Would Bernie Have Won?

Summary

The Ezra Klein Show: "Would Bernie Have Won?" – Detailed Summary

Release Date: November 26, 2024

In the episode titled "Would Bernie Have Won?" hosted by Ezra Klein from New York Times Opinion, the conversation delves deep into the Democratic Party's trajectory post the 2024 elections. Featuring Faz Shakir, Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign manager and a seasoned Democratic strategist, the episode explores the internal debates and strategic shifts necessary for the party to reconnect with its working-class base.

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1. Introduction

[00:27] Ezra Klein:
Ezra introduces the episode by setting the stage for a critical analysis of the Democratic Party following its disappointing performance in the 2024 elections. He highlights Bernie Sanders' sharp critique, where Sanders states, "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them." This statement underscores the central theme of the discussion: the party's struggle to maintain its connection with the working class.

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2. Background: The Democratic Party's Internal Struggles

[03:10] Faz Shakir:
Faz Shakir acknowledges the discomfort within the Democratic ranks regarding Bernie Sanders' outspoken critiques. He emphasizes the need for open dialogue instead of dismissing Sanders' concerns with “eye rolls.” Faz underscores that Bernie’s advisors are actively seeking roles that can help realign the party with its foundational working-class values.

[03:32] Ezra Klein:
Ezra expresses his observations about Bernie Sanders being the most prominent figure discussing the party's failures in the media. He notes Sanders' deep integration into the party, with many of his allies holding significant positions within the Biden administration, yet still feeling a sense of exclusion.

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3. The Debate: Bernie Sanders vs. Democratic Establishment

[04:47] Faz Shakir:
Faz challenges Ezra's observations by pointing out the lack of visible support for Bernie Sanders from other high-profile Democrats during his campaign. He mentions that despite Biden’s administration's progressive economic policies, prominent figures like Kamala Harris were hesitant to publicly align with Sanders, indicating a fractured party stance.

[06:02] Ezra Klein:
Ezra seeks clarification on whether the debate centers solely around Bernie Sanders as an individual or the broader ideology he represents, termed “Bernieism.”

[06:12] Faz Shakir:
Faz elaborates that “Bernieism” embodies an economic-first approach that prioritizes working-class Americans in both policy and political strategy. He advocates for storytelling that highlights the struggles of the middle and working class, framing the economy as rigged against them and positioning the candidate as their champion.

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4. The Role of Populism and Working-Class Orientation

[08:55] Ezra Klein:
Ezra assesses the Biden administration as the most economically left and populist in recent history, surpassing predecessors like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Despite progressive policies focusing on labor and industrial growth, Biden's administration struggles with low approval ratings and persistent working-class discontent.

[10:05] Faz Shakir:
Faz attributes Biden's limited success to a disconnect between policy and political messaging. He argues that while the administration implements pro-worker policies—such as supporting unionization and fighting monopolies—the public perception remains muddled due to ineffective storytelling and communication strategies.

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5. Case Studies: Sherrod Brown, Joe Manchin, and Dan Osborne

[11:59] Ezra Klein:
Ezra introduces Sherrod Brown's loss in Ohio to a Republican car dealer, questioning why a seasoned economic populist like Brown failed despite his strong alignment with “Bernieism.”

[12:34] Faz Shakir:
Faz identifies a "Democratic brand problem," suggesting that candidates like Sherrod Brown outperform more moderate figures like Kamala Harris but still fail to secure victories due to the party's inability to convincingly communicate their commitment to economic justice. He emphasizes that Democrats often fail to make working-class voters feel genuinely represented.

[12:58] Ezra Klein:
Ezra discusses Dan Osborne, an independent candidate who ran an economically populist campaign and significantly outperformed expectations, yet did not win. This example illustrates the challenges Democrats face in leveraging populist strategies within the party framework.

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6. Media Strategies and the Communication Gap

[41:15] Faz Shakir:
Faz critiques the Democratic Party's reliance on traditional media and paid advertising, contrasting it with the right's utilization of diverse platforms like podcasts and social media to reach and engage voters directly. He highlights the importance of authentic communication and adapting to new media landscapes to effectively convey populist messages.

[49:04] Ezra Klein:
Ezra reflects on the shift from mainstream media to fragmented digital platforms, arguing that this transformation has led to a communication gap. He notes that while the right has effectively harnessed these new media forms to galvanize working-class support, the left remains dependent on outdated methods that fail to resonate with broader audiences.

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7. The Future of the Democratic Party: Rebuilding and Reconnecting

[73:00] Faz Shakir:
Faz envisions a reconstituted Democratic Party that actively engages with communities through grassroots efforts rather than being solely a fundraising vehicle. He advocates for the party to stand alongside workers in their struggles, such as opposing unfair rate hikes or supporting union efforts, thereby rebuilding trust and relevance among the working class.

[75:32] Ezra Klein:
Ezra challenges Faz to consider the cultural dimensions of the Democratic Party's disconnect, questioning how the party can address both economic and cultural concerns to fully represent its diverse base.

[76:53] Ezra Klein:
In the final discussion, Ezra and Faz explore the necessity of class-based populism and whether the Democratic Party can authentically integrate such a strategy without alienating its existing coalition. Faz argues for the mathematical advantage of focusing on the working class, emphasizing that this demographic constitutes two-thirds of the workforce and is pivotal for electoral success.

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8. Conclusion

[73:00] Faz Shakir:
Faz concludes by reiterating the importance of transitioning the Democratic Party from a closed club to an inclusive institution that actively serves and engages with communities. He calls for listening tours and grassroots involvement to better understand and address the needs and perceptions of working-class voters.

[77:41] Faz Shakir:
Before wrapping up, Faz recommends three books to the audience: "Tyranny of Merit" by Michael Sandel, "Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek, and "Don't Get Above the Raisin" by Bill Malone. These works provide insights into justice philosophy, leadership ethics, and the intersection of culture and politics, respectively.

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Notable Quotes:

• Faz Shakir [04:03]: "Why didn't [Biden] work to make these policies resonate? Because the politics didn't match the policy."

• Ezra Klein [08:55]: "Biden is without doubt... coming in with a blended view of the, you might say, Obama and Sanders theories of the economy."

• Faz Shakir [12:58]: "It is a Democratic Party that doesn't fight for me. It is not affiliated with my economic thinking..."

• Ezra Klein [22:43]: "Joe Manchin has personally killed a number of things I really cared about."

• Faz Shakir [26:44]: "You're fighting for working class people is the thing... that's what you're after right now, that Bernie Sanders, better than more so and better than I would argue a lot of the people with whom he ran against would have put that question, that framework."

• Ezra Klein [34:59]: "One person who's always been interesting in this conversation is Joe Manchin. And if you were looking a couple years ago, who was overperforming the most, who was holding the seat that Democrat really shouldn't be holding?"

• Faz Shakir [47:07]: "Bernie didn't win the primary in 2016, he didn't win it in 2020. So he didn't have to run a general election campaign where he wasn't even just talking to Democrats."

• Ezra Klein [57:15]: "Can you ignore that? That is insane. Anyone who thinks you could ignore that reality is crazy."

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Key Takeaways:

1. Disconnection between Policy and Messaging: The Democratic Party's progressive policies often fail to resonate with working-class voters due to ineffective communication strategies that do not clearly articulate the party's vision and commitment.

2. Need for Authentic Populism: Faz Shakir advocates for a class-based populist approach that authentically represents and engages with the working class, emphasizing economic justice and community-focused policies.

3. Media Strategy Overhaul: The party must adapt to the evolving media landscape by leveraging diverse platforms to communicate directly with voters, moving beyond traditional paid media and becoming more grassroots-oriented.

4. Rebuilding the Democratic Brand: To regain trust and support, the Democratic Party needs to transform from a fundraising-centric institution to one that actively supports and stands with communities in their economic and social struggles.

5. Electoral Strategy: Focusing on the majority working-class demographic, which constitutes a significant portion of the electorate, is crucial for achieving electoral success and preventing further erosion of the party's base.

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This episode serves as a critical reflection on the Democratic Party's challenges and presents strategic insights on how embracing authentic, class-based populism and revamping communication strategies can potentially realign the party with its foundational principles and voter base.

Transcript

[Faz Shakir]

They're not writers, but they help their clients shape their businesses financial stories. They're not an airline, but their network connects global businesses in nearly 180 local markets. They're not detectives, but they work across businesses to uncover new financial opportunities for their clients. They're not just any bank. They are Citi. Learn [e-mail] we are city.

