S4 Ep59: "Beyoncé Ain't Paying My Bills, B*tch." (with Astead Herndon)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Focus Group Podcast - S4 Ep59: "Beyoncé Ain't Paying My Bills, B*tch." (with Astead Herndon)

Introduction

In the premiere episode of the fourth season of The Focus Group Podcast, host Sarah Longwell engages in a candid discussion with Astead Herndon, the host of The Run Upstead, a New York Times podcast. Released on November 30, 2024, this episode serves as the first installment in a miniseries aimed at dissecting the recent election results. Sarah introduces the series by outlining their objective: conducting an autopsy of the election to understand the factors that led to the current political landscape, particularly focusing on the reasons behind the success of Donald Trump's coalition and the shortcomings of the Democratic campaign.

Economic Concerns: The Core Issue

A significant portion of the conversation centers around the economic dissatisfaction among voters. Both hosts emphasize that economic issues, such as inflation, rising living costs, and stagnant wages, were paramount in influencing voter behavior.

• Sarah Longwell [05:27]: "They're like, cool infrastructure, but like, I'm not making enough money."

• Astead Herndon [16:13]: "I don't see my dollar going any farther."

Voters expressed frustration over everyday expenses, housing affordability, and the perception that their financial struggles were ignored by the administration. Sarah shares personal anecdotes from focus groups highlighting concerns like exorbitant grocery prices and unattainable mortgage rates.

Democratic Messaging Failures

The discussion delves into the Democratic Party's inability to effectively communicate its achievements and policies to the electorate. Despite significant bipartisan legislation under Joe Biden's administration, these accomplishments failed to resonate with voters.

• Sarah Longwell [04:54]: "If you listen to this podcast is not coming through to voters. They didn't know about it."

Astead adds that Democrats struggled with narrative control, often appearing to be out of touch with the public's immediate concerns. The focus on systemic issues like democracy and long-term reforms overshadowed the urgent economic problems voters were facing.

Identity Politics vs. Economic Messaging

Both hosts critique the Democratic Party's heavy reliance on identity politics, arguing that it alienated key voter groups. They assert that while representation is important, it should not overshadow addressing tangible economic and social issues.

• Sarah Longwell [57:03]: "What people want to know is, man, what are you going to do for me?"

• Astead Herndon [60:31]: "The belief that had to be undone was one whose assumptions were at the minimum, reductive and I would argue a little racist."

They discuss how the party's focus on identity markers like race and gender did not translate into effective policy advocacy, leading to voter disillusionment and a sense of tokenization.

Candidate Performance: Kamala Harris Under Scrutiny

A centerpiece of the episode is the critique of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. Sarah and Astead analyze Harris's lack of clear policy positions and perceived inauthenticity, which contributed to voter distrust.

• Sarah Longwell [39:35]: "She said, nothing. Oh, my God. Four more years of the same sorry girl."

• Astead Herndon [44:09]: "Kamala Harris was on our podcast, and I think I have done more reporting about her as a political individual than most people in national media."

They highlight failures in Harris's communication strategy, noting her inability to break away from Joe Biden's legacy and present a distinct, relatable persona to the electorate. The hosts also touch upon the negative perceptions surrounding her media appearances and debate performances.

Media Environment and Communication Challenges

The episode explores the evolving media landscape and its impact on political campaigns. Sarah emphasizes the need for candidates to engage authentically across diverse media platforms, a challenge Harris struggled to meet.

• Sarah Longwell [56:03]: "It's always the best one."

• Astead Herndon [45:18]: "If you are someone who has done a couple of these efforts with her, she resists being numb. She does not want you to feel as if you know her."

They argue that the fragmented media environment requires politicians to maintain a consistent and genuine presence, something Harris failed to achieve, thereby weakening her campaign's effectiveness.

Identity Politics Critique

Sarah and Astead further critique the Democratic Party's approach to identity politics, arguing that it often feels prescriptive and disconnected from the lived experiences of diverse voter groups.

• Sarah Longwell [66:24]: "We are so obsessed with identity. And this is what people say, identity politics."

• Astead Herndon [68:07]: "They have been rebuilding the rubble of their absolute certainty. The Republicans couldn't win things like the popular vote anymore. So that's like the why I think it's important and I think we should acknowledge what it actually means for that idea to die."

They contend that the party's emphasis on specific identity markers without addressing broader economic and social issues leads to voter alienation and undermines trust.

Voter Authenticity and Trust

A recurring theme is the importance of authenticity and honesty in political communication. The hosts argue that voters are perceptive and can discern when politicians are being insincere or evasive.

• Sarah Longwell [73:12]: "They know how to focus group their way to the right answer, when I'm not sure that that's the lesson I get from voters."

• Astead Herndon [55:38]: "The lesson I get from voters is be truthful."

They emphasize that building trust requires acknowledging past shortcomings and engaging transparently with voters' immediate concerns.

Conclusion

In conclusion, The Focus Group Podcast Episode S4 Ep59 provides a critical analysis of the Democratic Party's strategies and failures in recent elections. Sarah Longwell and Astead Herndon highlight the paramount importance of addressing economic issues, communicating authentically, and moving beyond reductive identity politics to rebuild trust with a diverse electorate. They suggest that without these changes, the Democratic Party risks further alienation of key voter groups, paving the way for opposing coalitions to gain traction.

Notable Quotes

• Sarah Longwell [16:10]: "I keep seeing that inflation is decreasing, but I won't speak for anybody else, but it may be decreasing, but I don't see my dollar going any farther."

• Sarah Longwell [39:35]: "She said, nothing. Oh, my God. Four more years of the same sorry girl."

• Sarah Longwell [59:43]: "Beyoncé ain't paying my bills is the exact quote."

• Astead Herndon [45:18]: "If you are someone who has done a couple of these efforts with her, she resists being numb. She does not want you to feel as if you know her."

• Astead Herndon [55:38]: "The lesson I get from voters is be truthful."

Key Takeaways

1. Economic Dissatisfaction: Economic issues remain the primary concern for voters, overshadowing policy details and partisan rhetoric.
2. Messaging Disconnect: The Democratic Party failed to effectively communicate its achievements and address voters' immediate economic concerns.
3. Identity Politics Pitfalls: Overreliance on identity politics without substantive policy proposals leads to voter alienation.
4. Candidate Authenticity: Kamala Harris's perceived inauthenticity and lack of clear policy positions hindered her campaign's success.
5. Media Engagement: Effective engagement across diverse media platforms is crucial for modern political campaigns.
6. Trust and Honesty: Building trust with voters requires transparency, acknowledgment of past shortcomings, and honest communication about policy and vision.

This episode underscores the necessity for the Democratic Party to realign its strategies, prioritize economic issues, and foster genuine connections with voters to regain its footing in future elections.

Transcript

[Sarah Longwell]

Foreign. And welcome to the focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, and we are back for the next couple of weeks to do an autopsy on the election results, an extended autopsy. We're going to look at how we got here and give you an update on what the newly minted members of Trump's coalition have told us since the election about why they voted for him. But we're not going to Monday morning quarterback every Harris campaign decision. Every campaign makes mistakes, and I think they, you know, they did an all right job playing a pretty bad hand. But what I want to talk about is why the voters found this campaign wanting. That's the only way we're going to learn anything about this election. So today's show is the first in a miniseries we're doing before the end of the year. Today we're going to diagnose where things went wrong over the last few years for Democrats. And in the coming weeks, we'll walk through where things went right for Donald Trump and where we're headed from here. My guest today is Asted Herndon, host of the excellent New York Times podcast, the Run Upstead. Thank you for coming back again.

[Astead Herndon]

Yay. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm so glad you're here because you and me, we talk to voters, man. We listen to voters.

[Astead Herndon]

We do. We do. You know, I think this is an election that's really proved the value of that all around, from the double haters to the switch to kind of the things that transpired in the last couple of weeks. I really think that more than any of the specifics, the hearing people as full voices has really come through. And so I appreciate your work on that front.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And I appreciate yours. And I never miss it in part. One of the things I like is I think when you do this stuff, you want to make sure, like, right. What I'm hearing is, is what other people who listen to people are hearing.

