron reality show to be a dictator. I feel like you're probably at some dinners in February 2025 without that notion was being popped around. I don't think people feel that way anymore. Like, like that level of kind of Trump momentum has, I think, been. Been reversed.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah. I don't know about reverse, but it's certainly not as. Not like it was a year ago. And I think, I would say not just February. I mean, I think going well into the summer, there was a level of Democrats and just non Trump voters, basically independents, whoever they were, being not just back on their heels, but thoroughly demoralized. And also, I think the time in the wilderness, I mean, there's a natural period in the wilderness that parties that lose elections go through. Right. I mean, it feels like this has gone on much longer than the, the usual, maybe. I think it was much deeper.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And it is a shock to the system, you know, when someone tries to overthrow American democracy and then it is right and then comes back and gets elected.

[Mark Leibovich]

You know, I mean, like, given the dominoes that fell around the media, around law firms and universities and what have you, I mean, this, this all has a real effect. I mean, I think defiance has proven to be an extremely important and empowering tool of all of this. And it hasn't come easily, but it's happened gradually. And I think obviously, as, you know, you know, see, you know, Minneapolis and things like that unfold, that itself becomes a galvanizing force for, you know, the opposition.

[Tim Miller]

One more news item before we get to the opposition. I saw this, this morning. It's from Mike Allen, who you profiled, what, 15 years ago now?

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, it was a long time ago.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, he's at Axios. He says this Jim Vande Hei. Him and Barak Ravat are reporting that the chance of war with Iran is higher than most Americans realize. Chance of a deal is small. This would be more of a war than an operation a la Venezuela. That's Mike Allen. I have two questions for you. One, what do you think that says about what Trump thinks his political standing is? That he's more seriously considering this? And part two, when you profiled Mike Allen 15 years ago, did you ever think that he was going to be breaking the news that Donald Trump was going to be doing war with Iran?

[Mark Leibovich]

I mean, yeah, why not? I mean, I don't think. I didn't foresee. I mean, let's see if there's a war with Iran. I mean, there is the caveat here, right? I mean, it was quite a, it was quite a report. I read it. I mean, I read Mike, I read his thing every morning.

[Tim Miller]

Still at it.

[Mark Leibovich]

Still at it. And he's, you know, he's damn good. I mean, I have to admit I skip a lot of the AI stuff, but it's, yeah, it's helpful. It's one of my morning reads.

[Tim Miller]

What about the end of the day newsletter? Like little life advice?

[Mark Leibovich]

No, I tend to skip those a lot, but I'm sure it's great. I mean, occasionally it's worthwhile. I think Trump certainly seems to be proceeding like he doesn't really care. I mean, I think he cares on some very basic level, certainly about his own popularity, but he seems to be like taking these big sort of legacy swings. I mean, I think, you know, if he can liberate Iran, if he can, you know, what, whatever, whatever he thinks he's going to achieve here. And look, it's like a very real geopolitical issue. I mean, there is a real argument to be made for aggressive intervention over there and given what's going on. So, I mean, I don't want to make light of, of like the imperative here. This is not a glib situation at all, but it's also not something that people voted for, I don't think it's not something that people expected the President to be spending time on at a time when they're still feeling great economic strain, clearly having some, some very, very, you know, negative feelings about how immigration is being dealt with and so forth. So I don't know, just sort of add this to the list of a president who seems like he is, he is focusing on things that are out of line with how most voters feel.

[Tim Miller]

I also just should throw out there. We do have a Congress still. I moved out of D.C. you live there still. That's right. We do still have a Congress.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, I think so.

[Tim Miller]

It's unclear. I don't think that the authorization of military force in Iraq in 2001 is applicable here just because they start with the same letters. I don't think there's like an IRA provision in there.

[Mark Leibovich]

No, no. Although three out of four letters is pretty high. That's 75%.

[Tim Miller]

You would think they would have to vote to go to war with Iran.

[Mark Leibovich]

I will say my evening walk sometimes I'll take an extended walk and I'll walk across the National Mall and I'll look to my right. On the left is the Washington Monument, the right is the U.S. capitol. It's still an incredibly inspiring and beautiful building. And you see the light on, on the top when, when Congress is in.

[Tim Miller]

Session and then you think about Mike Johnson sitting in there and it's a little less awe inspiring.

[Mark Leibovich]

Once you start focusing on the people who are operating inside there, it gets a little problematic. But it's a beautiful and very, very inspiring, you know, building an idea behind the building. You know, when you get to the, of what's going on in there, it's a little bit different.

[Tim Miller]

Well, look, I guess I would just say this. We'll have much more in Iran on Friday with more foreign policy focused show. But I do think as this gets to the Democrats, this is another area of foreign policy where sometimes Democrats have felt a little bit unsure about whether they want to go full bore. After Trump, the feeling starts to set in of what if he succeeds, what if he does liberate the people of Iran. I want the people of Iran to be liberated. But I feel like I have the credibility this as an ex neocon to say, say I think you can go full bore against this or full bore at least saying, hey, the American people need to have their say on war with Iran. I don't know that people voted Donald Trump in for regime change, war in the Middle East. And I think that sometimes they get lost on the clarity of that message because of what you're talking about. There's like legit policy concerns here, but it's like, but if Donald Trump doesn't go about them the right way, if he does it in a legitimate way, if you can't trust him, if we have a former drunk weekend Talk show co host running the war effort like there. You know, there are a lot of reasons to be concerned.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah. Which is why you would think in a, in a very quaint scenario, maybe Congress should get involved. Maybe they should be debating this. Maybe individual members of Congress should weigh in on this in a thoughtful way. But we don't seem to have that going on here.