[Ezra Klein]

From New York Times Opinion this is the Ezra Klein show as the Democratic Party debates where to go after its 2024 drubbing. We're going to spend the next two episodes of the show featuring two very different perspectives on the way forward. After Trump won the election, Bernie Sanders released a blistering statement saying that, quote, it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. And Bernie's advisors and allies have been making their own versions of this argument and jockeying for the positions that would help them rebuild the Democratic Party. Around this vision, some have floated Bernie's 2020 campaign manager, Faz Shakir, to be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee. And Faz sent me an email after the episode with Patrick Graffini, the Republican pollster who's been tracking the movement of working class voters to the gop, saying there was a friendly debate he wanted to have here, that Bernie, or at least Bernieism is the obvious answer and Democrats simply refuse to see it. And the fact that they refuse to see it says something very telling about the party. At the same time, I've heard from a lot of Democrats who are annoyed, to say the least, about this attack from Sanders World Democrats abandoned the working class. Biden has been the most economically populous president of the modern era. He has been the most pro labor president of the modern era and what did it get him or Harris? And if Democratic socialism, if Bernieism is the answer to winning back these voters, why don't you see Democratic socialists winning in red districts? So this is a rich conversation and it's a very real debate among Democrats right now. And Faz, who I've known for years, is a great person to have on to talk about it. He has seen the Democratic Party from every vantage point. He didn't just work for Sanders, he's worked in senior positions for Nancy Pelosi, for Harry Reid, for the aclu. He co founded Think Progress, and he's currently the executive director of the pro worker nonprofit media organization More Perfect Union. As always, my email ezrakleinshownytimes.com Faz Shakir, welcome to the Show.

[Faz Shakir]

Thank you, Azar. Good to hear from you.

[Ezra Klein]

So you emailed me after the Patrick Raffini episode saying that we should have a friendly debate about why Bernie Sanders isn't mentioned more in these conversations and the discomfort you feel that people, maybe me, maybe the Democratic Party as you understand it, have with him and his politics. So let's start there. What's the shape of that debate?

[Faz Shakir]

Do you agree with that? First of all, I think we should probably start with it. In my view, there are people who in the Democratic ranks as a constituency, I find and feel as someone who's, as you know, worked for him for a long period of time, kind of a discomfort, a spin, a shun. You know, here's Bernie talking again about the Democratic Party. He's banning the working class, that kind of attitude, eye roll and move on. And I'm saying don't eye roll, let's talk about it. And that's what I wanted to engage. But you tell me that I'm off base on that.

[Ezra Klein]

Well, I have multiple thoughts on it. One is that if you ask me who has been the most prominent member of Congress being heard in the media giving their post mortem on 2024, it is Bernie Sanders, right? He's one of the most prominent members of the Democratic Senate caucus. He was very close to the Biden administration. He was very woven into the bide. Many of his people were and Elizabeth Warren's people from a similar wing of the party were in the Biden administration. So sometimes it feels to me like the Bernie wing of the party still has this feeling of exclusion that when I look around, I mean, I think most members of Congress would be pretty excited to have the level of influence over Democrats that Bernie Sanders has.

[Faz Shakir]

Did you hear or see Kamala Harris stand with Bernie Sanders during the course of her campaign? Did you hear or see any major Democratic candidates campaign with Bernie Sanders?

[Ezra Klein]

And I know you told me no.

[Faz Shakir]

The answer was no. And that goes to the heart of a all in all of the above strategy for the Democratic Party. I would argue Joe Biden stood out from a crowd in which he always appreciated and respected that this vision of a Democratic Party has a progressive, economic, populist element to it and has value to the Democratic Party. And I even to the end of the campaign, Joe Biden held an official side event with Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire during that course, I think it was sometime in October to talk about prescription drug prices. During that whole period of time, Harris campaign did not want to stand with Bernie Sanders. And it wasn't just her, but there are other Democrats too. And that's where I sense and feel to your point, saying, oh, you guys run the Senate help Committee and you're an important part of the Democratic Party. I'm like, that doesn't always feel that way.

[Ezra Klein]

So are we talking here about Bernie Sanders? Are we talking about this thing one might call Bernie Sanders ism? Yes, because I think I want to talk more about the latter thing.

[Faz Shakir]

I think he's a person who reflects. Right. Exactly. We're moving into now that conversation.

[Ezra Klein]

What is Bernie Sanders ism that you think is being rejected by the Democratic Party?

[Faz Shakir]

Well, fundamentally, it's a economic first style of thinking that we speak to and appeal to working class Americans. We both do it in policy, but we also do it in politics. There are approaches in which you signal and send messages to working class people that they are part of this coalition. You're not only part of it, but that we think of you first and foremost. And I straddle these worlds, straddle a lot of different worlds. And one of the things I often do is interview people who work for me, people who are candidates. And I ask them this question. I'm interested in what your response will be, which is, I blindfold as her client, I drop you into a random city in America for this. I'm going to say it's Atlanta or Las Vegas or Baraboo, Wisconsin, you know, Superior, Wisconsin, Marquette, Michigan. I'm going to drop you in. There's going to be 100 people in a room. You're going to go in there not knowing anything about the people in this room. And your job is to persuade them. You go in there, Ezra, what are you going to talk about?

[Ezra Klein]

I'm not a politician, so what I'm going to talk about is not, I think what people should talk about to get elected. But I'm going to ask you what you are saying I should talk about.

[Faz Shakir]

Great. So that's where I want to live. This is where I want to start. This is the Birdie isms that I'm trying to drive at. So I'm going in there talk about economic populism in a certain way. I am making certain assumptions that when I am talking about economic populism, it is a super majority issue. This is majoritarian stuff. We're going to not only talk about policies, but we have to tell you a story about America's economy. It starts with it being rigged against you. It talks about how hard it is as a middle class person right now to afford college to pay for childcare while you are struggling to make it on a middle class life. There are people in this society who are doing quite well with their passive income, making tons of money, finding ways to rig this economic system to benefit them. And our job in life as public servants, our job as candidates who want to own some authority within government, is to fight for you. And so now I'm walking you into here are some stories specifically that I know are challenging in this modern economy, but that I have constructive solutions to. And I want to offer them up and I want to pose them against you. But I do think it starts with a theory of what am I seeing in this economy so that you don't feel like you live in a different world than I do. I live in the same world that you do. I see what you're going through and now I'm going to connect it to why I want to serve. And that just fundamental framework that we just talked about is not a principle way in which I hear a lot of Democrats thinking about how to campaign, although I think some of the better ones who are doing it and winning are doing that.

[Ezra Klein]

So I want to stress test this and I guess we should start with the Biden administration. The Biden administration, in my view, I'd be curious to hear if you disagree with this is without doubt the most economically left, economically populist presidential administration of my lifetime. More so than Bill Clinton, more so than Barack Obama. He walks up picket line. He's very, very explicitly pro labor. There is a focus on industrial policy, on manufacturing. They come in with the intention to run the economy hot, to hit full employment to make sure the wage gains that full employment will bring are spreading to the more marginalized groups of workers who often do not get wage gains during expansions. They do all of that. There's also a lot of other problems, foreign policy crises, inflation. But they are without doubt coming in with a blended view of the, you might say Obama and Sanders theories of the economy. And through this administration, they're not popular. Biden routinely struggles to crack 40% in favorability. There is a working class lawsuit you're seeing all the way through. Why didn't it work?

[Faz Shakir]

Because the politics didn't match the policy. All those things were correct, I think, in what you diagnosed there. And when I went out and I tested this proposition ourselves, polled it and went out and talked in the country and you ask people a basic question, what did Joe Biden and the Democrats do on the economy? I would say that message of what you did on the economy is confusing and muddled out there at best. And I ask a lot of people this, what did you think Joe Biden helped you? What was his vision? What's his theory? And people struggle with that question. I'm like, well, in my view it was pretty basic that you wanted economic freedom, economic security for Americans. That economic freedom, you get to call it economic democracy had two major components to it, Ezra. One was workplace democracy. You mentioned it. Here's the president goes to the picket line. He fights to ban non compete clauses. He supports unionization. He stood with the Amazon workers, they're organizing. He saved the Teamsters pensions. He wants a vision in which we believe in workplace democracy where workers have more power and freedom. Secondly, he believes in marketplace freedom, marketplace democracy. He fights against big tech, he fights against big monopolists. He, he fights for right to repair. He fights for small businesses that have the ability to bring back to America supply chains and with their entrepreneurial barrier grow their own market share in this modern economy. That is what he's fighting for. But the rigged economy is such that it isn't going to happen overnight and it's going to take some time, but we're on the right track and let us keep going down this track to continue to make progress for you. Now I'm telling you a story that I believe in my view, Ezra, most people don't know. This is not the way in which people communicate or think or talk about Joe Biden. They'll hear IRA, inflation Reduction Act. They'll hear, you know, Covid economy, he said this thing or that thing about inflation all missing the point of what is your theory? What do you want to do about this economy? And that language in the modern Democratic Party is missing, but not from everybody.

[Ezra Klein]

So let's talk about a particular election example which is Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Sherrod Brown is alongside Sanders, one of the party's long time and highly skilled economic populists. His voters know him, he's a fixture in Ohio. Politics has been there for a long time. They know what he stands for, they know what he fights for. He's fought now, he's fought for years in very much the terms that you're talking about. And Sherrod Brown loses to a car dealer Republican candidate in Ohio. It's a hard fought race, but he loses. Why does Sherrod Brown lose?

[Faz Shakir]

Well, I think there's a Democratic brand problem that I'm trying to push at. I think Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Amy Klobuchar, they all outperform Kamala Harris. In fact, the person who outperforms if you look at the Senate map and you say, okay, where was Kamala's baseline versus where did other candidates do? You know who's the most blue in this scenario? It is Dan Osborne in Nebraska.

[Ezra Klein]

It shouldn't be this hard.

[Faz Shakir]

I'm running for U.S. senate because people aren't getting a fair shake. I'm running for every Nebraskan. So we have enough at the end every week to buy groceries, to have a house, set money aside for Christmas and college and all we have left.