[Astead Herndon]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

I've not created my own kind of weird echo chamber, and so I always find it validating to listen to your stuff. But I gotta say, I also have really appreciated you just out in the world talking because we listen to voters, sometimes we have to deliver pretty unpleasant truths to people about what the voters are saying. And it's tough for people to kind of stomach what they're hearing. And I'm willing to sort of talk through what I have felt were even some of my blind spots, even listening to voters, some of, like the selection of who you listen to because I think one of the things that became really clear to me as we have now gone through and done many, many groups of people who voted for Clinton, voted for Biden and then switched to Trump. We did several groups like that, but I don't know that we did enough for me to see just how significant the movement was going to be for a lot of these people who, you know, they're just like casual Democrats who basically got red pilled. They're not Republicans now, but they got red pilled.

[Astead Herndon]

No, I think that's totally true. I mean, it's funny cuz I think we all look back at pieces of our coverage and think, oh, this part of the electorate came out in a bigger way. But you know, I think the one thing that it really comes through to your point, was the unpopularity of Joe Biden.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[Astead Herndon]

Just sunk everything.

[Sarah Longwell]

Everything.

[Astead Herndon]

And it's something that I think you could tell yourself and I think I sort of thought too that Democrats have broken some of the trap from that with the candidate switch. And I think there's some reasons that we'll probably talk about that that didn't go fully how they want it. But it reminds me that just like the year and a half, two years that led to that point are actually just so important because I think by even the time they're making that type of switch, obviously Democrats are running from behind in terms of literal kind of horse race stuff. I just think they're narratively running behind too. And so even the things that we were picking up over the last several months were still them climbing out of this kind of more than even just a Biden age hole, but a sense of lack of progress, a sense of broken faith. I came in that night knowing that mattered, but the results made me think, like it wasn't clear to me coming into that night that that would be like the biggest thing that mattered. That's definitely something that came through for me. But to your point, you're glad to do that work going ahead because you can look back and say, oh, I did have this conversation, I could have had it three more times and then maybe would have matched up with the result in a closer way. But I'm glad that we were on the fundamental fact of the race, which is people navigating their distaste with the status quo and with this administration.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And that is where your and my commentary ends up being quite similar. And one of the places where we were on the very unpopular side was the post Joe Biden debate where we were like, no, he has to drop out. And you can correct me if I'm wrong in this, but that was borne out not just of the debate. I had certainly been of the opinion Joe Biden cannot run again. And I was sort of annoyingly relentless about that for a period of time. Then it became absolutely clear he was going to. There was no way he was going to drop out. And so I like let it go. But like, it was in all the data how much people didn't want Joe Biden. And it wasn't just his age. The age was kind of a stand in for like, he's not up for this.

[Astead Herndon]

It was a filter. Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, we're going to play it in the groups, but it's all over the people who voted for him last time and didn't vote for him this time. Look, actually Joe Biden did a lot, passed a lot of big bipartisan legislation. And so if you're a close political observer, you could be like, but wait, he did a lot of things. But I can also tell you, and was telling people all along, if you listen to this podcast is not coming through to voters. They didn't know about it. And if they knew about it, it wasn't what they cared about. It didn't feel like it was the thing that they needed, even infrastructure. They're like, cool infrastructure, but like, I'm not making enough money.

[Astead Herndon]

And I just think it's so important to make both of those points. Like one, it was really clear that stuff wasn't cutting through. And. And then it also is important to say, like, it's not really true to say he didn't do anything on climate. So I think about this with the democracy piece a lot too. There's been a lot of discussion about the ways it didn't land. And I think that it's important. And I've been a part of kind of like calling out the way I think they were working from a democracy message that was more that Donald Trump is just bad more than it was okay, here's how we're gonna improve and strengthen our political system. But that being said, that doesn't make what they're saying that Donald Trump is a threat to it false. And I tell this all the time to people. I'm like, it's not clear to me that the people I were talking to were voting for Trump as an endorsement of that disruption. Not all of them. If I was at a rally, yeah. Where they have been motivated by the deep state and schedule F and whatever, for sure. But a lot of those type of people we're talking about who I think were persuaded by him or were persuaded by voting against the administration. I don't think they wanted Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. So both sides of that piece are really important. You know, I hear some liberals say like, oh, this is America's mass endorsement of MAGA ideology. And I just don't think that's true either.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't either. And I have this fight with my best friend over here at the Bullwork. JB Last. We do podcasts together. They don't know who Matt Gaetz is. These voters, they don't care. Now, a lot of them know who RFK is and they know who Elon Musk is, and they like Elon Musk, which is why I say they're more red pilled than Republicans.

[Astead Herndon]

That's the thing I missed. RFK really worked for him, like, in a way that I did not fully see coming. Like in Georgia, I saw these Make America Healthy Again hats and I was like, man, it's actually kind of working. The Democrat dysfunction, the anti Big Pharma. I remember thinking like, okay, it's a choice to use Tulsi Gabbard and Marf K over Nikki Haley or whatever, but it again becomes a thing that the Trump campaign is fairly right about, that the Nikki Haley voters of the world will flow to them. And who they brought in was the type of people who are interested in this other cast of characters or, or.

[Sarah Longwell]

A lot of those Nikki Haley voters were already Biden voters. And so like they were anti Trump, so some of them went back to him. Some of them were those double haters, and some of them were already Biden voters. But like the Nikki Haley voters, there was fewer of them than this massive group of kind of working class, multiracial, multiethnic coalition that was like RFK fine in the next episode and not this one. And I promised my producer I wouldn't preempt it, but I can't help it because there was a woman who was like, I voted first for Elon, second for rfk, you know, third for Tulsi, then for Trump. And there was Democrats, you know, or people who'd voted Democrat in the past. And it brought along so many of these people. And I think I was pretty sure RFK was going to pull more from Trump than for Biden. There was a lot more overlap there.

[Astead Herndon]

Yes.

[Sarah Longwell]

But then the thing that I didn't quite realize, I think is like the scale of how much then RFK really did move, those late deciding independents. I would Just say, if I had one piece of analysis that I think was wrong, it was that to me, the late breaking independents were going to break for Kamala. And I saw those late breaking independents as being sort of the Nikki Haley voters. But that's not who the late breaking independents were. The late breaking independents were people for whom rfk, Elon and Tulsi made them vote for Trump.

[Astead Herndon]

And I think that's a huge point. And if I go back to the last couple of weeks, we were hearing from the campaigns more, right? We were hearing data and I remember Plouffe and them saying they think they can win all seven swing states and some of that being tied back to the Puerto Rico Madison Square Garden comments or whatever. It be me being like, okay, it does seem as if on their premise of the race of are you gonna be reminded of Donald Trump's worst qualities? That may have happened over the last couple weeks. But when I hear kind of some of the post mortems, one thing I really take away is I think the Democratic brass is too stuck in a moderate, liberal, progressive framework of the election.

[Sarah Longwell]

It no longer matters the way it used to.

[Astead Herndon]

Where you the idea that late breaking means moderate or independent means moderate or whatever that is, I really think that's an idea he's put to bed in this election. That's like one of my takeaways is that's already something that we know, right? Like Twitter talks way too much ideological rigidity. Like very few people really sort their politics into those neat boxes. But I do think we have to reframe even how we saw Double Hater. Like Double Hater didn't bring you back to Joe Manchin or Third Way, right? Like for a lot of those people, some of the choice was anti system establishment, some of the choice was disruption, status quo. And like those don't really fit on these neat lines like that. And so when I hear people talk about the answer to this is you have to stop talking about cultural issues and project your moderateness more clearly. I'm like, maybe. But I think more so than even being a moderate, that speaks to like someone like frontally owning their beliefs and like authenticity. And I do think the Democrats need more of that, but I actually don't even think that has to be one side or the other. Like, I think people overrate Bernie as a hardcore progressive in his coalition and not just a guy who people have a sense of what they believe in, you know, and so you can take these strict lessons, but you also can take a broad one which is like you can't kabuki theater your way into beliefs. Like, you might want to tell them.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that's right. Oh, man, we've got to get to the focus group sound. But one of the things you just hear over and over again is like, I didn't know what they stood for. I didn't know what they were saying. Opportunity, economy. It's funny because it's like a focus grouped to desk kind of thing. But, like, actually doesn't appeal to voters because they're like, I don't know what that means, and I don't know what authoritarianism means either. And so, like, these are not things that are motivating me. And in a way, Donald Trump. I mean, boy, do people in the group say, I hate the guy. Like, one person is just like, he's a piece of shit.

[Astead Herndon]

But I actually haven't heard someone like Donald Trump in a long time.

[Sarah Longwell]

No, they don't like him.

[Astead Herndon]

Everyone works from the premise of I don't like.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right.

[Astead Herndon]

I'm at his rally and they're working from the premise of I don't like.