[Tim Miller]

No.

[Mark Leibovich]

In the Republican Party.

[Tim Miller]

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[Mark Leibovich]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

Spineless, complacent, paralyzed, afraid, incompetent, suffocated or given up. Sold out, sellouts or Suckers, immobilized. Number 10 says, Can I say no balls? Apparently he can. No balls. Finally, Lauren, age 41, from Iowa offers a little positivity says she sees some young Democrats coming up she likes. So that's the state of affairs among Democratic voters in a focus group.

[Mark Leibovich]

You're hired Democrats. Right?

[Tim Miller]

Look, I think that, and this gets to the thrust of your article, and I think why it's important to kind of, you know, force the conversation about this is like, I think that because Democrats did well in Virginia and New Jersey and because they probably will do well in the midterms because people are so unhappy with Donald Trump, that there is not a lot of effort or reflection among the elected Democrats. At least there's some exceptions, which we'll get into in thinking about, hey, what could we do to change our party's brand as well? Because, like, that's going to be a problem over the long haul. So, so talk to me a little bit about your, your article and, and how that pairs what we heard from these, these Democrats.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, I mean, first of all, these, what you described and the quotes that you just read are completely reflective of how Democrats writ large are, are perceived. I mean, I, I basically set out maybe August, September, Talked to about 50 Democrats, candidates, elected officials, operatives, you know, smart people, academics, voters, the whole nine yards. Went all over the country to try to take the temperature of the party to see if Democrats could refashion themselves into a viable alternative to what is an increasingly, I think, authoritarian party that is losing popularity. I think the country desperately wants an alternative to. All those things are true. I mean, I think Democrats are an incredibly unpopular party, but I think a lot of the reason they are an unpopular party is a lot of Democrats kind of hate themselves because of what their leaders or what their perceived leaders have done to them. Now, look, you have been involved, you know, I guess after 2012 in.

[Tim Miller]

I was in. I was in the most famously failed autopsy of all time. The worst autopsy ever. Worse than, you know. Well, are there any famous bad autopsies and crime?

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, probably.

[Tim Miller]

I'm not a true crime person.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, me neither. But I'm sure they're out there. I would say this. I mean, every election begets some kind of autopsy. I mean, yours was literally called. I mean, it wasn't literally. It became called, oh, my God.

[Tim Miller]

This shows you how long it is. I can't remember what it was literally called anymore. It was called, okay, it's going to come to me. You talk, it's going to come to me.

[Mark Leibovich]

Whatever it was, it was the opposite of what Donald Trump represented three years later when he started running for president. So I guess what I'm saying is like the sole searching the sort of what is the party brand? What are we going to stand for?

[Tim Miller]

The Growth and Opportunity Project. Yes, that's what it was called.

[Mark Leibovich]

So my desk here at the Atlantic is towered with Growth and Opportunity projects in various iterations circa this year. Right. Or last year, whenever they were written. I mean, if you could, if you could just resurrect a party based on pure tonnage of white papers and autopsies and after action reports, Democrats would be set up for years. So the fact of the matter is, is, and, and this goes to what Lauren said at the end of the descriptions you were just reading is, parties are defined by the candidates. People didn't go to the ballot box in Virginia last November because they were excited about Democrats. They liked Abigail Spanberger, you know, they liked Mikey Sherrill in, in New Jersey. And, and the fact is, you know, no one knew who Barack Obama was in, in 2004 after George W. Bush wiped out John Kerry. And no one foresaw Donald Trump. So, I mean, it's a pretty simplistic kind of answer, which is that parties become defined by the candidates that they nominate. But I also think on a very pure kind of nuts and bolts level, Democrats have had a very good recruitment cycle. Right. And it seems like there are a lot of very good Democratic candidates who are well tailored to their district. Certainly in the Senate races, they're much better positioned than they would be if they had less good candidates running in, say, Alaska or you're smirking.

[Tim Miller]

Alaska is the one I'm going to give you. I want to talk about this because the parties are defined by the candidates. That's absolutely right. I'll come back around to some nice things about the Democrats at the end because I think at some level, some of the folks in your article and some Democratic voters are a little hard. Like their expectations are out of whack for what a minority party can really do. But this is the one area where I just, I'm not buying the party line on it and I'm trying to pull out. This quote here is telomeres who told you there's an opportunity to redefine the Democratic Party right now? And to me, I think the only people that are taking that opportunity are on the populist left. And so they deserve credit for that. I think that, you know, that's not exactly my cup of tea always. But Graham Platner is redefining the party. Zoran is doing his job redefining the party. The commentators in that space are really Focused on helping redefine the party, going after the billionaires. I don't think anybody else is taking that opportunity. Even Talarico, who I like, kind of just sounds like Churchy Beto. I don't.

[Mark Leibovich]

Churchy Beto.