[Ezra Klein]

To worry about is they sales and Little League. Kind of sounds a little bit like.

[Faz Shakir]

The American dream, you know, if you looked at a map of where the baseline was, he turns Nebraska blue in many ways. My argument of why Dan Osborne does well and loses is the story because we get so stuck in win loss. Jared Brown outperforms. But you what is the problem with a modern Democratic brand that isn't helping a Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Dan Osborne get over the top. It's that people don't believe that whatever you might say here, John Tester or Sherrod Brown, this Democratic brand doesn't fight for me. It is not affiliated with my economic thinking and the concerns that I have and the type of governance I want to see that disrupts a system that works really well for the wealthy. Doesn't want to challenge powerful actors. And so therefore I am penalizing you even though I might like you.

[Ezra Klein]

I think party brands are very complicated things to manage. So Dan Osborne, for people who are not following that election, is an independent candidate, runs an economically populist campaign and does way better than anybody expects, right? Surprises Republicans, becomes competitive and doesn't win, but as you say, highly overperforms what you might have imagined.

[Faz Shakir]

And why, just to put a point on this, Ezra, why does he overperform? Because his only brand for a long period of time he was only known as the guy who led his Kellogg's workers on strike during the height of COVID We worked 100 days straight. It was grueling. We were told we're essential workers. We weren't treated with any degree of respect. And now I'm running for Congress to fight for working people. That's all people knew for a long period of time about Dan Osborne and it got through. And I would argue that would rest or a Democratic brand, that kind of background and vision.

[Ezra Klein]

But I think this gets to this question of parties which is what we're talking about here. I've seen you floated for DNC chair. And you've had a lot to say about how the DNC should actually act in this era. And one of the problems with being a party, right, this is also true of the Republican Party, which is a trashed brand as well, which Trump then was able to take over and hollow out, is that you have to pull together groups that don't necessarily agree, not just on everything and in some cases on anything. So something Bernie Sanders often says is why aren't Democrats running in all these popular policies? And when he's in control of the interview, he'll say everybody else has healthcare for all residents, but we don't. And we could have free college and we could raise the minimum wage much higher. And it's completely true that if you poll those policies in the way he talks about them, they're very popular. Of course, when he ran in 2020 and he was a candidate who might actually win, what you had was also a lot of discussion of the parts of those policies that do not poll high. That you would be abolishing private health insurance under his single payer plan, that you would be raising taxes on middle class Americans, forgiving student loans, which people talked about as a very popular policy, did not end up being a political winner for Democrats. That reflects inside the Democratic Party but also inside politics broadly. A mix of people who would like to see the system upended and also people who don't want to pay higher taxes, who don't want to lose their healthcare. Maybe they want other people to have better healthcare than they do, but they like what they have and they don't want someone coming and taking it away. So I do wanna push this into relationship with the complexities of parties that don't get to run one guy unsullied by all the compromises that a large coalition actually has to make.

[Faz Shakir]

Yes, I agree with all that. And I'm not here to litigate whether Bernie would have won in 2020 general election, although he would have. But I think no litigation, just assertion. Exactly. No, to be fair, a lot of.

[Ezra Klein]

Litigation is just that anyway.

[Faz Shakir]

But what you and I know about Bert, because you've known him for a while too and obviously work with him and know a lot about how he actually thinks about managing politics. One of the things that you know about him and I know is that there's a high degree of pragmatism there. So while he's pushing let's take Medicare for all, then he gets into Congress and can we at least lower the age from 65 to 60. Can we talk about Medicare expansion so that it covers home care, dental, hearing and vision? Even if you can't all move with me to Medicare for all, that actually is how President Bernie Sanders would have governed. And what it would have done, of course, is change how the Democratic Party is perceived all across this country. Because here comes the president. First stop is wait. Expanding Medicare is what we're gonna be doing at the front end. I love that. That sounds phenomenal. He's gonna say, here's my North Star, here's my vision, and where can we get the votes to get the best version of this outcome? And he would have just set the agenda accordingly.

[Ezra Klein]

But that might be how he would govern. And I have tremendous respect for Bernie Sanders. And one question we will get to is I think one hard part about talking in this sort of wood burnie of one is that just some politicians are really goddamn good at what they do and Bernie Sanders is really damn good at what he does. And Obamaism doesn't work that well without Obama. And Donald Trumpism doesn't work that well without Donald Trump. And I'm not sure Bernie Sandersism works out well without Bernie Sanders. But in terms of the things that are exportable, like the policies, I don't want to let you move to this. Well, in practice, he would be a pragmatist because we are talking about how at least you run and win in election and when you run and win elections and put out the big vision and then the people who don't like you, the people who are worried about you, come and point out all the things that are going to scare people about your vision, which is what Kamala Harris had to deal with and what Bernie Sanders had to deal with in the 2020 primary and would have dealt with in the general election. You don't get to then just say, oh, I didn't really mean that whole thing about abolishing private insurance. Don't worry, I'm a pragmatist when I govern.

[Faz Shakir]

No, no, it's when you get into presidency. But hear me as saying, the orientation of fighting for working class people is the thing, Ezra, that is what we're after right now, that Bernie Sanders, better than more so and better than I would argue a lot of the people with whom he ran against would have put that question, that framework, that mentality, and still does, at the front and center of how the Democratic brand is received. And you're right that he has certain talents and abilities, but there are certain parts of that that I allow. Marie Glush and Camperez, who's a blue dogger, Jared golden, who's a blue dog, or Pat Ryan running in New York or Chris D'Aluzio in Pennsylvania or a whole bunch of other. You have similar frameworks of fighting for working class people, concerns about corporate power that they can articulate in their own ways. And when they do, they can win. And the Democratic brand would be better restored in a stronger position. If we put this first and foremost.

[Ezra Klein]

I think this is a place where what I would like to see is more broad based evidence. And here's what I mean. I would find no answer to the Democratic Party's problems more congenial than this one. If the answer is simply that Democrats can embrace bigger social programs, a more economically populist agenda, more pro worker rhetoric, I think that would be great. When I look at Democrats winning in red districts, I don't typically see it. You've mentioned people like Jared golden there. I do not consider Jared Golden's politics a close match for Bernie Sanders.

[Faz Shakir]

You should talk to Jared golden, see how he thinks about him.

[Ezra Klein]

But this is where the actual policies that people are proposing matter. Dan Osborne also had a much more trimmed sail in in terms of what policies he was actually proposing. I agree with you that there's something to the orientation of being pro worker.

[Faz Shakir]

Exactly.

[Ezra Klein]

But it matters what signals you're sending and what governing space you're in. I look at Europe, where there's been a real rise of other authoritarian right parties that have symmetries with what we're seeing in America. And you don't see left wing populist parties winning in response. In fact, in a bunch of the places you're seeing France, I mean, they've had to come into a weird coalition in France. It has not been a consistent answer that has worked there. We've watched a lot of those parties lose, which does not mean one shouldn't run on some of those ideas. But it does make me wonder if the actual appeal of right wing authoritarianism as practiced by people like Donald Trump, where you have billionaires like Elon Musk becoming aspirational and central figures, is really the who's on the side of workers question that people like you or Sanders want to phrase it as.

[Faz Shakir]

And now you see where I am, my kind of own emotional slog is with how you framed all of that, which is I struggle with not seeing great models of pro labor, working class oriented progressivism, wherever it might be. I mean, obviously there's evidence maybe in Mexico that counters some trends, but there are not great models. And we're going to concede that. And I'm pushing for a movement that more people. Push corporate power to the front of your conversation, labor power at the front of your conversation. Push on a different style of working class orientation, of progressivism. And we need it, we desperately need it right now to rebrand the Democratic Party.

[Ezra Klein]

One person who's always been interesting in this conversation is Joe Manchin. And if you were looking a couple years ago, who was overperforming the most, who was holding the seat that Democrat really shouldn't be holding? It was Joe Manchin. And his politics has long been about curbing the excesses of, or at least what he saw as the excesses of. The Democratic Party famously had this ad, you know, shooting a gun at the cap and trade bill that the House was trying to pass. He was somebody who cut how big the Inflation Reduction act was. He's sort of a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party and it allowed him to win elections in a very, very red place for a very long time. What do you make of Joe Manchin's success?

[Faz Shakir]

I associate that more with a couple of things. One is Joe Manchin is a terrific politician if you've ever seen him. He really engages with his community and is all over the place on the ground and for a long period of time. But the other point I'd say is old school Democrat, right? Like you look at Kentucky, why is Andy Beshear still the governor? You look at North Carol, you know, generally still have some Democrats still at high office because there's still the ethic of people who generationally were Democrats affiliated with it, for whom it is getting harder and harder to continue to stay associated with that brand. Which obviously circles me back to the class based populism that I'm arguing for.

[Ezra Klein]

But West Virginia had become very red and very anti Democratic while Manchin was still.

[Faz Shakir]

And he's a good running. You'd agree with me, right, Ezra? He's a good politician, right?

[Ezra Klein]

I agree that he's a good politician, but the way in which I think he would say he's a good politician is that he understands that you have to not get out of step with your constituents. And he believes the people you are talking about, right? Not the people Bernie Sanders wins in Vermont, but the people he wins in West Virginia are not that liberal, that they think the government spends too much money, not too little money, that they feel that Democrats are way out of step on cultural issues. Right? One of the challenges, look, Joe Manchin's politics are not my politics.