[Sarah Longwell]

And this is where, look, I did not think that she was gonna win all seven swing states. I thought her path was an extremely narrow one through the blue wall states and that she could pull that off. But, like, people think we're on some kind of a spectrum that goes from right to left, and it's some line and it's linear. And that's why phrases, I mean, I use them because when we talk to each other, people who are invested in politics the way we are, we know what we mean, but, like, they're a little bit meaningless for real. Like, center rights, center left, whatever. To be able to study politics, you have to be able to categorize things. But the human mind is a weird salad of references and things that appeal.

[Astead Herndon]

And everyone who talks like that kind of knows how they're gonna vote. I think about the 20, 19, 20 Democratic primary. Like, if you could place those candidates on a continuum of moderate to progressive, you are not the person who are deciding this race. Like, you already had a sense of how you felt ideologically. I remember talking to all these people who torn between Bernie and Bloomberg at the time in which Bloomberg was coming up. And I just remember thinking like, yeah, this is actually where the Twitter analysis or the kind of elite level framing isn't helpful because it happened enough times where I was like, in some hand. I can see how someone would think these are contradictory things, like anti billionaire, billionaire at the minimum. But really what they meant, and particularly in the primary where they were talking a lot about electability was I think they wanted a guy, a guy who had a sense of his beliefs and felt would appeal because at that time I think there was a sense that women, people of color, weren't gonna appeal at the top of the ticket. And so you have to pull through some of that implicit what electability means. But I also think you have to pull through the policy too, because it's not as if they're flowing to Bernie because he's anti capitalist. It is because there's a worldview that I feel like makes me trust this politician and trust that they will have my best interest in mind if in office, even if those worldviews are contradictory.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes. And one thing I tell people all the time is how many people who voted for Trump in 2016 were Bernie people. It is not linear in the way that people think. Anyway, one thing we haven't talked about and I, but I want to jump in with, because it was sort of all over the data and we all knew it and I think it's so obvious, it's the reason we haven't talked about it. It's the economy. Right. Like incumbent parties have been underperforming all over the world because people were very dissatisfied with the post Covid economy. America was no exception. And we open every focus group the same way. How do you think things are going in the country? And anybody who listens to this show knows the answer for a very long time has been bad. Going all the way back actually to the Trump years. Basically since COVID hit, the answer has been bad. And you say why? They wouldn't say a woman's right to choose. They'd say it's inflation, things are too expensive. And so let's listen to what both Trump to Biden voters and more Democratic leaning voters have told us about the state of the economy over the last couple of years. We're going to go back. Well, I have four kids, 28 to 20 and you know, they have like blue collar jobs, like one is in school. They can't afford to even rent right now. You know, like everything is so expensive. $8 for, you know, a bag of salad. And I feel so bad. I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to have like a multi generational house because like everything is so expensive right now. Just to buy a house in Wisconsin is like 300,000 for a tear down. Basically.

[Astead Herndon]

There are food items that I used.

[Sarah Longwell]

To buy and I just don't buy them anymore because I just, I can't bring myself to paying that amount for something that I paid so much less for in the past. Everything's pretty stagnant. Money's not worth as much.

[Astead Herndon]

I'm getting 4.3% in a savings account. I remember back when that was a five year CD rate. That's pretty insane. So money is definitely worth a lot less. I'm 33 with 2 kids, I make decent money. But here, lately, past couple of years, it does not feel like it at all.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I'd say we're in a pretty bad spot. But they're making up all these charges, oh, your gas really isn't near $4 a gallon when under Trump is $2. Or oh, your home prices are $450,000 with 10% interest. But we don't want you to look at all these things that impact you. We want you, oh, Trump is going to be put in prison.

[Astead Herndon]

I, I keep seeing that inflation is.

[Sarah Longwell]

Decreasing, but I won't speak for anybody else, but it may be decreasing, but I don't see my dollar going any farther. Gas prices are rising again. Just basic everyday living costs are outrageous at this point. Mortgage rates, example.

[Astead Herndon]

I don't know how anybody's going and.

[Sarah Longwell]

Getting new houses with 7, 8% rates. Fortunately I locked mine in at two and a half years ago and I can't imagine going, you know, up that 7, 8% right now. You go to the store, wherever you go shopping and you get like three bags of groceries, like $80 and I take out like four items. You know what I mean? It's like vegetables and chicken. It's like, you see other countries and they have the healthiest products, we have the crappiest products in our foods and yet for us to eat healthy, we have to pay triple the price.

[Astead Herndon]

Everyone I know is always unemployed.

[Sarah Longwell]

With inflation rising, wages aren't rising, rents in cities are extraordinarily high. People aren't able to buy houses anymore on middle class salaries. It seems the rich are getting richer.

[Astead Herndon]

The poor are getting poorer, crime is.

[Sarah Longwell]

Really bad in cities.

[Astead Herndon]

I guess I'll just stop there.

[Sarah Longwell]

I know that supposedly the economy is doing better, like the GDP is up in things, but for me it does not feel that way. I know that some things are cheaper, but overall life just is getting more expensive. Trying to buy a house right now, like I told my parents that if people my age or younger like they don't have a house now, they're not.

[Astead Herndon]

Going to have one.

[Sarah Longwell]

So just to reiterate, they're not people catastrophizing about the economy out of tribal loyalty, you know, or partisan, because that's real. There are people who are like, the economy is terrible, even though they themselves are doing quite well. And my colleagues. Jonathan last tends to sort of focus on those people and be like, these people are liars, I'm sure. But the economic pain, especially among these working class voters who moved in a big way, again, it's multiracial coalition. The cost of living mattered a great deal.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I know you saw this a huge deal.

[Astead Herndon]

I mean, it was consistent. I remember when we started the run up, heading into the 22 midterms, and it was really fortunate, just in my own terms of, like, reporting brain. And so we did all of this reporting for the couple months leading into that, where I called back a ton of the people I had met in the 2020 trail. And the vibes that summer were horrible. Yeah, were absolutely horrible. Dobbs had just happened. And before Dobbs became an electoral opportunity for Democrats, it was a reminder of our system. Most people were really upset and felt like they could do nothing about it and felt like the conservatives had kind of a permanently captured beyond what the Democratic voting presidency could do, which is true. Right. So I'm saying, like, that was a huge deal. Inflation was soaring at that point. You had a legitimate immigration crisis. And I just think there can be something that happens in politics where maybe because the Democrats did better than expected in the midterms, a lot of folks pretended like those feelings weren't real. And those feelings were not only really real, I think it settled a sense of, like, malaise around the administration that I don't think they recovered from.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And so to the point about inflation specifically, that was the big one. We went to a Walmart in Wisconsin and we like grocery shopped with these folks. And I remember everyone. I mean, this is Dr. Independent. This is like we just went to this Walmart that was closing in West Milwaukee and it was the number one reason people were upset with the administration and their willingness to bring Trump back was my life wasn't like this then. And that always superseded the more academic. I don't like saying academic because I think they're real fears, but I think for some voters, they are interpreted as theoretical fears because he was in office and we still have a democracy. Right. So why are you telling me this again when my life is tangibly, immaterially worse?

[Sarah Longwell]

I gave a TED Talk about this. People get pretty annoyed with me at the sort of voters don't care about democracy, which is, I don't mean that they don't care about it at all. I do mean that democracy is a bit of a luxury item and it's not in reality because it undergirds everything that we do. But to voters who, when they can tell you the exact price of milk and how much it's gone up and how much more expensive it is for their families, and then you try to talk to them about but he's a threat to democracy or, you know, this or that, they're kind of like, okay, but I was making more when he was there and sort of that's it, like that's the end of the conversation.

[Astead Herndon]

Well, I think in part, I mean, this reminds me of like back when I did to pate in high school. A very unsurprising sentence. There's like inherency. Right. Like, I think partly Democrats have assumed that everyone agrees that democracy is working right now. And so then Donald Trump is a threat to it. And that is a motivating factor. But I can think back to when we were in Ohio following minimum wage organizers and did this thing specifically about poverty, not middle class ness. Right. Most of those people we are meeting at those events or in those neighborhoods, they don't think the current political system is serving them. They think that it is already captured by career politicians, it's already captured by big money interests. And so the argument that Donald Trump will disrupt that I don't think hits for them because they don't even see it as serving them. And so if Democrats were telling people, we understand your concerns that democracy is broken and Donald Trump is exploiting that in a poor fashion or is gonna use that for his personal benefit. But here are the ways that we can make Washington work better, then I think that's a real democracy argument.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

Cuz I think they're both working from the premise that something isn't going well right now.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right.