[Tim Miller]

And I love Beto, by the way. I love Beto. Like, so that's not really a critique. Yeah, yeah. It's just. It's not redefining it. And I. And I agree with the point.

[Mark Leibovich]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

And I think that, like, Democrats really could be taking the opportunity this year to try to bring up a new batch of candidates to redefine the party in the way that Clinton did and the way that Obama did, like, meaningfully on issues. And I don't really see anything different. All these people, again, I love so well, but it just is what it is in Abigail Spamberger or Mikey Sherrill's platform or James Tall Rico's platform than in Hillary Clinton's platform. I really don't like. I don't see how they're redefining themselves that much from. From the Democratic establishment.

[Mark Leibovich]

You mean the party or.

[Tim Miller]

No, these candidates, they sound kind of like all the. Every Democratic candidate that My adult life, except they use the word affordability more and they talk about billionaires a little more. So I guess that's redefining, but not really.

[Mark Leibovich]

Well, yes and no. I mean, look, they have biographies to stand on. I think if Roy Cooper gets elected in North Carolina, he has a biography to stand on.

[Tim Miller]

If. Mary, that's a good. I'm always remiss in not mentioning Roy Cooper. That's a good recruitment.

[Mark Leibovich]

I agree. I mean, the energy, like, you can really. There are like three people maybe in the entire Democratic Party who can blow out an arena pretty much coast to coast. And that's Bernie Sanders, which is pretty amazing. Aoc, you know, Mamdani. I mean, it's different because he probably. There's no reason he would leave New York at this point. Yeah, maybe Barack Obama, but he's, you know, he's a museum piece at this point. I mean, respectfully to the president, but.

[Tim Miller]

There'S a new museum he's opening.

[Mark Leibovich]

But. Yeah, no, but I mean, Abigail Spanberger is not going to blow out like an arena in Boise, Idaho or, you know, Bakersfield, wherever, like these, you know, fighting oligarchy rallies are held. But the fact is, I mean, you know, a lot of these candidacies, a lot of these races are defined by people who voters essentially know, trust and, you know, maybe aren't that excited by, in the way that, say, Jasmine Crockett might excite a young voter, you know, say at the University of Texas or something. But, you know, they have proven very formidable in actual elections. So I guess, I guess. Did I just push back on you, Tim? I mean, I hate to be.

[Tim Miller]

Please push back on me. No.

[Mark Leibovich]

So I would say that's fine. I would say that, yes. I mean, probably the most compelling, sort of, you know, crowd pleasing, loudest sort of, you know, younger, cooler group. I mean, you know, that that probably is going to gravitate to a more progressive, maybe even Democratic socialist candidate. But ultimately, I mean, at least if you go by the last year, you know, plus there have been any number of flavors that have prevailed. And frankly, like the very progressive candidates, like what's her name, Afton Bain in Nashville who was nominated, you know, overperformed. She lost to whoever she was running against in a plus, Trump, 22 district lost by like 10, 11 points. And she was like the AOC of Tennessee. Like, that's what she was called. So who's to say if she might have done better if she were, you.

[Tim Miller]

Know, less aligned with the Republicans, are to say. I guess I would just say James Blair has. There's a report out that he was briefing Congress, I guess yesterday, Republicans in Congress. One of the things that he said was he thinks that they could have lost that race in Tennessee if the, if they hadn't mobilized more, if their Democratic candidate hadn't been, you know, had her vulnerabilities.

[Mark Leibovich]

Correct. I think it's probably true. You know, look, I, I do think there's a little bit of excessive euphoria to some of these over performances across the country, but they're real and they're consistent and they're massive in some cases.

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[Tim Miller]

I think this relates to my other nitpick that I get frustrated with that you cover in the article, which is these questions about coalition politics. And I think you had Simon Bazelin saying in there that it's a reflective of a broader problem within the party that we're scared of ever making anybody in our coalition upset. And that was just something that really resonated with me. She was like, by the way, I want to frame this in a positive way. Some of the things that that Zoran pushed do upset me. They're not my preferred politics. He was on the podcast. We disagreed on them, but at the end of the day there are only two parties. You're in a big coalition. I think a lot of the Democratic leaders failed on this test actually, like Hakeem and others. But from my perspective, it was like, okay, well, Zoran still better. I don't live in New York. Zoran's still better than other folks and that's fine. The fact that he upset me, it was part of the things that made him interesting. He had positions that people that have different views than me got excited about.

[Mark Leibovich]

Right? Sure.

[Tim Miller]

And to me that kind of goes back to my issue right now with the recruitment, is that it does still feel like everybody in the Democratic coalition is A little bit afraid to upset everybody else in the Democratic coalition. And they've gone from where the safe thing to do is just say Trump bad all the time and then have kind of generic policy programs to now the new thing that we're doing is Trump bad, billionaires bad. Besides that, I'm just going to do generic Democratic politics all the time.

[Mark Leibovich]

Right. Affordability, goodbye.

[Tim Miller]

Right, so that's the change. And it's like. Like that is going to be good enough in 2026 to win the House. Right?

[Mark Leibovich]

I guess. Probably.