[Faz Shakir]

They're not my politics.

[Ezra Klein]

Joe Manchin has personally killed a number of things I really cared about.

[Faz Shakir]

He's killed childcare, he killed home care, he killed a whole bunch of things.

[Ezra Klein]

But I think it is worth really grappling when you're saying that the way Democrats will perform in a way they haven't been among people who they're losing is to move into this much more class based, much more left space. And then you see Joe Manchin is not the only person I could name like this. But a lot of the people who perform in these places look sort of more like he did. I think his success has to be grappled with a little bit more than he's good at retail politics.

[Faz Shakir]

I don't mean to go on the whole screen of Joe Manchin here, but he's very good at making sound like I am fighting big Pharma in Washington D.C. was he sure? I mean Inflation Reduction act had pharma components and they were very valuable. But he goes home and he talks about it in a more compelling theatrical way, an effective way. Not saying, hey, I also helped kill tax cuts on the rich that would have been effective in getting us more revenue. That's not the way he's going and talking in campaign. We know a lot about that. You and I know a lot about that. But that's in terms of how he delivers.

[Ezra Klein]

I don't buy this because Manchin. Here's what I understand Manchin's politics to be. Manchin's politics are about demonstrating constant independence.

[Faz Shakir]

From the Democratic brand, from the liberal.

[Ezra Klein]

Wing, not just the Democratic brand, but the liberal wing of the Democratic brand by publicly and in a way that people keep hearing about and seeing him do, standing in the way of things Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, specifically things that Bernie Sanders wants to do. So again, I'm gonna keep pushing this cause I think it's a good counterexample. He's not going home and running a light so socialist and hiding that he has been holding up the IRA and cutting it in half. I mean moderation was his brand. And he believed and proved out, at least among his constituents, at moderation allowed him to stay afloat in a seat no Democrat should have been able to hold for even a minute.

[Faz Shakir]

This gets at to me, I know you don't love the answer, but why does Donald Trump sometimes have great working class appeal? Is not always a policy discourse with them. You can have working class appeal in the manner in the performance, performance art of how you go and Talk to them how you're in the political industry. Refer to this as candidate affect. How do you come across to people? And I do think he comes across and fights in interesting ways that have a working class dimension to it. You're right that the push off towards the left is one of them. The fight is shooting the gun at the cabin. Trade bill is one of them. These have affect knowing your state, finding ways to campaign according to your constituency. It's healthy in a political ecosystem. When you're a populist, hopefully you're learning a little bit from, from how everybody is finding their own interesting ways to campaign. But I would disagree with the notions that what people want is corporate friendliness, that they want to sit down with billionaires and negotiate tax bills. That's how actually Joe Manchin has taught us the future of the Democratic Party.

[Ezra Klein]

I would disagree with you had emailed me after this interview I did with Patrick Raffini, who's a GOP pollster, who had written a book that was pretty prescient on the voting realignment we've seen. I want to play you a clip of the interview that has been on my mind. Mind. I did a poll in Texas of Hispanics in Texas, where I asked them what is the number one problem that you see today with the Democratic Party?

[Faz Shakir]

The answer they gave wasn't that it.

[Ezra Klein]

Was too woke or the buzzword of socialism.

[Faz Shakir]

The answer was very interesting. And it's something you don't see come.

[Ezra Klein]

Up with virtually any other group you talk to.

[Faz Shakir]

And that is they perceive the Democratic.

[Ezra Klein]

Party as being the party of welfare, benefit for people who don't work. And if you look at how the.

[Faz Shakir]

Democratic Party has been perceived in the.

[Ezra Klein]

Last four years in particular in terms of, oh, we're letting immigrants into the.

[Faz Shakir]

Country, illegal migrants into the country, you.

[Ezra Klein]

Know, and there's a perception that they're getting government benefits and not working. And all of this is coming at.

[Faz Shakir]

The expense of people who made their.

[Ezra Klein]

Way in America, who started from the.

[Faz Shakir]

Very bottom of the rung and worked their way up the economic ladder through.

[Ezra Klein]

Their own hard work and not necessarily through government policies. What do you think of that?

[Faz Shakir]

Well, as a campaign, you know this in the primary, we've overperformed with a lot of Latino people, went to South Texas a number of times. And I think Bernie has a unique appeal. And people often asked why is it that Bernie Sanders among the Democratic primary candidates would attract all these Latino working class people to him? And I thought part of it was that the immigrant mentality I'm one of them come to America with a vision of what America is, a land of opportunity, great freedom. Here's why I came here. And slowly you learn. Or maybe quickly you learn. Holy cow. This place is brutal. Rough to try to make it as a working person. The bosses don't care about the ethic that I'm putting into this. There's no protection around basic retirement security or job security. There's nothing. And you realize how brutal the economy is. And I think the vision of Bernie Sanders, this is where you cross ideological spins. The vision is, there's somebody looking out for me. He's got a vision for me. It matters. We could disagree whether does Social Security speak to them? I think it does. Expanding Social Security, does expanding Medicare speak to them? I think it does. But if Patrick's also saying, does tariff speak to them? Yes, it does. Does certain immigration policy speak to them? Yes, it does. It's a lot of those things, but fundamentally, it's that they see in someone who understands their life and has a vision for society in which they're central to it, not not backseating it.

[Ezra Klein]

How much is this built around policy, vision and rhetoric and how much of it is the affect and signal. Right. Because I think people get a lot of signals from candidates that they can't quite articulate. But we meet people and we know who they are and what they're like. The Democratic Party is a much more educated party. Now, if you look at the people who run at its top levels, they do not come from the working class. They've gone to college. They have not this particular year, but in many years been to many elite colleges. It's also true, by the way, on the Republican side, where J.D. vance went to Yale and Donald Trump went to Warden. But nevertheless, how much is a problem that the Democratic Party is having trouble connecting to working class voters because it's not running working class candidates?

[Faz Shakir]

I think working class candidates would help us, but why would that help us? Because we're fundamentally not a populist movement, and that matters. And when I say populism, it means something to me. It means that you're very connected to the emotions of people. That feeling, that emotion and pain means being something of a populist and then turning that into a majoritarian sentiment. Don't mean to dispute, however, many academics out there will give me a different definition of populism, but that's what it means to me. It's finding that majoritarian sentiment around that emotional pain, suffering or happiness or excitement of the communities that you're fighting for. And we have become detached from that in the way in which we both politic and do policy design. You can't just spout, you know, rhetoric on a teleprompter. Put some thoughts on there about housing and, you know, here's a homebuyer tax credit. And assume you've done the job. You're not gonna do the job without the affect to the political affect that. This is something that animates me. This is something that I'm concerned about. This is something I can tell you a story about. I can go on Joe Rogan for two hours or any other podcast or Ezra Klein for two hours and talk at length about the housing market problems that I see. I think that there's a hunger in America for understanding how the economy is rigged against them. And they expect government leaders. When you enter into the forum to unpack that forum, you're fighting for me. You better understand this than I do. And you're gonna tell me that, okay, federal interest rates. Let's just do housing for very briefly, and I promise we'll move off from it. Federal interest rates.

[C]

Go on.

[Ezra Klein]

You don't have to promise you'll move off of housing on this podcast of all pod like. You can be on housing as long as you want, Faust.

[Faz Shakir]

But correct me if I'm wrong, like a basic story, right? People are hungry for it. And I think my assumption, I'm speaking politically for a moment, is that people will respect that. I can disagree with Faz about what he's saying, but I understand he cares about this and he's fighting for it, and he understands. He got a theory, and maybe I'll put him into office just because I know that this is his orientation. And as compared to the other person, maybe he would care more about housing. So my answer would be, you know, you push me on housing, okay, federal interest rates go up, it locks the housing market. As you know, if I'm a homeowner, I'm not selling because I can't afford to buy my next one. So all prices now go up. What happens in that market? Well, unless you're a cash buyer, no one can really buy a house. Guess who comes in and buys houses at cash? Well, there's a large institutional investor. So we got the growth of institutional investors who are buying in the housing markets. They are now raising rents, raising prices. People like invitation homes who don't care. You don't know your landlord, there's an llc. You don't have a relationship with the people who are owning your Homes, increasingly. That's one of the problems in this rental market. You've got whole problems of RealPage and other algorithms being stacked against you, used by landlords to raise prices and keep lots empty just to maximize their profits. How am I going to deal with this? Both going after price gouging by landlords and big institutional investors creating ordinances that stop institutional investors from coming into communities. I'm not asking you to agree with the policy solution, right, Ezra, we can have a debate about policy, but I'm not telling you a story about what I see and why I care about this that I think would more resonate than telling you, hey, I want a $25,000 homebuyer tax credit.