[Astead Herndon]

And I think that is the bigger feeling I hear. Right. Donald Trump says things are going well with our political system right now, but it's not like that was the message from Democrats.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right.

[Astead Herndon]

And so I totally understand why it is seen as a luxury item. And if you are someone who has not been served by our political or economic system, they're not even talking in their language.

[Sarah Longwell]

So the other thing I try to really get through to is like when you just say the word democracy, people are not hearing.

[Astead Herndon]

They're not even hearing you in the same way.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, they're not. I mean, sometimes I See, these polls come out and it's like, well, 68% of Americans are worried about democracy. And I hear my friends in the democracy space or in the Democrat would be like, see, they care about this stuff. And I'm like, no, a bunch of those people think that Democrats stole the last election. And a lot of those people are.

[Astead Herndon]

Donald Trump voting Republicans. That's right.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's exactly right.

[Astead Herndon]

And the other people who I do think, do think that it's on the line are people who already think it's gone. You know, who people already think that it's not working. And so one thing I do think, particularly when we talk about the kind of multiracial coalition of it all, is I also think Democrats haven't really understood that for a lot of people, a lesson they took from the Obama era was that representation did not materially improve their lives. That is a big lesson that working class black people took. And I'm pretty sure that translates to other minority groups too. But they have put this huge emphasis on people being in the room and seeing yourself and all of those type of things. And Lord knows, I'm not trying to say that doesn't matter. I don't think that's meaningless, but I do think they haven't acknowledged just who it's most motivating for. And it's motivating for people who see themselves in those rooms, right? Like, who see themselves as related to Ketaji Brown Jackson or Kamala Harris or whoever you wanna talk about. And that's not true for all of those folks. Right. And so for a lot of people, it reminds me of the ways affirmative action arguments can get muddled, is because, yeah, there's a whole bunch of group of people who are fighting about how many people of color are at Harvard, but the majority of people of color are thinking about college broadly. They're not in that conversation. And so to the point about not speaking the same language, I think that they asked themselves for real, did they calibrate these messages for poor and working class Americans? Like, no, I don't really think so. I thought that was their strategy, to be honest. I thought they thought they were gonna tailor our message more to the people who most consistently vote. We're gonna force Donald Trump to do the harder thing, which is change the scope of the electorate and bring some of these people out. And the problem is he did.

[Sarah Longwell]

He did. This is not even in anything I was trying to talk about, but there's this fight, right, about like, well, just spending the time with Liz Cheney Was that a mistake? And you can totally see in the data why they made that choice. And you can see that they were saying, like, these people are definitely gonna vote. They don't like Donald Trump. So we only gotta make them do one thing, which is vote for us.

[Astead Herndon]

Yes.

[Sarah Longwell]

These other people, we gotta get them to do two things. We gotta get them to get up off the couch and go vote, and they gotta vote for us, which was not clear, like.

[Astead Herndon]

Cause the people farther away were interested in Donald Trump.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that's right. And so Trump, though, for the third time in a row, pulled in a lot of new people and was able to grab people who don't pay attention to politics. I mean, the number of people in these groups were like, Biden. You know, I was annoyed during the pandemic, and Trump was crazy, but, like, everything was bad. And so I voted for Trump this time. One very specific question I have is, do you think Kamala Harris could have done anything with our economic messaging that would have worked for the state that we were in? And I guess in this question is kind of a bigger question of do you think it was cooked from the jump.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Because of how things were, or do you think that the campaign misunderstood a few key things that they could have solved for.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah. I mean, obviously, based on how we're talking, I thought there was no chance Joe Biden was winning this race. And I thought. And I thought that up until the candidate switch, it was only a question of how many states Donald Trump was going to win. I mean, to be honest, I've read some reporting about her prow gouging stuff, which she did not really continue on with after she had made that. The first policy plank being something that polled and focused. Well, I guess to me, like, a thing I would have thought, like, they could have done more minimum wage increase. Like, that was a thing that. We have followed some of those organizers and they were mentioning how they didn't really have a relationship with kind of national Democrats because they've kind of backed off on that. And I think I understand that because there was some concerns around, like, inflationary stuff, and whatever, but I definitely think it's one of those things that actually sticks with people about money in your pockets. Right. And I don't think that the care economy stuff was bad. I guess I just am like, the biggest thing I think they did on the inflation front was they spent a year trying to talk people out of it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that's right.

[Astead Herndon]

And that was wild to me. So I'm saying I feel like the candidate switch was the first time they even got to a step of acknowledging it because the strategy, and I think part of that was their own defensiveness about the administration's record for the year and a half was to tell people they were wrong. And so even in the focus group we hear people like, well, I hear the economy's good or I hear the GDP is going wrong. And I think that was a lot of media pressure they put on to say, like the reason people aren't feeling like this is cause you all aren't telling the full story. And I think the media did a fine, like 360 view of how people felt and it just didn't resonate with folks. And so honestly, is the problem the proud scourging or not talking about minimum wage, or is it the fact that they could have been more responsive to people's emotions a long time prior? I mean, because I think that frankly, once the switch happens, I think the biggest opportunity for a break from Biden was going to be on inflation, on some economic policy that's unique to you and feels like a calling card, and on Gaza, because I think it became a proxy for new way forward or not, particularly when we're talking about young people or progressives or whoever. I just think like establishmentiness, there was an opportunity for her to say I wish the last year didn't go the way that it did or something like that. When you don't take those things or you take none of them, or when Sunny Hostin's asking you if anything different on the View and you say no, then all of that goes down the drain. And so I definitely think there was economic things, I think there was broader than economic things. But I think it was a bigger problem of traditional deference and convention and running the last war and not realizing the ground underneath you has shifted. And so some of this I feel is a problem process problem from Democrats. They did not have enough voices in the room who are being truthful about a mass public sentiment. Yeah, I think you can say Kamala Harris can win. I think you can say the message isn't a big problem. But I think you have to say that they have a listening problem. And for them to ignore inflation and concerns about Biden unpopularity for years means there is something about the process that was fundamentally and structurally blocking people out.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I know you get this too, and maybe you and I are two of the people who get this the absolute most because we're very outspoken about the fact that Biden needed to be out of this thing. And there was kind of a contingent of Biden lovers who were super mad at us. And I gotta tell you, I was listening to voters say they didn't think he was up to the job. He named the economy Bidenomics. At a time when no one felt good about the economy, nobody felt good about it. And I was like, first you win the conversation that something is good. Like, you make the case that something's good. Once you've won that, then you name it after yourself. You don't do it when everybody still thinks it's bad. So people who think Biden would have won if he stayed in, I promise you, like, if there's one thing I am so certain of, it is that Biden would have gotten crushed in such epic proportions. It would have been like Reagan in 84 or whatever. Like, the fact that she was able to keep the House as close as it is and. And the Senate as close as it is by getting race back into contention. Like, she deserves credit for fighting it back, especially as unpopular as she was. Sort of like, she really improved with people.

[Astead Herndon]

I mean, for me, I thought it was important to really name Biden as the main character on election night because I didn't want people to come out of this and say, kamala Harris lost Democrats this election. Like, I thought that would have been massively unfair to her and not the campaign. Because most of those people around with Biden. I do think those people deserve a lot of blame if we're talking about the election. I don't think her specifically, though, honestly. I'm really with you. I think that, like, people are really upset in a way. That surprised me. I didn't think that saying Biden was unpopular was surprising. I didn't think that saying people thought Biden was too old for a second term was surprising. I didn't feel like saying that. A lot of people have taken the implication that he would serve one term as serious. Was controversial. And so some of these reactions, I was actually learning in that moment. Oh, I didn't even know this was such a airtight bubble. I thought that y'all knew that a lot of people were very surprised that this man is running for reelection or whatever. And the only thing that annoyed me personally, and I honestly wonder how this would have gone if they did not do this when they made South Carolina the first state in the fake Democratic primary. I thought it was so cynical. I thought, like, this isn't actually about black people. This isn't actually about representation. This is about making Joe Biden's path to renomination easier. And I just don't like black people being used as that tool, particularly with the language of like face of the party and all that type of stuff. I'm like, clyburn did not ask for this. This is a Joe Biden White House decision about his own political efforts at renomination. And so it really sent me on this two year path. We were deciding what to do for the second season of the run up and I saw the switch and we end up doing these first two episodes of the Republican winter meeting and the Democratic winter meeting. And we do end up doing a season just on political insiders and how they're setting up this rematch that nobody wants. And that ends up being really important for us. And it is 100% me being radicalized by the South Carolina chain.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's interesting.