[Tim Miller]

Probably right. But in order to start winning in other places, in order to get people to give you a second look, another guy you wrote about was Sherrod Brown in Ohio in that John Husted race. And I forgot who the quote, it was maybe trippy. Who was just like, we can't get Democrats in rural Ohio to even give us a second look because they think that we're aliens that are obsessed with.

[Mark Leibovich]

Transgender, who invented AI to take your jobs or something like that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, right. So getting back to a place where Democrats can win in some of states is going to require doing some things that make a couple people mad because, like, that's how you get attention, and that's different than winning in New Jersey and Virginia. And I'm just. I'm still not seeing any of that, really.

[Mark Leibovich]

I mean, look, there. There is a sameness to a lot of these Democratic messages. Billionaire bad, right? Yeah. Affordability.

[Tim Miller]

That's fine.

[Mark Leibovich]

It's fine. And then everyone's like, you know, I've not done 7 million doors and we've gone back and we've knocked on 7 million doors like 7 times. And it's like, really? I'm sure people love that. I mean, there is. I still, like, get very sad and depressed when I hear politicians, probably anyone talking like this, because they're not human beings. But, I mean, I don't know. I guess there is this consultant pollsterocracy out there that. That knows better than I do. But, I mean, I do think that there is a real shortage of, for lack of a better term, just realness. I think Trump, Trump blew up every kind of pollster metric, market research metric, whatever you want to do. And, you know, ironically, because he, you know, he lied all the time. I mean, people saw him as, like, just sort of existing in his reality and just reacting as he did. And, you know, they saw that he was pissing people off and he wasn't dying and he wasn't, you know, disqualifying himself every week as the media Said, and I still don't think there's a candidate out there that I can point to that is undisciplined. I mean, maybe Platner. I don't know. I mean, I. But it's just. I would like to be inspired by someone who feels less savvy for. For lack of a better term.

[Tim Miller]

Was there nothing? No. Nobody else and you're traveling around Nobody.

[Mark Leibovich]

Platner's a mess. I like that about him. I mean, Platner is. Is.

[Tim Miller]

Let's talk about that. You went to. You. You went to me.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, man, of course I went. Right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. You had a little. You chatted a little bit about lgbtqia?

[Mark Leibovich]

Well, yeah, I wasn't planning on it, but out of nowhere he said, I do love the gays. And so I, I quoted him and I, I parenthetically said, good to know. So I'm, you know, I was down with that sentiment.

[Tim Miller]

And we love straight oyster men. I guess I can't speak.

[Mark Leibovich]

How do you feel about oysters?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I think generally speaks as like, good oysters. Right? I mean, that's amazing. Love oysters.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, no oysters.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, my child will put down a dozen.

[Mark Leibovich]

Really? I mean, oysters are great. I. I love them. Not everyone's cup of tea, but. No, I mean, I think, I think people do on some level, especially in a place like Maine, where it's actually a small enough population where you can actually get out there and really meet a lot of people. I think people appreciate the sort of messy journey that Graham Platner has had in the course of his life. I mean, people have pretty readily forgiven what some would have said were campaign killing problems, and it still might kill his campaign, who knows? But, I mean, about some of his old Reddit posts and an alleged Nazi tattoo, something. Something like that. But I do think that rehabilitation stories, I do think that stories of people who operate outside the line, both in biographically but also in their day to day campaign behavior, would be a powerful thing. But I do think the Democrats, for the most part, are extremely scared, and that's how they proceed. And even the best and, you know, maybe most effective and winning candidates, because, you know, again, the people who run these campaigns are smarter than I am, will do well despite that. But, but I mean, as a consumer of this, I would always default and still have a great appetite for someone who feels more real.

[Tim Miller]

And the platter thing is interesting, right? Because on the one hand, sometimes you can overlearn lessons, right? There's a sense of we need a Trumpy figure who just let it rip all the time on social media. And it's rough around the edges. It's like, well, okay, but that worked for Trump, but it didn't really work for Herschel Walker, for example. Right, right. And so it's like, is Platinum doing it the right way, or is he doing it the Herschel Walker way? And I think over the last few months, it seems like he's been pretty good. Like, it's not. There hasn't been, like, a series of gaffes like you saw from. From Herschel Walker. And. And I think that you would imagine that there would be some lesson that Democrats would take from this. Right. That they would look at it and be like, on paper, you would think that at least some lesson about what your voters are looking for. Like, on paper, you would think the voters. You would think that, like, a strong candidate would be a relatively popular governor, went to the White House, gave Trump the what for over trans issues. Like, you know, that's fine.

[Mark Leibovich]

And about 25 years younger than the current sitting governor of Maine, who is running for Senate from the Democratic Party.

[Tim Miller]

Exactly. So maybe it's that it's youth, but I think it's also just like Democratic voters are looking for different types of profiles. I mean, it's just. We're watching it and.

[Mark Leibovich]

Right, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, look, Platner, you know, is easily cartooned, Right. But he's also. He's a very talented political performer. He's very good on the stump. He can excite a crowd. He's been pretty consistent. And who knows if Democrats will be committing suicide if they nominate him in Maine. And, you know, Susan Collins will, you know, put a million, like, Nazi tattoo ads up and whatever, and two weeks by again, because that's what she does. But I don't know. I mean, I appreciate the freshness of both the candidate and his oysters.