[Ezra Klein]

I'll say a couple things because I don't think here that policy and politics are as separable as you're trying to make them there. When you said a minute ago that populism means to you someone who has a majoritarian approach to politics with an authentic connection to the ways in which the working class is struggling. What seemed missing in that definition to me was, I think what actually separates populism in all of its forms from many other forms of politics, which is its cut of an us versus a them. It's decision to create enemies. And if you're looking at Donald Trump, his enemies are immigrants, his enemies are the left, his enemies are other countries that are ripping us off, his enemies are the media. That's a sort of standard right wing populism. And if you look at left populism, the enemies are billionaires, they're corporations. And one difficulty with that is that it makes some kinds of solutions and problems easier to point out than others. I know housing policy quite well, and I just flatly do not agree that the problem is that you have more corporate or private equity landlords that are pushing up prices. The problem is that you cannot build homes. And many of the people stopping you from building homes are not billionaires and they're not private equity magnets. They're people within the Bernie Sanders coalition or the Democratic Party coalition. They are people who don't want an apartment building with affordable housing going up nearby, to say nothing of a homeless shelter. God forbid a homeless shelter is going to go up nearby. One problem is that if you can't identify them as a problem because they're not your chosen enemies, it becomes hard, I think, sometimes to tell people the thing that they see in their own lived experience, which is that there's no building going on around in places Democrats govern. And is that really because of private equity corporations maybe, but I'm not sure that works out as well in practice as people want it to.

[Faz Shakir]

Right. And don't hear me to dismiss I think I agree with what you're saying now. What you and I are trying to do is merge for many candidates how to go and talk about housing and win elections off of it. You moved us rightly into now you're in office governing wreck some barriers, be somebody and I have lots of thoughts about that. Be someone with conviction who is willing to disrupt the status quo when in government to get the outcomes that you need. If we need 3 million units or plus of housing units, probably affordable housing units, what does that require such that you would be bulldozer to wreck bureaucratic logjams and all kinds of concerns. There is that alpha quality that is still missing in a Democratic party that says not only do I care about housing and tell you a story and campaign about this, but that if you put me in government you will see in my DNA and my character. I am willing to take on people even with whom you mentioned, who I generally would agree with. Maybe there's labor unions here, maybe there's environmental leaders here. Part of my job is to come in and say we gotta get this done. I'm gonna be a bulldozer for so that I think you're putting your finger on something. But I would say if we're winning elections, you're still, I think motivated by a degree of populism that can combine the story of how I also plan to govern. But I don't want to leave people with the idea that I think that you can have a good academic conversation about the municipal zoning laws in a certain community and that that's going to resonate in a town hall setting that I dropped into. AI is coming to your industry, if.

[Ezra Klein]

It isn't already here.

[Faz Shakir]

But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power. So how do you compete without costs? Spiraling Upgrade to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or oci. OCI is the blazing, fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI workloads. Right now Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to OCI for new US customers with minimum financial commitment. Offer ends December 31, 2024. See if your company [e-mail] NY hi, it's Melissa Clark from New York Times Cooking, and I'm in the kitchen with.

[Ezra Klein]

Some of our team. I want to know what everyone's making for Thanksgiving this year from our recipes. Nikita Richardson, what are you going to make, I'm making potatoes, the cheesy hasselback potato gratin featuring layers upon layers of thinly cut potatoes. A five star recipe which is very easy, but it's a real showstopper.

[Faz Shakir]

Genevieve Ko, what about you?

[Ezra Klein]

Absolutely. Going to make miso gravy smothered green beans. You cook the green beans in the gravy that has this deep savory umami flavor from just a little bit of miso.

[Faz Shakir]

Sounds fantastic. Von Vreeland, give us your take. I've tried every single one of Genevieve's pies for this year. And let me tell you, that caramel apple pie, it's so delicious. It's like a candy bar.

[Ezra Klein]

I had a bite.

[Faz Shakir]

It's got this shortbread like crust so you don't have to roll out pie dough. So no turkey? Well, I think I'm gonna do a turkey.

[Ezra Klein]

Probably your dry brined win, Melissa. I think keep it simple.

[Faz Shakir]

Yeah, that's the best. Well, there you have it, folks. No matter what kind of Thanksgiving you're cooking, you can find the recipes you [e-mail] Thanksgiving.

[Ezra Klein]

I think if you followed the growing alienation between the Democratic Party and the working class, one of the things you come to really fast here are cultural issues. And I mean, famously this was the subject of the most effective ad of the Trump campaign, right? Kamala Harris is for they them. Donald Trump is for you. But you see this to some degree on abortion. You saw it around a lot of questions that got called wokeness a couple of years ago. There is a way in which one way in which the Democratic Party is trouble representing the working class isn't that it won't talk about pharmaceutical prices, it's that it has just become culturally different, religiously different, et cetera. How do you think about that?

[Faz Shakir]

While recognizing that is the case, I start with a different assumption and be humble about acknowledging maybe I'm wrong. But you know, been doing this a bit and I feel like I have a strong view on this, which is people will respect your disagreement as long as they think it is honest and sincere, that you can explain it and that you are also simultaneously fighting alongside and with them on something they care deeply about. They'll give you a lack allowance for disagreements in certain realms. I think, you know, you take a lot of the social racial justice issues I mentioned to you at the beginning of doing a town hall and I drop you in and you go and talk to people. I intentionally started it on economic justice issues. That is where I know I'VE got a supermajority here. I'm gonna talk about how hard it is to be a middle class, working class person in this economy and give you some prescriptions. But then I'm also gonna, I'm not gonna leave you there. We're gonna walk through abortion and we're gonna talk about immigration. We're gonna talk about some racial justice issues. We're not gonna just end the town all at that. We're gon of those things. Recognizing that when I get to some of these, the orientation of my values, you're going to see why I care about some of those things. And I'm going to give allowance as I talk about them to say you can disagree with me, but I want you to know where I'm coming from. And that language, that way of not telling them that you're wrong, I'm right, but rather that we're all on our journeys. This is where I'm at. This is where I believe. This is why I fight for what I fight for. That I think is what people really desperately want is stand by your convictions, tell me what you really believe. Maybe you'll persuade me, maybe not.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, but how much with Bernie Sanders specifically is some of that allowance? A He is a cranky old white guy with a political profile from a very different era in politics and also a political profile that used to be different himself. Something that the people in the party frustrated at Bernie Sanders are saying right now is sure he used to outperform Democrats in Vermont, but he doesn't anymore. He ran very, very slightly behind Kamala Harris in this election. Election.

[Faz Shakir]

It's not quite, I mean if you dig in. So he outperforms there in all the northern country third party candidate run who outflanked him to the left on Gaza and got 7,000, 8,000 votes. And that's the reason. But to be clear, because she didn't have that.

[Ezra Klein]

But wait, I don't really buy this because you have third party candidates running. Was Jill Stein not on the ballot in Vermont?

[Faz Shakir]

Yeah, no, no, no, no. But the third party candidate was a well known commodity or known commodity who advocated had an actual campaign.

[Ezra Klein]

And the point I would make about this is, is that Bernie Sanders, he used to be much more pro gun. He used to be somebody who seemed to have very little patience for some of the cultural or what gets called by the academics post materialist turn in the Democratic Party. And over time he's become more part of the much more coalitional left and the people who followed him in politics the squad, et cetera.

[Faz Shakir]

He's moved with the country on guns. You gotta parse these out one by one. But the country has moved on guns itself, right? But if you do a talk about background checks right now in universal, not only universal background checks, but also getting guns out of schools, just safety measures, that is very strong majoritarian sentiment.

[Ezra Klein]

I'm not arguing about the politics of guns. What I am arguing about here a bit is that one of the reasons for Sanders success in politics, as I long understood it, is that he just seemed like he was from a class first wing of the Democratic Party. The people coming after him don't feel as much like that to me. Given that we see a lot of these, these divergences happening in different countries at the same time. I'm not sure the reason it just keeps happening is nobody's figured out how to show that they disagree with conviction. I think that there is a disagreement here between a lot of working class voters and a lot of not just the center left, but the actual left, which is in a very much further along with some of these questions than much of the country is. And I don't just mean here, by the way. I'm not just talking about trans rights. Bernie Sanders was out there calling to ban fracking. Right. His position on a lot of green energy things is very, very strong. I might agree on 80% of what he thinks there, but there's no doubt that if he ran in a general election, that would be things that he would get attacked on in Pennsylvania. There is a tendency for the left to not just believe in a higher minimum wage, which is what he talks about in interviews, but to believe in a huge basket of issues with very little compromise that a lot of people don't believe in and they're not there on and they don't want to see their gas powered car and so on.

[Faz Shakir]

But you glossed over the class based PRISM quickly, right? That to me is the divergence and why I would argue Bernie Sanders could go into a fracking community in Pennsylvania and still get respectful disagreements. See? Oh yes, you support my right to join a union. You support my right to adjust transition. I believe you're gonna give a damn about me if there is opportunity to get either new jobs that come into these communities. You do want a better life for me, I think that class based orientation helps you in a lot of these issues. Even immigration is the same base that class based prism I've heard Bernie Sanders talk about a bit. Not many others that we have Hyundai or a lot of Other companies in Alabama and Texas who exploit low wage workers and depress wages of workers create an uneven playing field. And that should matter. That should matter to all of us who care about rewarding work and dignity of work.

[Ezra Klein]

Where was Sanders in 2020 on the question of decriminalizing border crossing?

[Faz Shakir]

Well, you're playing my spot because I can't remember the question because we were supposed to go. This tells you about our campaign. You were saying, are we willing to say no? I came as a ACLU national political director to the campaign and we were asked to go to an ACLU forum at which to discuss this. I think all the other candidates didn't. We said no. We went to a Philadelphia AFL CIO event on the same day instead.