[Astead Herndon]

And so it's not to me as if that was like a personal thing. It was just one of those journalistic things that raises suspicion. And I didn't think anyone was actually forcing them to say this is just politics. And it was right in the post midterms moment when so many Americans have checked out. Like, it felt unfair to me also because it's not like people have a say on this type of stuff. Yeah, like they're gonna look up after the midterms and it's gonna be the general election. And it was very clear to me that I'm like, no one in my life knows this is coming. No one in my personal life knows Joe Biden is about to be the nominee for Democrats again. Yeah, everyone in my professional life is talking about this with a sense of assumption, like it's just talking about the rematch as a statement of fact. But no one in my personal life thinks this is coming and is shocked that it is.

[Sarah Longwell]

We did. Like there was just a whole stretch of episodes where I was trying to explain. The voters were like, I can't believe it's these two guys again. They were just completely shocked. It was catching people totally off guard. But at least for Trump, he went through a primary and people saw it happen.

[Astead Herndon]

For sure. They saw it happen.

[Sarah Longwell]

Whereas the primary on the Democratic side, and I'll tell you, this is also has come up a lot. People were unhappy that it just became her. Not even cause they didn't like her. They were just like, well, that doesn't seem fair. Like there should have been a voice. And so there were just people who have this sort of anti establishment bent who felt like that was annoying to them and they didn't like it.

[Astead Herndon]

I think people accurately picked up that they were not a part of the process over the last three years. So whether it be not even just not having a real primary, not even having a debate, whether it was RFK or Dean Phillips or. I don't think any of those things, people were in the weeds like that. But I do think they know that Biden didn't face opposition and it was set up for him to be the nominee again in a way that I think people might intuitively understand. That's why I think the implicit promise of 2020 is important, because it's not as if this wasn't a topic of discussion and voters were coming to this completely blind. They were basically saying, wait, didn't you say that you weren't going to do this? Or at the minimum, I'm surprised they're doing this again. This is the question I have for some of the Democratic folks who make the decisions here. I'm like, do your words matter or not? There is some infertilization of voters that actually can get so ridiculous that you just think it's the last week that they hear. And I'm like, yeah, they may not be following every single thing. They have lives, but a couple of things you say did actually sit with people, they actually did matter. And then 2020, the fact that he might not have been coming back again, totally mattered and allowed people to come to him in this emergency lever way. And they courted that. And so all I really found to be shocking, whether in South Carolina or whatever, is like you changed the way that you were projecting yourself to the public. And you never thought they needed an explanation. You never thought they deserved a reasoning. You never thought they deserved a speech to say, hey, I know this is a concern. Here is why I'm doing this again. And that's really all I was thinking about. Not only are you ignoring them, you don't even think they deserve an answer.

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, you and I will never get through any of this if I go into any of my things about how bad the communication was out of this administration. But I just could have just talked to people. I want to say two quick things that you're bringing for me that I just have to get out there. One is to push back against this idea that America will never elect a black woman this election. America voted against an old white man. People don't seem to realize it. They think they didn't elect a black woman, but actually what they did was didn't elect an old white guy.

[Astead Herndon]

I appreciate you Saying that because I find it really sad if people's takeaway from this is, you only can run white men. I'm like, I do not think that's the lesson of this election.

[Sarah Longwell]

I do not think that's the lesson either. And the thing about Kamala and the breaking with Biden. So I saw a bit of Stephanie Cutter's answer on Pod Save. They were asking her about this question and she talked about the View. Okay, the view itself was one answer. And I don't think the View answer was the make or break. I think that Kamala Harris not being able to break fully or in key ways with Biden so that people understood a real difference was the mistake. And Stephanie's answer was like. And I respect Stephanie a lot. But her answer was sort of like, Kamala Harris saw herself very much as part of the administration. Right. So if she had done some big break and sort of said, I wouldn't have done it like this, you know, there would have been a million news stories kind of talking about that she was not sticking with them or whatever. You needed those thousand stories.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Saying that she wasn't sticking with him. Like that was what was necessary, was for that media cycle to like happen for days of her being like, Kamala Harris breaks with Biden on key issues and whatever, let them question her loyalty. That would have been good for her. I've got two main criticisms of the campaign. One was the inability to throw Biden under the bus and really break away from him and make a clear case. And then the second, and I'm going to make us go to sound here for this. But the second is, is that people's media diets. I remember when it was Facebook and then I remember when it was Twitter and this time it was TikTok. It was podcasts, but it's an everything everywhere all at once. As I think Dan Pfeiffer says, it's not that she needed to go on. Joe Rogan, specifically Joe Rogan liked the View as a stand in for a bigger strategic problem of not being able to sit down for three hours and BS around with people and be able to talk to them in an authentic way. So here, before we talk about it, I'm going to say let's listen to these first time Trump voters, people who had voted for him for the first time in their lives that voted for Biden in 20, they voted for Trump in 24. How they talked about Commonwealth's authenticity problem. She changed up so many times it made me lose faith with her. Since the Very beginning, she would say one thing and then you don't know if she's going to get into office. And then go back to her original standpoint.

[Astead Herndon]

One of her things was like she was going to stop price gouging or set a limit on renters so that.

[Sarah Longwell]

They couldn't charge a certain amount.

[Astead Herndon]

I was like, well, you can't do that in a free market. But okay, go ahead.

[Sarah Longwell]

They were trying to keep Kamala from being out in public and not being very responsive.

[Astead Herndon]

Not. Somebody already mentioned how she couldn't carry on in a conversation on TV even later on.

[Sarah Longwell]

So she got very primed. I got in huge trouble with my husband because I said, I hate her laughter. I can't stand her.

[Astead Herndon]

She sounds like a witch.

[Sarah Longwell]

I can't stand to hear her speak.

[Astead Herndon]

I didn't care for her tone, the.

[Sarah Longwell]

Laugh and not answering any questions at all.

[Astead Herndon]

And also when they asked her, what would you do differently?

[Sarah Longwell]

She said, nothing. Oh, my God. Four more years of the same sorry girl.

[Astead Herndon]

Any sit down interview she ever had, she was unable to complete that total conversation. She did not have answers for the interviewers. She was on today's show and she was like, so that's what pushed me over to Trump.

[Sarah Longwell]

There was an interview she did about global warming. And if you notice her, her strategy is to always point back to when she was younger. Oh, I was younger. And I remember this happened. And this is why I'm going with this. But it honestly feels like the stories are fabricated to point towards the issue that people are asking her about.

[Astead Herndon]

And the only thing she knows how.

[Sarah Longwell]

To get a rise out of her opponent. So in certain ways she was gauging him and he's riled up like, no. And she knows how to lie good. That's the thing.

[Astead Herndon]

That was her job for years.

[Sarah Longwell]

She knows how to like this. So if you listen to the debate, she never said how she was going to fix an issue. She just went around the issue and then brought it back and said, this is what I'm going to do when I get in office. But you've been in office and never did anything. Kamala is just so bad. I mean, this woman cannot. She has zero charisma. She must have intelligence to get to her position, but she just has zero charisma. And then with all this red Good. Like the calling Trump a fascist when.

[Astead Herndon]

There'S at least two or probably three pieces of evidence of them doing fascist type things.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't know if any of you saw that she was on that supposed phone call with One of the voters. And it was all fake. Everything about her is fake. And I just can't respect that at all. I don't think she'd get anything done. A large majority of the deciding vote was young males. And I feel like both parties really tried to campaign to my age range of like 23 to, like 27. You know, in that age range, like, Kamala Harris didn't call her daddy just.

[Astead Herndon]

Days after a hurricane happened.

[Sarah Longwell]

And her not even acknowledging, not even to go visit. It was inappropriate. It lacked substance, and it was just.

[Astead Herndon]

Pushing the same agenda.

[Sarah Longwell]

None of her real points. It was just like I wasn't getting enough information from her.

[Astead Herndon]

And if we ever were getting information, oh, by the way, I grew up in a middle class.

[Sarah Longwell]

My mom supported all that sort of stuff.

[Astead Herndon]

It was just like the same one.

[Sarah Longwell]

Talking point which was just very unappealing.

[Astead Herndon]

It was very boring.

[Sarah Longwell]

And whatever they called her, Kamala the chameleon. Those stupid accents that she was doing were so annoying, so offensive. You can just talk like a normal person, Kamala. You could have been able to just.