[Tim Miller]

You also covered Bernie in West Virginia. Do you have any takeaways from that, seeing what was happening in West Virginia?

[Mark Leibovich]

West Virginia, very Trumpy state. Right. I mean, I think perhaps the Trumpiest, or either that or Wyoming.

[Tim Miller]

It's extremely depressing. I had Mansion on a couple of months ago. Some of the listeners didn't like that episode. They were wrong. I thought it was great. The refreshing thing to me about West Virginia is it's like, okay, maybe I'm interested to hear what you think, what the Bernie impression was, because my frustration with it is, has only been governed by Republicans for, like, forever now, and it's a disaster. Like jobs Aren't good. Outcomes aren't good, schools aren't good. Health. Health isn't good. You would think that that would be the type of place that people might be like, oh, maybe we'll try something new. But no, that was the interesting thing.

[Mark Leibovich]

About the Bernie rally there. I mean, first of all, Bill Clinton carried West Virginia twice. I mean, Michael Dukakis carried West Virginia. Like he won 10 states. One of them was West Virginia. And you know, it's like, oh, look, the map is shipped.

[Tim Miller]

It's famously important for Kennedy. I mean, now it's. We're in the deep past.

[Mark Leibovich]

But I mean, it is pure working class based. You know, the traditional working class base of the Democratic Party is pure West Virginia. You can see exactly why. I mean, Bernie, you know, he blew out this, the Capitol Theater in downtown wheeling, probably about 3,4000 people. It was very organic. Bernie didn't say anything he hasn't said in the last 30 years. And he came out to like, Power to the People by, you know, John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band. I mean, just a real hokey stuff. But you look around and unlike a lot of Democratic crowds, this is a working class crowd. I mean, this is a gritty. This is not. Does not present as a college educated, affluent crowd as you would get NPR tote bags.

[Tim Miller]

How many did you see? Npr?

[Mark Leibovich]

No, you didn't see NPR tote bags. And the only crowds you see in the Democratic Party like that are, you know, frankly, like things like Bernie rallies. I mean, you know, Sherrod Brown doesn't do a lot of rallies. He doesn't do a lot of, like, town hall meetings. I mean, the sort of working class essence of that is lost. And Bernie for some reason still does speak to that element. And you know, obviously this crowd, I mean, it's pretty close to Pennsylvania. I mean, I talked to a lot of people who are, you know, came over from Pittsburgh and some from Ohio. I mean, it's not, you know, it is all kind of a tri state area ish kind of thing. But I don't know, you go to most Democratic events right now and you might as well be. I mean, it just feels very comfortable. Moneyed education. I mean, it's sort of like, you know, might as well be held at like Georgetown University or UVA or something like.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, the Whole Foods Buffet or something.

[Mark Leibovich]

I mean, somewhat. Yeah.

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[Tim Miller]

If you're going to write a story about the Democrats and why they're struggling, you do have to go to a diner. That is in the contract. And you did you attended a diner?

[Mark Leibovich]

I guess I did go to a diner. I didn't realize it was a diner.

[Tim Miller]

Yep. You went to a diner. I'm sorry to report.

[Mark Leibovich]

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I think it wasn't a cafe.

[Tim Miller]

I think it believe I have in all caps on my notes here. Final stop. A diner.

[Mark Leibovich]

Damn. Well, it was actually it was in Toledo and I remember interviewed Hillary in 2016 but before the Hillary rally, also in Toledo, I went to an actual diner and a wait person said to me that she really liked Trump because he seemed to be speaking the truth. And I knew right then, not because it was Toledo, not because she liked Trump. Trump not because of anything about her or Trump. It was in a diner. So it carried that extra kind of credibility. So I could just state anyway you didn't need me to hear.

[Tim Miller]

So did you get any of that insight this time? No, I mean share it like I don't know.

[Mark Leibovich]

He's a nuts and bolts Democrat. He is not flashy. He is not going to give a big old speech. He's a guy who's gotten elected in Ohio a bunch of times, and he keeps it very nitty gritty on health care, on Medicare, on, you know, on student loans. I mean, he's. He's very. He. He does not go big on, like democracy. He doesn't go big on, you know, Trump this, Trump that. You know, he seems to have a formula that is not particularly media savvy or media friendly. I mean, it might be very media savvy, but it's not. I mean, it's not like he's going to go out and like, like, subject himself to all these, you know, you know, a lot of interviews and. And big sort of rallies or anything. Look, it's worked in the past. And he also, I mean, he lost, I guess, in 2024 by like, 3, 4 points, whereas Kamala lost Ohio by like 1112 points. So, I mean, he. He obviously overperforms, you know, certainly the national ticket. And I imagine, I mean, Chuck Schumer, if you were here, would say that, that. That he is as good a recruit as you could hope for in Ohio. And, you know, it's a pretty close race. I mean, I think. I think Houston, who he's running against, probably up by a few points in the polls I've seen. But, you know, I mean, Sherrod Brown is as tried and true as an Ohio Democrat who can get elected as there is out there.

[Tim Miller]

I want to circle back to the autopsy porn you were talking about.

[Mark Leibovich]

Not literally porn, by the way. It's. It's like it's. I meant that kind of sarcastically.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, really?

[Mark Leibovich]

There are no photos of, like, Ken.