[Ezra Klein]

But just to be clear, I just asked my producer and Sanders supported.

[Faz Shakir]

Okay, gotcha. I trust you.

[Ezra Klein]

And the reason I ask this is. So there's a famous interview I did with Sanders years ago, and I asked him what he thought of open borders and he says it's Koch brothers plot.

[Faz Shakir]

Right.

[C]

If you believe in a nation state or in a country called the United States or UK or Denmark or any other country, you have an obligation in my view to do everything we can to help poor people. What right wing people in this country would love is an open border policy bringing and all kinds of people who work for two or three dollars an hour. That would be great for them. I don't believe in that.

[Ezra Klein]

It's funny because people always think that was me demanding you support open borders. But I'm always interested in what cuts people draw in their politics. And Sanders had always been much more skeptical of various forms of immigration reform than a lot of Democrats were. He had a different profile on that than a lot of Democrats did in that era. And he would come at it through this class based prism. But the reason I think the question about decriminalizing border crossing is interesting in 2020 is that as these broader trends took in the Democratic Party and in the left, they took hold on him, too.

[Faz Shakir]

Yeah. And it's fair that. And I think one of the things you saw happen during that period of time is the family separation, the asylum seeking during the period of Trump in which the really heinous, inhumane efforts by him to attack immigrants did have an effect on policy on the entire field. You're right that people wanted to distinguish in a bolder way from what Donald Trump was doing on family side.

[Ezra Klein]

And so I guess this brings me back to this question, which is whether one of the dimensions of populism has to be taken seriously. One of the dimensions of representation isn't just having honest disagreement, but actually representing in a bunch of ways the people you are trying to win over. If working class voters, what point do.

[Faz Shakir]

You want to drive? Like, I wouldn't argue. I mean, it's fair to say we should reflect on policy choices.

[Ezra Klein]

I guess here is the point I'm trying to draw out on. It's always very hard to work with the would Bernie of won and would Bernieism win question because in a way it's never truly been tested at the general election level.

[Faz Shakir]

Yes.

[Ezra Klein]

So Bernie didn't win the primary in 2016, he didn't win it in 2020. So he didn't have to run a general election campaign where he wasn't even just talking to Democrats. But people are really coming at him on these questions of banning fracking, on these questions of undocumented migrant crossings and whether or not you're going to keep that criminalized. And on one level, there's a version of this that is a very convenient answer for the Democratic Party. Disagree honestly and with conviction on everything where you disagree with more working class voters, but be much more forthright and populist in your economics and that'll win it for you. And the other argument is no, that wouldn't win it for you. That in some ways that the downsides of that have not been tested. And you have trouble with some of the voters you're saying you represent because you don't actually represent them. Because culture is not something people downgrade. They want candidates not who disagree with them honestly, they want candidates who represent them authentically and agree with. And if you ended up having to test that out, that's what you would find.

[Faz Shakir]

Hear me to say that I want class based populism testing of different kinds. Not yes, I love people to be like Bernie Gray. That's fine. You can also not be like Bernie and do class based populism. To be very clear, let's put a point on this, right? Could you argue against Ticketmaster is a giant monopoly and burns be that Shein with its importation of clothes from China has wrecked our American clothing industry. That I could go down the line of prescription drugs and cancer drugs that cost a hell of a lot, bank fees are gouging me, non compete bans are depriving, stopping liberty in the workplace. There are so many forms of populism, class based populism that are available. If you look at the political consulting industry of the Democratic Party, if I raised many of these things The IRS is now auditing the wealthy in private jet loopholes. It's not even as I would be like speaking a foreign language to them. This is not the thing.

[Ezra Klein]

I feel like I hear the Biden administration say stuff like that all the time and they actually passed a bunch of that.

[Faz Shakir]

What we're arguing here is going and campaigning before the American public to win elections about a particular story that the Democratic brand is affiliated and associated with. Not that is a nice technocratic point made by the national economic council on CNBC. I'm saying go before a town hall, that 100 person crowd, what is that story that you want to tell them about? Hi, I'm Democrat, this is my orientation and these, these are the problems that I'm going to address and concrete solutions that I'm going to be a wrecking ball in government to deliver for you.

[Ezra Klein]

In order to do this, does the Democratic Party need to unwind itself from what is now partially its coalition? So there's this quote from Chuck Schumer that's become kind of famous where he says for every blue collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two, three moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin. The voters who are most out there figuring out what to do are not the blue collar Democrats. They are the college educated Republicans who lean Republican or independent and in the suburbs. And I'm not sure exactly even he believes that anymore. I mean, this is from some election cycles ago, but there is an element of reality in this which is that the Democratic Party is now a much more affluent party than it used to be. It wins college educated voters by very significant margins and it has become a party that likes institutions. And I'm not saying Bernie Sanders loses all those people, but there is presumably trade offs among some of them. If you want to send a signal clearer enough that you really hate the way things are in this country and you are going to be much more class based in your politics and you're running inside a party that many of its voters come from the more educated and affluent classes, that you would lose all these suburbanites because they don't want to have their private health insurance abolished, they don't want to pay higher income taxes. Is there a period of losing? Why is you realigning your coalition?

[Faz Shakir]

The assumption that I am making again, I would love to test it and have Candace run on it, is that you would maintain that a large part, the vast majority of that coalition, you would keep Liz Cheney's in The tent. Would it make some of them uncomfortable? Sure. But I think we are wrongly assuming that there is a trade off. We don't know because we haven't tried. We aren't putting it first. I would like to try. That is the fight, that is the tension that I'm having with Democrats who say they're almost prejudging the outcome and saying, well, if you go and campaign against big banks and you rail against Big Pharma and you say that there's big oil collusion on raising gas prices, that somehow, oh man, we're not gonna get Liz Ch and Adam Kinzinger might run and all these other people, I'm like, no, that's not the reason they were there to begin with. They would like to win. They would like to prevent Donald Trump from winning and let's find the best way to win. And we're talking at the end of the day, I really firmly believe this, Ezra, is that we're talking about 3, 4, 5% on the margins and we're talking about that's the difference between that gets us to majorities at the House and the Senate and the presidency. I think it is this class based populism that gets you to that 3, 4, 5%. If we don't do it, it is more likely that it continues to drift in the JD Vance direction. 2028.

[Ezra Klein]

I guess putting aside the Adam Kinzinger's and Liz Cheneys and putting aside the very specific threat Donald Trump represents to institutions, can you really have a class based politics that doesn't. If you're going to afflict the comfortable, aren't you going to repel some of the comfortable? Does that create a push around things like taxes and just more kind of old school issues in American politics? Maybe one you want to make right. I think in some way the argument I would almost like to hear somebody say is yes, I would like to trade out some of the coalition because there are trade offs. I just think this part of the coalition is bigger and more just.

[Faz Shakir]

Exactly. Just to be on the math side of the equation, you are correct. Just to make that point that if you're talking about the working class, that's 2/3 of the workforce without a college degree. And then now as you rightly referenced, this other one is the one third who are doing well. And so when you start to leak from the 2/3 bucket. Yeah, you have a math problem there. And that's why the Schumer math doesn't add up is once you start leaking, you don't know where the bottom is. And we find with Donald Trump that enough leakage of votes in the working class will cause you to lose an election. So you want to fight for that. You don't want leakage there. And you're right that it may come to a point where some of the movement and Google, Google's a good example, right? Google donors. If you look at Google employees, I think they're one of the highest among employers, donors to the Democratic Party. Whereas on the other side of this, it's amazing, if you look at, I think Bloomberg did the study, UPS workers were one of the biggest constituencies of small dollar donors to Donald Trump. I would like that to flip, right? Not like a wholesale flip, but I would like, I don't mind losing a few more Google employees to gain more UPS drivers and workers. You got to make that argument. Yes, I'll make that trade and tell you clear. Indirectly, that's a direction I would go because it would be good for the Democratic Party. It would be good for the path of our future sustainability in politics. It would lead to good policy outcomes. Hey, it's John Chase and Mario Ihara from Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from the York Times. Mari, it is gift giving time. What's like something fun that my dad is going to enjoy.

[Ezra Klein]

We have these custom Funko Pops on our gifts for dads list. You can custom make a little bobblehead toy in the likeness of your dad. This is so hysterical. I had never seen these before.

[Faz Shakir]

They're amazing. For all of Wirecutter's gift ideas and recommendations, head to nytimes.com holidayguide.

[Ezra Klein]

So there's been a discourse that has emerged after the election and I've been part of it, where people are saying that one problem is that Democrats at many levels of government have stopped saying no to the groups. They have stopped saying no. And the way this codes is that you're saying they don't say no to the left. When I say they don't say no, I actually mean something much broader than that. Many of the people they need to say no to, many of the people they need not to demonstrate independence from, but be independent from are actually what I would think of as on the right of the party. Some of those are corporate interests, some of them are local interests. Sometimes they're unions, sometimes they're not unions. But all sorts of things create problems in different areas of governing. Something that I think connects candidates from very different directions who succeed is that people believe they are independent. People believe Bernie Sanders is independent and that to Me is part of the work of him not running as a Democrat, running as an independent, democratic, socialist candidate. People believe Donald Trump, because of his billions, is independent. When Barack Obama ran in 2008, people forget this, but he was a new face to politics, and he ran very much against special interests who he said were the ones who were ruining our politics. And one of the things that I think was difficult for Kamala Harris is that people didn't believe she was independent. Not that she was necessarily bought and paid for, just that she was a normal party politician. And in many different ways, what connects populists to me is that they're able to send some costly signal, not joining their party, coming from the outside, et cetera, that signals to people there are going to be somebody in there who says no in all kinds of different directions in order to solve problems in the way they should be solved. Because people believe politics is fundamentally corrupt and idiotic. And if you're too much a creature of politics, then you're going to reflect that corruption and idiocy too.