[Astead Herndon]

Maybe get people to vote for you. Clearly people did, but it's just.

[Sarah Longwell]

She was offensive a lot and boring and not having anything. My ballot is like paying you to.

[Astead Herndon]

Do a job, and I want to know if you can do it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Being black is not going to help anything. Being a woman isn't going to do anything.

[Astead Herndon]

What are you going to do? And then when she said, I make collard greens in the tub, I said.

[Sarah Longwell]

What does that have to do with the election? So I got to tell you, one of the things that did surprise me, doing the after action focus groups, many of the voices there, some of the harshest ones, were black women. And I sort of don't even like to belabor this because it's a lot of people dumping on Kamala Harris, and I think it's a little unfair. She had 100 days to reintroduce herself to a country. Donald Trump said eight years to make people view him as normal, not to mention his entire career before that. But the laugh. I think it's a stupid criticism, but I do think people read something about it as inauthentic and uncomfortable. And I think that one of the things that Kamala Harris struggled with, one of my big frustrations with the campaign was, guys, you gotta have her out there. She's gotta be everywhere. She's got to get her reps in. She's got to be so comfortable talking to everybody that people view her as a fully fleshed out person. And this is a new piece of the media environment. The new piece of the media environment is that people, people want to see your whole thing now.

[Astead Herndon]

Everything.

[Sarah Longwell]

And if you can't do that, if you can't walk into hostile territory, if you can't walk in and sit down with all these podcasters want to just BS around, you can't do it anymore. It's necessary.

[Astead Herndon]

It is. And Democrats, four years ago, they were making a big stick about how they could do this without mainstream and legacy media, how media fragmentation has been such that they don't have to rely on traditional media in the same way. And in some ways they're right. They got into this habit, though, with Joe, of not just we don't need traditional media, but we're making a point to do this without you. And I think that they learned some bad habits from that. One is the rep's point, like it wasn't just important that Joe Biden was not doing the same amount of traditional interviews with the same people who usually ask, is that he wasn't going anywhere, anywhere. So that was the important part. By the time Harris comes in, they're still working from a place of reticence. That's been the tone of this administration and I think of Democrats for a little bit. Kamala Harris was on our podcast, and I think I have done more reporting about her as a political individual than most people in national media. So what I would say is some of the answer to this question is that that's not who she is. She's not go everywhere. Every person.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And I don't say that from a bad point of view, to be honest. I think we should recognize that this is a prosecutor.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

This is a prosecutor who only very recently became elected in a more traditional front. This is not someone who was city councilor or mayor, who has knocked on doors for tons of time, who goes to the back of the restaurant and introduces themself to the waitstaff and does that type of thing that we associate with the Clintons and Bidens or whoever. That's not who she is. Some of that is California. Some of that is prosecutors. Some of that, I think it's just someone who's authentic version of themselves is not like a D.C. glad handler. But the impact of it is. Is not as accessible as a figure. Right. And the difficult part, even beyond that, is I honestly think being as someone who has done a couple of these efforts with her, she resists being numb. She does not want you to feel as if you know her. I did a Podcast with her. That might be one of her toughest interviews on record. The problem with that interview specifically is you hear the uncomfort, you feel it, and the intimacy of the medium doesn't serve her. It actually is less advantageous because you get the sense that this person does not want to suffer these stupid questions. Right. And so the same way podcasts can be a blessing in terms of authenticity and shooting the shit and blah, blah, blah, it can also be a difficult part if you're not someone who wants to do those type of things. All I'm saying is they made this the Joe Rogan election. They made this the Theo Vaughan election. One thing I think, though, is, like, it's not just the sexism, which I think matters, or her coming from Joe, which matters. This is also because the original problem Harris faces is that her introduction to the country was not one that told a consistent story about who she is and what she believes in her presidential run.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And so the year in which people learned who she was was flip floppy, was progressive, moderate, was who knows what you're gonna answer on cnn. Was walking back political positions. The day after, was hitting Joe Biden on segregation. Then Just saying. Just kidding. That's what the intro was. And so what I thought they were gonna do post switch was know that that was what they were facing and know that they had the Joe part, you know, hanging over them. And come into this saying, you didn't know who Kamala Harris was. Here it is. And do it on a specific policy front on a here's what my 100 days would be. Or in the Dana Bash thing, in her first interview, it was like, what would your hundred days look like? She's like, I don't really know. Like, we should not excuse political campaigns for not having an answer to that question. That might be the most obvious question that CNN is ever gonna ask you. And so I'm like, some of this stuff was a vision problem, and I just think that they tried to run a campaign without leading with their beliefs.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And that might be because the people in those decisions really see themselves as a weather vein of the party and not kind of setting the course for the party. But that's a problem.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, now you've hit on something that I will. Oh, I clearly haven't talked about this enough because you're like, I want to open every single one of these veins, which is just about how much money they had to spend.

[Astead Herndon]

I find the money complaints shocking right now.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, here's the thing. When you have that much Money, you can set the narrative.

[Astead Herndon]

You can do what you want.

[Sarah Longwell]

I wanted her to get her reps in because then I thought, like, she'd be in a position to do well. But what you're saying might be right, that, like, she's not a good fit for the media environment we have at this moment, and that in many ways, Donald Trump is just a much better fit. Like a guy who's lived in front of the camera.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

The number of people who in the groups are like, I would rather have someone who's authentically a jerk than somebody who I don't trust, who's a quote unquote, regular politician. And if there's one thing that I can sort of say when people are like, well, what does somebody have to do and they want to face strategically, I'm like, so much of it now is going to come down to, nobody can do this for you. You gotta be able to just, like, be like, oh, here I am and I'm going to speak and people are going to have to find you authentic.

[Astead Herndon]

Yes. And one thing I want to say that you mentioned earlier that I didn't get a chance to respond to it, and I think this is in the postmortem from the Harris folks on Pod Save and others who are so much about loyalty being the reason why they didn't want to. And I just think that that word, if there is a way I can distill how they lost this race, in a word, it might be loyalty. Because the idea that their loyalty was only to Joe Biden or to Kamala Harris and not to the voter, not to Democrats, even. Not even just the Democrats, that blows my mind. I wouldn't say that out loud. I would be too embarrassed to say that out loud. That's the issue. Who were you being loyal to? Because apparently what I hear when they say that is if loyalty matters more than anything else, then why should I believe you that democracy's on the line? Why should I. Why should I believe you that he's some existential threat in the most important election of our lives? You're not moving like it. You're not acting like it. If the rules of politics are still the most important thing, it may be making your boss upset in private is the most important thing. Then what are we doing here? Then what you're telling me as a voting member of the public, I don't believe.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. The number of times that I threw up my hands and was like, is Donald Trump an existential threat to democracy or is he? Because if he is who cares about Joe Biden's feelings?

[Astead Herndon]

Like actually, why would we?

[Sarah Longwell]

Why would we? It's crazier to do it.

[Astead Herndon]

Right. I'm saying. And actually if I'm a group of the public who doesn't know, they also talk about these rules as if the public one cares about them or knows about them. And so I'm like, if you're just looking and you're hearing Kamala Harris say that Donald Trump is this existential threat to the country, but you're not hearing any explanation about why an 81 year old who couldn't seem to perform on a debate stage was the candidate for two years. How am I supposed to square that with the threat? The biggest thing that undermined the urgency of the message in my opinion, was their own actions. Yeah, like in 2019, they moved like Donald Trump was a threat. People actually were moving with a sense of urgency because I think that's how the party actually showed you the path this time. Honestly, hearing them, maybe they didn't believe it. I guess I'm not even sure they do believe it at the last couple weeks. Cuz if the answer is still loyalty or if not, we did nothing wrong or whatever. Whatever. Maybe that was just another focus grouped message too and voters sniffed it out.

[Sarah Longwell]

Voters sniff out the authenticity. Guys. They know it. They know it. Okay, just gonna throw this one last thing in here and then we're gonna move to more sound. There's this like fight now about whether Kamala Harris, like running the campaign she did, was too moderate or was she hemmed in by her 2019 positions. And I just want to like underscore something you said earlier that has been a real thing for me. She never explained the move. Yeah, I believe firmly she made the right decision running more to the center and moving away from more of those progressive things. That being said, you have to tell people like you said this. It lent itself to an aura of flip flopping, like they didn't know who she was. It's not even that they were like, I don't like this position and I liked this position more or I didn't like this position and now I like this position. The point was they didn't trust her because she was unable to communicate to them that it was just like a. Well, my values haven't changed, but it was like, but what are your values? Like we don't know you.