[Tim Miller]

Martin or anything in there, thank gosh. Or Sherrod Brown.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah. Just for the families who are watching this after Bible reading before bedtime. I just want to make sure that's clear.

[Tim Miller]

I appreciate that. It would be particularly scary if it was literal autopsy porn. The one that you shouted out was by Scott Ferson. I hadn't seen this one. Not out yet. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. You're giving us a little.

[Mark Leibovich]

It's coming out in April. It's kind of coming out as a book.

[Tim Miller]

So you said that was the most compelling one of the various autopsies you read. Why?

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, well, one the guy talked to. I mean, I never heard of him. And he's an operative up in. He's in Massachusetts. He had a team of researchers and interviewers. They talked to, I think, well over a thousand Democrats, Independent Swing voters, mostly around Ohio. I don't know if they ventured into any diners or anything, but, you know, you would hope that, you know, they hit a few diners. You would hope so. You would hope so. But basically it was just sort of a larger sample size and sort of a deeper level of questioning that underscores a. Pretty much the same sentiments that you read at the beginning of this, which is, you know, all the things that people said about Democrats that are. That are as bad as the caricature would suggest. So, yes, they underscore the point, as his upcoming book would indicate, that Democrats seem to have lost, you know, at least the parts of America around Canton, Ohio, where he focused a lot of his research.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. This is a quote he had in there. I think Democrats message to the people in Canton, Ohio, is you should move. And that seems a little glib or whatever, but the Democrats do a lot of talk around centering different marginalized groups. And so you would think they'd understand the value. Right. Of like, focusing on the concerns of a specific group, people in those groups like that, you know, it demonstrates you care about them.

[Mark Leibovich]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

I guess the answer, if I was trying to be very generous, is that, like, the Democrats are more focused than the Republicans on giving that person in Canton government health care. Like, they'll make sure they can get government health care. The Republicans won't, which is that nothing. Right. People want to live and survive, but, like, that's not that optimistic of a message for the person living in Canton who doesn't think that the Democrats are really talking to them at all.

[Mark Leibovich]

True. I mean, but, you know, is Donald Trump's message that, you know, I assume he carried a lot of people in that area. Right. A lot of areas around.

[Tim Miller]

That's a good question. I mean, is that the immigrants are ruining your lives?

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah. I mean, so is that going to resonate? I mean, maybe. Maybe that was more effective. Seems like that's what got him elected. Yeah. The immigrants are ruining your lives. And, you know, I'll bring America back and we're respectful.

[Tim Miller]

But again, I want to go back to. Look, we all see through this. Okay. I see through Tim.

[Mark Leibovich]

You have to remember that we're above it all.

[Tim Miller]

So wise. Yeah. So wise. We're smarter every day. That's why the candidates I supported all lost. Not all. Okay. We did some pretty good work in state elections. Top level. Not great. Like, the thing is, though, back to this element of centering. Trump centered him. He didn't use the word centering, but he went to Rallies there, folks that looked like they were from Canton.

[Mark Leibovich]

Absolutely.

[Tim Miller]

Felt like they were. Their neighbors were behind him on the stage. He paid lip service to the fact that they were pissed about how other elites had fucked him up.

[Mark Leibovich]

Absolutely.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe that message that, hey, these other guys screwed you, I hate them and I care about you. That's not perfect because he's not demonstrating how he's going to help them. He's actually making their lives worse right now. But that does seem to be a preferable message to I don't care about you at all.

[Mark Leibovich]

I mean, especially if that's the message people are taking from Democrats. And look, I mean, a lot of it's just sort of Democrats are run by people far better off than us, far better educated than us. I mean, Donald Trump, you know, is kind of like has this Richie Rich, you know, he's a, literally, I guess a billionaire and all that. But especially now.

[Tim Miller]

Multi billionaire now. Especially now, especially on crypto paper.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, among other things. But I mean, I do think populism. Everyone thinks populism. There's this very antiquated view of populism being like pitchforks and farmers and, you know, union guys in Ohio. And so, I mean, populism is celebrity basically in America at this, in this day and age. And, you know, Trump sort of proved that very much in 2015, 2016. Yeah, you can't discount that, by the way, the other piece of this. And so Scott Ferrison, the guy who did this Canton, Ohio, how Democrats lost America thing, he was the one that gave me that joke, trippy quote about, you know, by the time Democrats get to these folks, they're convinced that Democrats are space aliens who, whatever the, you know, who invented AI to take your jobs, who are trans loving, whatever the caricature is. And it's true. I mean, the media deserts and the vacuums that are filled by Fox and you know, whatever infrastructure, Facebook, shares of.

[Tim Miller]

Crazy stuff, memes, the whole thing.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, I mean, that's powerful. I mean, it's obviously a discussion for another day, but it's, I mean, it's a huge factor.