[Faz Shakir]

I'll flesh out deeper on the independence. I think you're right to say the word, but I will say that independence comes from a sense of a vision, a sense of conviction, and a sense that you mean what you say, that this isn't a game, this isn't theater. Somebody didn't just put some words in front of me and I read them. I'm telling you something that I deeply and honestly believe. And when you see that I deeply and honestly believe it, that that conviction resides in me, then when I go and advocate for it, it will manifest itself. So often when I talk to candidates who might have differences of opinions, all kinds of different views, the first question is, what do you honestly believe? Give me a place of conviction. My view on this kind of inside, outside thing that you're raising of groups or whatever the case might be, is that groups have play a role to just advocate sincerely with conviction. That's what you expect them to do. If you believe deeply in Gaza, fight, fight for Gaza, explain and advocate for it, build a political movement. But when you're a candidate in the arena, you make the judgments about what you believe is majoritarian and what is consistent with your values. So, for instance, Ezra, we went on the Joe Rogan show, as you remember, in the 2019 campaign.

[Ezra Klein]

I defended you in this. People got very mad at me.

[Faz Shakir]

Well, mad at you.

[Ezra Klein]

How's it going? Imagine how they felt about you.

[Faz Shakir]

Yeah, literally. I think the Human Rights Campaign launched the whole campaign against us. Move on said Bernie Sanders is disgrace to the communities for which he fights. And that's what we dealt with in real time. But we didn't say sorry, apologize, though this is the vision that we thought we were gonna go speak to a general election. Populist people with whom we disagree have long defended it, continue to defend to this day. The job of being in the political arena is to speak to people who aren't already on your side and to help make a case. That's why we're even having this conversation. But you're right that, you know, you need that conviction of being willing to.

[Ezra Klein]

Say, are we really so different? Vaz?

[Faz Shakir]

See, I can persuade you if we.

[Ezra Klein]

Are counting as people who disagree.

[Faz Shakir]

No, you.

[Ezra Klein]

But is this a cultural problem? Well, let me ask you this differently because I am going to say this is a cultural problem in the Democratic Party.

[Faz Shakir]

I was just having this conversation the other day with somebody. The disagreement feels harder and harder. I don't know if you feel that way, and that's why I kind of reached out to you is like, can we have disagreement where I don't say you're a terrible person for disagreeing with you.

[Ezra Klein]

Where do you think this culture that fears or avoids certain kinds of disagreement came from? You and I are about the same age. We came up in digital media around similar times. People may not know this about you, but you are founder of Think Progress. I don't feel like it felt like this. Then.

[Faz Shakir]

I agree. And we rose up at a time where it was actually disagreement that prospered. I mean, we were gonna say names. I'm gonna say names now that most people don't remember. But, like, whether you were Josh Marshall or Glenn Greenwald or Kevin Drum or Marcos or Matt Iglesias, whoever it might have been writing at the time, there was a desire for disagreement. And particularly in the Iraq war era and national security issues and tax cuts and Medicare partners, you remember all this stuff there, all kinds of issues going on, and there' desire to grapple with it. In many of the sense at that time was that we were in the wilderness and we need to have honest conversation. I think right now we are lacking in that. I refer to that word as populism, and you may have a different word for it, but that populism reconnects you with actual sentiment among regular people and wherever that is is missing. I don't see a lot of organizations on the left, as opposed to the right, whose job and desire is to reach scale, to talk to as many people as possible. And when you're trying to reach scale. You have to grapple with this disagreement. Different points of view.

[Ezra Klein]

How much do you think this is a story of media forms changing that then change the cultures of, at least in this case, the Democratic Party. And what I mean by that is, when we're talking about 2005-2010, let's call it that area, you have the mainstream media, these big platforms that are trying to be quite mass in. In that era, particularly wherever they dominate newspapers, they want everybody in what was then their geographical area to read them, and so they want to be broadly acceptable. And then you had blogging, which was very fractious. But I would describe blogging as you were in conversation with the people you were disagreeing with. Blogging was a highly conversational form. And the people you were most angry at, you were writing back and forth. And the two of you were often linking back and forth. And in the movement, to me, to social media, one of the things that it brought with it was instead of talking to the people you were angry at, you talked about the people you were angry at to the people you disagreed with. And you got the likes and got retweeted, and this culture emerged of you got engagement by drawing who was outside of your circle, who you didn't have to talk to. And at the same time, at the mass level of culture, there was a. A fracturing. And everybody was in competition with everybody, every newspaper against every other newspaper and against every magazine and Think Progress and Breitbart and everything was playing. And it created a push to focus on your niche. When there was that much competition, it created more push, even among the mass players, to define who they were for. So was this simply the result of the Internet making media more about talking to the people who agreed with you and differentiating yourself in terms of who you were targeting as your audience? And that also became how politics worked.

[Faz Shakir]

I think the substack ization, I love substack people. I read them. I'm sure you do too. But what we've lost in a substackized world, in the media environment in which everyone has, you know, small islands in which they talk to, is that we haven't found that super majoritarian outlets of how we convey news on the right. I would argue it exists. I watch them. I, you know, I not only watch Trump speeches, but like a lot of conservative media you'll see on YouTube itself, has millions and millions of subscribers and millions and millions of views. There aren't that many corollaries on the.

[Ezra Klein]

Left who Are you thinking of on the right there?

[Faz Shakir]

So Prageru, Daily Wire are certainly doing, you know, if you look at can.

[Ezra Klein]

You would describe what they're trying to do as super majoritarianism?

[Faz Shakir]

No, no, no. I'm saying that scale. I'm just saying, you know, when Trump is building a movement and he's trying to reach large numbers of people, I would argue to you, Ezra, you have the ability to reach scale with their vision and their arguments. Much better than right now. We are prepared to do on a center left to just reach millions and millions of people if tomorrow Kama Harris or Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders went out and had an important thing to say. We are still reliant largely on. You mentioned some traditional news outlets or you put paid media. This is why paid media matters so much to the Democratic side of the aisle, because that's a chief method of communication. Whereas I would argue on the right, you look at avenues that they just have millions and millions of people with whom they can start to just seed arguments, thoughts, ideas, and then they can grow from there. And I do think it matters, Ezra.

[Ezra Klein]

That scale issue, is this really such an advantage for the right? This is this huge blowout election for Donald Trump, the greatest win anybody could have imagined him had. And he's going to win, what, a point or two in the popular vote? It's a win, right? And when you win, you get the power in American government. But I could imagine a much stronger Republican performance given international trends in 2024 and think that is a party and a side that is figuring out how to talk to the people who don't find them appealing.

[Faz Shakir]

Respecting where you're coming from. I think I'm operating off a different baseline. I think given what I believe of Donald Trump and both his record and who he was and the types of things he wanted to campaign upon, I don't believe he could or should have gotten to a majority in this country. And what I would say. I'm somebody who watches lots and lots of Donald Trump speeches. I probably am well over 100. I watch them. I want to learn, I feel like I wanna learn what a populist candidate is trying to say and do out there. And I do tend to think on the left, the center left. We've stopped listening to him. And so you'll get like versions of, well, Donald Trump. All he's doing is spouting this anger and meanness of Enemy from Within and Arnold Palmer jokes. To be fair, it's all there but the thrust. If you listen to a Lot of Donald Trump's speeches and where he's kind of galvanizing working class. If you listen to even just the Joe Rogan conversation, it's around an economic vision that when you listen to it, here's no tax on tips, here's my tariffs plan. I've got a plan, an idea to do something about it. And I would argue to you that those things that we're often less talking about and the center left, he's able to actually reach regular people with his outlets more effectively get that message across. And that when you go to a town hall in Wisconsin and you talk about Social Security, this came up a lot. I stress tested myself, go around and say, hey, what'd you hear about Donald Trump on Social Security? Well, Democrats keep saying they're gonna protect Social Security, but Donald Trump says, he says there's no taxes on Social Security. What do you think about that? And like. Right. We haven't even engaged that conversation. They no tax on Social Security. It sounds good. It sounds like an expanded benefit. Right. My point is that he's able to get a message out like that that you and I may not even be living or seeing if we're not dialed in to what they're talking about.

[Ezra Klein]

I think in this way I would make a cut between two things in the Donald Trump media strategy or the Republican media strategy, which is on the one hand, I think that the Balkanization into outlets like Prageru and the Daily Wire has not been good for them. It has not been good for them intellectually, it has not been good for them politically. This year the Trump campaign concentrated much more on outlets that are fundamentally non political like Joe Rogan, but have become alienated from Democratic politics.