[Astead Herndon]

We don't know him. You don't know him and you haven't told us really like the people who came through that gauntlet of a primary. Voters had a sense of what they believed in.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And that was true for Biden. It was true for Bernie. I think Warren did a decent job of communicating that early. I think Pete did a decent job of communicating that early. Even someone like Klobuchar, I think you largely have a sense of where they're operating from. I remember meeting Kamala Harris for the first time before she announced for president. So this is in 2018, and I was going to be the Times reporter on her run. So this is back when they liked me. And I went to her first book tour event at the 92nd Street Y in New York. And I remember the story that I end up writing from that, which is just like, you know, this person's about to run for president that's already starting ends with these two attendees who I quote, who were having a disagreement as they were leaving about whether she was too vague or not. And one person's like, I don't know. I just feel like we have a lot of candidates that I don't know what she stands for. And I just listened to her for an hour and I'm not anywhere closer. And the other person was like, you're just judging them too hard. She hasn't even started her presidential campaign. We'll get the answer when she announces. And I've had that experience with Harris voters so many times they have told me, the next one, or advisors, the next one, next one. Oh, she's reset, or now she just needs a debate. And so I actually have had it so many times. This is who she is. You can pitch that. You can call someone a decision maker or someone who sorts through evidence and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's not agenda setting. Presidents are agenda setters. And particularly in primaries, it calls for a vision. And if people do not know you and you are already paying the penalties of racism and sexism, I think that burden's even higher.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And so one thing I never understood is if I was Kamala Harris team, I would have sent her to the woods for, like, two weeks and say, like, by the time you come back, there are three policy positions we will never budge on.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

That we believe every day of the week. And if you don't know an answer, you come back to these three things that you think are fundamental problems and solutions in this world. Because what I think is that for a lot of things that you're hearing from those swing group voters, a lot of politicians are searching for answers, but the better ones are searching from a premise of A thing you understand of them, and they never really stray from that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, right.

[Astead Herndon]

So no matter if you don't know, Joe Biden goes back to kind of working together. Washington, whatever, whatever. Bernie's gonna go back to, like, corporate capture and all this whatever stuff. If I was someone looking about the time going forward, I don't think you're gonna get a type of politician who can win without that anymore. What is it for you? What don't you budge on?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that lack of core. Because she was competent. Like, the thing that gets annoying to.

[Astead Herndon]

Me is that's, like, when people say.

[Sarah Longwell]

Not smart or not competent, whatever, that's wrong. I mean, I sat across from her, too, and listened to her do it. No, she was perfectly capable, and she did not get killed in a landslide the way that Joe Biden would have. Yeah, but you needed something deeper. You needed something more lasting. So I want to go beyond her personality, and we'll talk about how voters perceived her campaign pain and the Democratic Party more broadly. Let's listen to that.

[Astead Herndon]

You look at her rallies, and then she's got Cardi B And Beyonce, and I'm sitting there looking like we're financially struggling, and you're sitting there having millionaires try to talk down to us about how to vote for you, and then turn around and say, every man is a misogynist who don't vote for her.

[Sarah Longwell]

Or they hate their mama. And I'm sitting there like, what is this?

[Astead Herndon]

I think, like, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, the elites, like the zeitgeist who runs the country, who put that money to the politicians to get them elected, I think they were Republican, but they decided, hey, maybe we have a better shot being Democrats. So I think they switched to the get Democrat side.

[Sarah Longwell]

The biggest thing with the Democratic Party is that it used to be like, we are the ones that are open.

[Astead Herndon]

We'll take in anybody.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, it is a safe spot. And now it's all judgmental. We're dividing. I think even they put up Kamala.

[Astead Herndon]

Because she's a token.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think that party, they're all about social justice and equality, but honestly, I think that's kind of prejudice, and I think that's a little racist to assume that I'm going to vote for you because you look like me and you talk like me or whatever.

[Astead Herndon]

So earlier, I think they've aligned too far with progressives or liberals, so I think they should be more middle. I don't know. Just find a happy medium somewhere. I just think they've kind of done an Overcorrection. And Democrats have always been welcoming to people, but I think they're going a little overboard with it, and they're losing kind of what most people felt like they were the safe pick, at least the everyday person, the middle class person.

[Sarah Longwell]

I have a daughter that's transgender. I'm female. I felt that I was pressured. I'm also Puerto Rican. I felt like, because I was a woman, because I'm a minority, that I was a sellout if I didn't vote for Kamala. You know, I did my research. I know what was on on the line, but I shouldn't be made to feel like I have to go a certain way because of my. My skin or my gender. And I just felt like there was nothing but division that they were selling.

[Astead Herndon]

But something that I notice is that.

[Sarah Longwell]

They feel like they have a need.

[Astead Herndon]

To own black people.

[Sarah Longwell]

Black voters, specifically. You know, there was just, like, this bizarre thing that just happened with Obama.

[Astead Herndon]

You know, like, right before the election.

[Sarah Longwell]

He was talking to black men, and he was saying, oh, you have to go and vote for Kamala. No, they don't. You can't sit here and say that you own a group of people. No, that's not how that works.

[Astead Herndon]

It was just like a spirit of.

[Sarah Longwell]

Fear just went out, and everybody like, oh, if I don't vote for Kamala, if I don't vote for women's right because I'm a woman, if I don't vote for the brown woman because I'm brown and black, I'm setting us back 50 years or 60 years. Those things that happened in that time with civil rights, and those were real things. I remember the stories that my grandfather would tell me that were actually happening to him with white women, with spit in his face when he went to the door. As a detective, those are real things. But this is not necessarily what we're dealing with right now.

[Astead Herndon]

She raised just so much money just.

[Sarah Longwell]

To have, like, Beyonce telling me to vote for her.

[Astead Herndon]

Beyonce ain't paying my bills.

[Sarah Longwell]

She actually says, beyonce ain't paying my bills is the exact quote. And I got to say, like, man, does it come up. The use of celebrities.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

And it's funny because sometimes when I point this out on Twitter or something, you get a bunch of people come back being like, but Elon's a celebrity, and Rogan and, you know, nobody complains about that. And I'm like, you know, I think it's what people are really saying is I feel like I'm being pandered to and not talked to in a way that feels condescending to me. And I know that you've talked about this like you were on Preet's podcast. What would you say they like, flattened Hispanic and black voters into like a racial identity. So, like, how do Democrats need to start to update how they talk to these coalitions? Because they're doing poorly with them.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah, it's been interesting because I have felt this for a long time. I have felt that. And I think partly this is like my own personal experience as being a black person from Chicago is we all know the Obama coalition is dead, but we haven't actually updated I think the undergirding racial assumptions that informed it. And I don't think we can overemphasize how much of basically 2016 happens partially because the Democrats overconfidence in demographic destiny and how much of what's happened in the time since then is them rebuilding the rubble of their absolute certainty. The Republicans couldn't win things like the popular vote anymore. So that's like the why I think it's important and I think we should acknowledge what it actually means for that idea to die. We have basically come to learn via Donald Trump's two wins that black people, it matters across class, in education, basically college educated black folks, maybe non or rich and poor, whatever, are informed by their politics differently. We've learned that country of origin matters for Latinos, that religion or guns or other factors. And all the things that I've been saying in this last couple of weeks is those are things we know about white people. We already know them actually. We know no one actually even thinks those people are the same. And so all I'm saying is the belief that had to be undone was one whose assumptions were at the minimum, reductive and I would argue a little racist because you've come to an acknowledgement that one, any of those people could have told you the whole time, you ask like a Mexican American if they feel some sort of kinship to Cuban Americans and they'll be like, what are you talking about? Or black folks, what do you mean? That like a Howard AKA is a specific experience and that only really is motivating to people who have had a similar type of thing. That doesn't mean that all black folks don't know or haven't met that person or think they're inauthentic or whatever. But that's a very specific type of experience, you know. And so that's why I think it's been important to really lay out, I guess, looking forward it's hard for me to even say because, like, I don't even think they're engaged in mass efforts at this right now. Right. Like, that person mentioned Obama's lecturing, which was really cut through. This came out for our autopsy stuff, too. His lecturing, specifically a black man, is a thing that comes out of a party that has basically used him and his wife as the deployment for black voter motivation for the last 8, 10, 12 years. I mean, he's done this before. He told Black folks in 2016, if you don't go out, it'll be a personal disappointment to me. How'd that go? Like, it does not work. If you're someone who likes Barack Obama, you are voting for the Democratic Party. The people who are dropping off with them among black people not only are not motivated by Barack Obama, they see him as an avatar of a failed Democratic Party. They see him as the era of time, which taught them that Democrats can insert people of color and then not trickle down to their community. Right. Like for so many black folks in Chicago, which obviously isn't huge in, like, electoral map or whatever, but I think it's reflective. It is the Obama presidency that taught them the failures of representation. But to be honest, I don't think this is true for all members of the party. I mean, we talked to Wes Moore on the podcast about this issue specifically, and one of the things he talked about, which, you know, is backed up by the data, is that if you are going to talk to system skeptical people, you have to work from that premise that things haven't worked for them and that Democrats have played a big role in that. So I guess I don't think it's a mystery of what they have to do. I think it's just a willingness or a lack of political courage or lack of accountability to actually do it. Because if you're gonna go to these people, you should say not only maybe a political economic system not serving you hasn't served you for a long time, but Democrats have been a big part of that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And I think that's the type of honesty that builds trust. And so when that's the effort that's engaged in, I don't think these people are forever Republicans.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And I think the brand of Republicans as racially insensitive is still a big and important one. Right. I don't think these groups are lost forever, but I do think the type of language they came to it with was seeing their racial identity as one they would inherently prioritize. But for everything else, and I'm saying, why would that be true of people of color when it's never been true for the white voters they target all the time? And the other thing I think is they've taken bad lessons from specific experiences. Like, most of the way Democrats engage on the question of race has been informed by African Americans or informed by, like, the transition from Mexican Americans to turn California blue. Those are two groups who are invested in the American system, who have been here for a really long time, who have very specific relationships with America as itself. And so for them to extrapolate African Americans to all black folks who are now increasingly from other countries, who are now increasingly untethered to the civil rights movement, that's not gonna work in the same way for you to extrapolate Mexicans to a whole grunt group of people who had not lived here for a long time, who come from countries that have socialist origins or have fear of communism or whatever, that's not gonna work. And so I guess all my effort is is to tell a more complicated and nuanced story about people who I think deserve it. And Dems, until they start acknowledging that complication, I think they're gonna run into the same problem.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't know if I'm pushing back on this or if I'm adding to it or what, but let me just throw something at you, okay?