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[Tim Miller]

I want to talk about the DNC itself. I want to preface this by saying as somebody that has worked at the RNC, nobody understands more than me that in the year 2026 this was true in the year 2012, but certainly in the year 2026, these are almost useless institutions. They're extremely hollowed out. This is not the 1970s. Party committees do not have the power they used to have. In many ways, the party committees actually, when they try to do something like there is a reaction effect that, that results in them actually hurting the person they're trying to help. Like you see this in endorsements now. Like, like voters on both sides, like don't want to support the candidate endorsed by the official party. So if they do endorse them, they're actually hurting the candidate they're trying to help. Right. So yeah, like I've lived all that. So I don't, I think that sometimes people, you know, obsessing over Ken Martin is like not really that valuable because Ken Martin unfortunately doesn't have that much inflation ones. But I think it's, it's instructive to at least see what they're trying to do. And you spent some time with him. You talked about who he is resting dread face which I, which I enjoyed. And how he talked about how his job was the political equivalent of being a fire hydrant.

[Mark Leibovich]

Being pissed on by.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Leibovich]

Dogs pissing fire.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we got it. Yeah.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

You did the same thing with Reince back in 2012.

[Mark Leibovich]

I guess I did, didn't I? No, that was 2016.

[Tim Miller]

2016. I was like, I wouldn't have approved that in 2012 actually. So it couldn't have been 2012, 2016.

[Mark Leibovich]

You wouldn't have approved that. You know, thank God you were. Thank God you were gone by then. Party chairs are great copy. That's one of the lessons of my career path. No, I mean, Ken Martin is this. This like, like Reince was, I mean, a party apparatchic. I mean, Ken Martin is a longtime DFL chair in Minnesota, has done well for Democrats or DFL people in Minnesota now, trying to run the entire party at a time when Democrats sort of came into this cycle pretty crotchety to begin with. And here's this kind of party functionary from way back doesn't have a lot of goodwill attached to him. And he has a very kind of worried affect, a very kind of overwhelmed, I wouldn't say hapless. But, you know, he's like, the guy's like, I mean, any party chair is in over his or her head. There's just no question about it. He just happens to look and play the role pretty well.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know. Ken Melman and Terry McAuliffe handled it pretty good.

[Mark Leibovich]

They did. I mean, there was. That was a kind of a different. Well, well, they're different animals. But I mean, there was a time when there was a more sort of public, you know, elected officials actually had these jobs like Chris Dodd and Rahm Emanuel and. Yeah, so Ken's doing his best.

[Tim Miller]

One of the things for Ken, there is some upset in the office because the staffers had to go back into the office. And there's one thing I noticed in our article is there's a statement put out by the DNC employee union to the New York Times complaining about the amount of work they had to put in. And that gives me an opportunity to sound like a former Republican again, which I like to take from time to time. Why does the DNC have an employee union? This is not a steel working job. Like, they are not at any physical risk. It's an optional job. It's a highly coveted job. If you want to go, you're signing up to work more than a 40 hour work week. That's like the point of going to work for a party committee.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

It's not like the kind of job where you get unlimited pto.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah. I mean, I think the reason this union exists is so they can, you know, try to advocate on behalf of the workers if they want to work from home. And then if that goes south, leak everything to the New York Times and create an even worse look for the party.

[Tim Miller]

Your job, if you're working for the dnc, is to work from the dnc. Yeah. So I don't understand why the spokesperson for the union would be doing things to make the party look worse. It seems like they're not. It seems like that person should be fired. I don't. Maybe that's against union rules.

[Mark Leibovich]

Yeah, you would think though. I mean, from a self interested perspective though, it created an incredibly easy groove for me to just call up every high level elected official in the Democratic Party to have me trash this whole fiasco around the dnc. I mean, it's like shooting the fish in the barrel. It's. I mean, so, yeah, I mean, it's a terrible look. I mean, like, who was it? I guess it was either Alyssa Slack and. No, it was Abigail Spanberger who just like said, look, we're running for office. All we want to do is like, find people that do our work, you know, for free. Volunteers who believe in us. And here we have like the people who are actually paid to do this complaining about having to get out of the house and do it anyway. Yeah, made for illustrative, I think, bit here.

[Tim Miller]

My last complaint that was channeled by your piece is that no Democrats will answer the time machine question. I've asked a lot of them the time machine question on this podcast. What is the time machine question? It's kind of important, which is if you could go back in a time machine, what would you do differently? And this is kind of important because if we're going to learn about what to do differently going forward to prevent fascists from taking over the government, you might want to reflect back on the things that you did that allowed them to take over. And I'm for that. I made plenty of mistakes in life. Nobody could ask me, go back to start the Jeb Bush campaign, what would you do differently? And I'd be like, nothing really. We ran an honorable campaign. At least have a theory of the case. I ask every guy that comes in or woman who wants to lead the party this question. Pete was the only one that gave an interesting answer, but it was more about COVID stuff, which was interesting about how you think they should have done Covid differently. But it didn't speak to any of the political questions. Why won't they do it? Are they scared of Joe Biden's? Ghost or of the Clintons or Vice President Harris.