[Faz Shakir]

Say that again, Elon himself has a platform right in his own right. And you're right. Adin Ross, you know, Jake, Paul Theovon, Theo Vaughn, Lex Fridman, I mean there was a whole variety. You're right. This is the way Donald Trump does. His media is, he's willing and wants to reach out to a lot of people and have these kind. Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that the, you know, I didn't mean to take us down this road, just Prageru or whatever on the right. But I think they're part of an ecosystem in which the conservative arguments are dominating a center left style of arguments. That may be a better way to put it.

[Ezra Klein]

Bernie Sanders was on the Daily recently talking to my colleague Michael Barbaro about some of this and specifically about Rogan. And here's what he said when he was asked whether Harrison should have gone on Rogan.

[C]

Am I afraid of being on your show? I am not. Am I afraid of being on Joe Rogan's show?

[Faz Shakir]

No.

[C]

Bottom line is what every communications director knows is that there is a new world of media out there. And it's not just NBC, CBS, or the New York Times. It is podcasts, it is Joe Rogan, it is Fox News. It is young people who nobody in the Democratic leadership has ever heard of, who have YouTube programmers that attract millions of people. That is the reality. Can you ignore that? That is insane. Anyone who thinks you could ignore that reality is crazy. In my experience, not that I've been on millions of these shows, the people that I talk to treat me with respect. And I think you cannot be, you know, oh, Joe Rogan said this or he says that. Yeah, so what? You know, my wife disagrees with me on this or that issue. So what? You can't run away from somebody because they may have said something stupid or something that you disagree with. That's life. But most importantly, when you go on the show, what do you say? So Joe Rogan asked you, what do you think about the fact that we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before? Oh, well, I don't know. I can't answer that question. What do you think about the fact that we're the only major country not to guarantee healthcare? Well, gee, I'd like to not talk about that one. I don't want to offend the insurance companies. Why are we paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs? Well, I can't talk about that because, you know, I get money from. That's the problem. So, yeah, you gotta go on different outlets. Of course you do. But most importantly, you gotta know what you believe and what you're prepared to fight for and what your vision for the future of this country is.

[Faz Shakir]

Ezra, I was reminded of during that appearance when Bernie was out with Joe Rogan, that not to be a promo for that on the show, but there was a moment which Bernie is doing his conversation that you've heard a number of times of the system is rigged and that the tax rates for corporations is lower than you and I were. Any working class person is paying. And Joe Rogan, just as a regular person, says, why is that? But why? That seems to be illegal. And he goes, joe, it's because they write the laws. It was just so, just genuine and honest. That's what you get out of people wanting this type of conversation that Bernie Sanders is referencing. In a setting in which he is correct, that people are so hungry for education in these spheres, like they're hungry for knowledge. That's what you see people, I think, trying to gravitate to online is give me some honest discourse beyond what I hear as platitudes from political actors.

[Ezra Klein]

I want to catch on that platitudes from political actors because on the one hand, I so agreed with the first half of what Sanders said there. And on the other hand, sometimes he talks about a Democratic Party that I don't really recognize when he says, when he's implying there that if you asked a Democrat, I guess in this case Kamala Harris, but you really pick any generic Democrat what they thought about high income and wealth inequality and they would say, I don't know, I can't answer that question. I mean, that is not actually what generic Democrats say to that or that why are we paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs? Well, I can't talk about that because I get money from pharma.

[Faz Shakir]

But you're taking him too literally. Right. So what he is saying, I'll unpack it for you, but this is what.

[Ezra Klein]

I'm pushing you on a little bit.

[Faz Shakir]

Yes, go ahead. I mean, what he's saying obviously is that when we make choices to campaign, it's fine to say, hey, put a line in prescription drugs into your rally address. But the issue is so salient among so many people that they want to hear you really talk about, especially if you've been governing for three and a half years. Go and tell me this story of what we have been doing and what is next that we haven't just came, we saw, we conquered. Insulin prices are now capped for people on Medicare and that's it. Bernie Sanders was pushing Kamala behind the scene the whole campaign to say you suggested Biden did in the State of the Union, a cap for people who, who aren't on Medicare. So basically the people on Medicare are going to get this great benefit this year, but what about the people who aren't? Why don't we continue to push that? And if you do, that policy design that we're now talking about blends itself into a story. That's the power of it, not to stick it into the prompter and read it one time.

[Ezra Klein]

This goes to something you've said a couple times in this conversation, which is that you have to mean it. And one of the reasons, I think that Bernie Sanders is not scalable in the way that Donald Trump isn't in the way that a Lot of great politics, is it? He means it. Sanders is just genuinely appalled by the nature of American capitalism and the corruption of the American political system in a way other candidates who might actually support many of the same ideas aren't.

[Faz Shakir]

And that. I keep referencing the word populism. That is what I mean, right? It has come from a realness, not that we fed it into a 30 second ad and we put it in front of you. The 32nd AD work works best when it works off of the authenticity of candidates who people already believe to some degree what you've been saying, what you've been doing. And now I connect it with the way in which you advertise.

[Ezra Klein]

We've been talking about individuals here, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden and this person and that person. What about the party itself? You've talked about listening tours. What do you understand the Democratic Party institutionally to be now? And what would you like it to be? And how would you like it to show up in people's lives?

[Faz Shakir]

When I talk to most people around the country and say, what is a Democrat? What does it ask of you? It asks nothing of you. It says, give me $20, give me $35. It is a fundraising vehicle. And a Democratic Party, I think, has to be reconstituted to be of service in communities. You know, when you're thinking about in a period of inflation, when people are dealing with high utility rate hikes, I would love to see a Democratic Party that says, hey, on the ground here. We're fighting against an unjust rate hike in when Starbucks workers organize in their local community. That's an immense act of courage to go up against employer and say, hey, I would like to be recognized. I want the Democratic Party to stand with them when East Palestine happens. I want a Democratic Party that says, hey, we here rally in support of a community. Because fundamentally our ethic is that we want people to be in service of one another, but also structurally, we need institutions that represent us. So it reconceives a bit of. Of what our value is in society beyond the tactics of door knocking, phone banking, small dollar donation. All good, all fine. But to reclaim what the Democratic Party brand is, is inconsistency with our values. And our aims of improving government has to make us much more involved in society. And you see on the right, arguably they have better civic organization, right? Whether it's a homeschool association, gun club, you know, you name it, there's a lot of churches. It facilitates and aids them. And when you look at rural America and what's Desire to be part of something. Right now, the Democratic Party and the left in the decline of unionization has meant there aren't as many avenues for being part of something.

[Ezra Klein]

And how does the Democratic Party start on that? How does it reconnect? How does it begin to build muscle or civic infrastructure that it doesn't currently have?

[Faz Shakir]

Well, we gotta open the doors. I mean, it is a closed club right now. And, you know, most people don't even know who the voting members are within the dnc, it's fine. But you do want to open the doors, particularly at a time when you feel like you're starting to lose your currency with people in New Jersey, New York, California. Look at the sways of this, right? Large numbers of people in most populous areas moving away from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. It should send an alarm bell, right? And it's open the doors and get out into communities and hold listening sessions. That's why I love going to UAW town halls or union town halls, because it bring people of different walks together and just listen and ask questions, basic questions. What does being a Democrat mean to you? What does the brand mean? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it?

[Ezra Klein]

Right.

[Faz Shakir]

What do you want us to hear? What do you want us talking about? What do you not like us talking about? And just let that help inform this process.

[Ezra Klein]

Why do you think they haven't been doing that? Why? Do you understand the Democratic Party has, and parties in general have deteriorated from being as muscular in people's lives as maybe they once were?

[Faz Shakir]

Yes, I like that word, Ezra. That's a good one. Muscular, because it requires that. And we've been comfortably winning to a degree without it. Right. Because of the Trump era and what it does. And you could say all kinds of effects that Trump era has had on the Democratic Party. You're able to win in a lot of ways on the overreaction, disapprovals of him. And that false comfort of winning can pull you apart from where actual community attitudes are about an affirmative vision and brand of a Democratic Party. You're just saying, hey, what the other side is offering up is just so unacceptable. And that can get you through. That's where we're losing. The quote, unquote, populism. That's the word. And I welcome other people having different words. But that gets you closer to and compels you to go into forums and have dialogue, have disagreement. It just pulls you into these zones. The best politicians we've got going on in the Democratic Party are just genuinely and organically, organically interested in doing that kind of thing.

[Ezra Klein]

I think that is a good place to end. So always our final question, what are three books you'd recommend to the audience?

[Faz Shakir]

So first is Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel, justice philosopher at Harvard. Second one, leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. Just an ethic of the way Elisa helped inform me and the way I think about leadership and pushing for, with conviction outcomes that we care about. And you know, I love the books that like bring culture and politics together. So there's books like, you know, Chuck Klosserman's the 90s, which I enjoyed a lot. But the one that also just came to my mind was I think it's called Don't get above the Raisin, which is a story about country music and how it infused Southern working class politics. By Bill Malone.

[Ezra Klein]

Faz Shakir, thank you very much.

[Faz Shakir]

Thank you, Ezra.

[Ezra Klein]

This episode of the Ezra Klein show is produced by Roland Hu, Fact Checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair, mixed mixing by Isaac Jones with Aman Sahota and Afim Shapiro. Our supervising editor is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Elias Isquith, Kristen lin and Jack McCordick. We have original music by Pat McCusker, audience strategy by Christina Samielewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Switch and Bored Podcast Studio.