[Mark Leibovich]

What is it an object lesson here is that the Democrats themselves, the dnc, had their own autopsy report that they spent months on a lot of money on interviews, interviewed hundreds of people and they didn't release it. And presumably my suspicion was they were afraid of what it said. I mean, if the president of your party is 80 years old, you know, maybe he should, you know, say he's a one term president or something. I mean, there's that, that's, that's alarming specificity and I won't talk about who I'm referring to. But yeah, I mean it does go to the larger point that we were talking about earlier and that some, a lot of people quoted in the piece were that, which is Democrats are terrified of hurting each other's feelings. I mean, again, I mean, the feelings of other politicians is not very high on the list of concerns of most voters. But look, I mean, Democrats are a constituency based coalition, whereas Republicans have become a cult of personality. Now that might flip Democrats, you know, find someone who is worthy of transcending a lot of the sort of factional divides by his or her personality. But that person doesn't exist right now. Maybe they will in time.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. I told people we were going to come around to it. The one area where I think that the critiques are overstated is just that the Democrats aren't fighting hard enough. They weren't fighting hard enough last year, but the Democrats have been fighting pretty fucking hard lately. And the Democrats crushed the Republicans in the redistricting thing. Crushed them. And it's kind of amazing to me how quickly people go past that. And I do think sometimes it's good for people in my boat, for media commentators, you know, they get more attaboys if they talk about the Democrats being feckless and how they should fight harder, harder. And so yeah, cheap magazine stories. So it creates this doom loop of everybody being like, of the voters, like we're not fighting hard enough and then the media don't fight harder. And so I just do want to say they fought pretty damn hard on the redistricting thing. They won the shutdown fight. They're doing better than they were doing last year. And that's not nothing.

[Mark Leibovich]

It's not nothing. And look, I mean, I think think this is where Gavin Newsom, I think has to be mentioned here. I mean, he was, I mean, he has been. I mean, if in so much as, you know, you're going to be giving out like awards of like the first sort of, you know, 14 months of this. I mean, he did seem to get the Democrats on a kind of fighting footing, you know, partly around, you know, LA was the first city that ICE really went into and they did, you know, National Guard stuff. But ultimately, you know, he took on the redistricting thing, he executed it, they won, you know, by vast margins, you know, and that between that and his social media stuff really did seem to capture an imagination of a lot of voters. I think it obviously helped Newsom politically. You know, he's a separate conversation about, you know, whether he would be a good candidate or not. But I do think that he did speak to a hunger and a yearning that a lot of Democrats had and he gave voice to it. He gave, you know, know, tactics to it. And, you know, maybe the rest of the party caught up. But no, I would agree. I think they're in a much more fighting posture now than they were six months ago.

[Tim Miller]

Last topic, Jonathan Alter, a guy that we both know, reported yesterday, he says he's learned Trump will kill Netflix's bid for Warner and help Paramount win, giving him control of Fox, CBS, CNN and TikTok. I'm sure. And Jonathan Alter is well sourced, so I'm sure he has that on good authority. I also think that you can never know for sure what Donald Trump is going to do until the moment he does it, because he's a fickle person. But the writing does seem to be on the wall that this is where things are going. And it's pretty alarming.

[Mark Leibovich]

It's extremely alarming. I mean, I don't, you know, look, I don't know who Alter source is. I mean, where did he write this anyway? I guess the. Whatever.

[Tim Miller]

I guess Newsweek, Washington Monthly.

[Mark Leibovich]

Oh, Washington Monthly, that's right. Okay, so he did it, you know, I guess he came from there many, many years ago. But no, it's certainly plausible. I mean, I haven't seen it get picked up anywhere like it Bert sort of confirmed anywhere, but it certainly makes all the sense in the world. It's very consistent with everything he's done. And yeah, it's alarming and it's as long it's alarming as, as you can imagine and I don't know, put it into like the alarming bin. And I mean, we, that's. It just overloads the senses. You know, it's the essence of how an authoritarian, poor authority, whatever you want to call it, I mean, this is how, this is how it runs now. This is what, what there is to compete against. I Mean, polls say that voters don't like this, but look, it's not going to. I mean, it's very consistent with everything we've seen to this point.

[Tim Miller]

The propaganda machines become powerful then too, so then that creates this different doom loop. So let's avoid that doom loop.

[Mark Leibovich]

Well, just the silence, though. I mean, I cannot keep. I mean, look, this is a hobby horse of so many of us, but this doesn't exist without the full compliance of every elected Republican, with a few exceptions, in Washington. And it just. Every day. I still can't believe it.

[Tim Miller]

Mark Leibovich, he's at the Atlantic. It's always a banger when he files. So make sure to put little, I don't know, do you guys have like a little alarm bell on the website when people. So people can get a push alert when you file?

[Mark Leibovich]

I think as soon as I get off the phone here or the, the zoom here, whatever the hell we're on, I'm going to recommend this because I think this is what my, this is the thing that my career has really lacked over many, many, way too many years now. And I think that some kind of signature alarm bell might be the thing that sort of puts like the extra cherry on the Sunday.

[Tim Miller]

Well, the good news is if people miss it, you'll be here on the Bulwark Podcast. And everybody's listening. So I appreciate you, Mark Levovich. I'm in Minneapolis tonight. We're all in Minneapolis tonight. So tomorrow's show will be our live show from this evening. And then I'll be back with you all on Friday. So thanks to Mark and we'll see y' all soon. But look, I'm taking the charge Going.

[Mark Leibovich]

Harder Get you two shots Now I'm.

[Tim Miller]

Facing the charge oh, five to lie let's go take a ride they might catch you by surprise if you let it slide but if you feel for the shit, then you might survive. Guess I see you when you wake up on the other side.

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[Tim Miller]

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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