[Astead Herndon]

Sure.

[Sarah Longwell]

I was out in front of a bookstore once, and I think I was in somewhere in California, somewhere very blue, and on the door of the bookstore, it said, welcome here. Native Americans, African Americans, LGBTQ plus.

[Astead Herndon]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

And it's just like, a long list. I did happen to notice Jews wasn't on there, but, like, whatever. It was just like, a long list of people.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I was like, what if they just put an all welcome sign on here instead? And then I was like, better yet, what if it just said open and none of this stuff? And so let me ask you something. Okay. We are so obsessed with identity. And this is what people say, identity politics. Even. So now I don't know that everybody knows what we're talking about.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

So one of the ways I thought Kamala Harris's campaign was superior to Hillary Clinton's was just the tagline.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Because Hillary Clinton's. I'm with her was very stupidly about Hillary Clinton, whereas Kamala Harris is at least directionally correct for the people. I'm for you. Okay.

[Astead Herndon]

Yes.

[Sarah Longwell]

But when you talk about flattening people to identity, whatever, what I hear these voters saying, I mean, I'm just listening to black Voters and black women talk about the tokenization, talk about. And we do this too. We're like, well, Donald Trump's identity is this like rich, white Kamala Harris is a black woman. And whatever, we talk about their identities and then we assume people will like tag on to that in some way. Right. People identify with that in some way, but it actually goes to other way. Like, what people want to know is, man, what are you going to do for me? I don't actually care if you're going to do it for me through the prism of me being a Mexican American or, or through the prism of me being Puerto Rican, but whatever. They're just like, no, man, tell me how you're going to help me work, how are you going to help me make more money, how you're going to lower prices, how my kids are going to be safe. Like, tell me that.

[Astead Herndon]

I remember in the 20 primary with Harris, she would say all these lines about blackness and representation and fighting racism and things like that, and they would be received almost silently in South Carolina. But we get these huge applause lines in Iowa. And it always reminded me that some of the Democrats embrace of identity politics has not even been for people of color over the last eight years. It's been for white liberals who love it maybe more than anybody else. Right. And so some of it, I just think, like, it's not even a message for those people. Like, it's somewhat a message for the hometown. And I guess I would say the answer to me goes back to who are you? Actually, I don't need you inauthentically talking about identity, but I do think if you talk about it well, with some groups it could matter. Like when we do our black voter stuff, there's certainly a feeling of tokenization. There's certainly a feeling the party hasn't invested or acknowledged the shortcomings and all of that stuff. It's not like I hear all of that criminal justice reform stuff. I don't want to hear that anymore. I don't hear that. Like, I don't think there's been a full retrenchment to like back in some tough on crime this. Like, I don't think that defund or anything like that or blah, blah, blah. All of that was bad. But I still hear a desire for an acknowledgement that discrimination is for some people a part of a reason they can't advance. So I think that that is not the only, though. And I. One thing I remember about Harris is in our interview, she was saying how the administration has done so Much about equity and kind of structural reform, closing racial wealth gap, whatever, whatever. And I was asking something about why don't you think that's actually translated to increase in Black votes? One her answer to that was ask me after 2024, which I think just speaks to the level of dismissiveness they were coming to a lot of this stuff with. But she also said when I was asking more specifically about the policy stuff, she's like, well, I mean, what do you want me to do? You want me to rattle through all the reasons why this could still might be inadequate? I could talk about redlining, I could talk about Jim Crow, I could talk about duh, la la, but we're making investments. And I'm like, wait, that's part of the disconnect I think Democrats have had as they've started to embrace some of this more structural stuff. You cannot tell me that the reason these people are in this position is because of all of these big things that happen and then your solutions, this really small thing. And so Biden made sense to me. Cuz he never talked about, I mean, until 2020, he very rarely talked about the country in some systemically racist terms. And so I'm like, I can hear you list nobody on that sign door. Just stay open and just focus on what you're there to do. That makes sense to me. Or if you're gonna include folks in the sign door, you should include all folks. You should include. Choose, you should include all these other people. Right. Like, or do neither of them. What is actually the place of honesty you want to work from? And sometimes I feel specifically on these kind of racial questions or identity questions, it's much more a thing of like you trying to appease certain groups or you trying to not piss off others. And one thing with Harris, again, back to presidential. She was the last Democratic major nominee to release a criminal justice plan. I remember being like, why? You know this more than anybody. But it was an unwillingness to tell that story of change. Because when she did release a plan, obviously it included some things she was embracing now that she did not embrace then. And she did not really wanna tell a story of, wow, that stuff has shifted.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

And so all I'm saying is she could have said in the last three months, you know what I was wrong about transgender inmate surgery. Who would have been mad at her?

[Sarah Longwell]

She could have said like, taxpayers shouldn't have to fund that. That's it.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah. I remember back in 19, some of the stuff they were asking was insane.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

This lady was asking Elizabeth Warren, about Kendrick or Snoop. And I was like, what are we doing here? You know, like, what is actually. And so some of this stuff was absurd. And I said this to friends recently. I'm like, I think that they could probably get away with just saying that. Like, I think if the next Democrat says, I'm gonna be honest. 2020 was crazy and we were all trying to survive. And in that kind of craziness, the party took on some positions. I don't think we really believed it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that went too far.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah. I think we all kind of recognize the Twilight Zone. That was that year.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Astead Herndon]

But again, this is what I'm saying is a theme of what we're talking about. The most honest route, the most direct route, the route of the most accountability is almost never on the table.

[Sarah Longwell]

And it's always the best one.

[Astead Herndon]

Yeah. And I'm like, that's. To me, the problem is that we're never actually dealing with a campaign or a vision or candidate who that says, I'm gonna level with them. I'm gonna actually go direct and say, this is why I believe. This is why I don't. This is how I changed. This is how it didn't. And the fact that that doesn't happen, I think is a big problem. You're always working from a galaxy brain, always working from a piecemeal, always working from how to focus group your way to the right answer, when I'm not sure that that's the lesson I get from voters. The lesson I get from voters is be truthful.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right. And you know what else can tell you that? The focus groups. But if you just ask them, like, do you think this one, do you like the red better or the blue better or whatever, they're going to give you answers. But that might not lead you to the truth, man. It might not lead you to the truth. Okay, we had, like eight more sections, but, like, we just gotta. We're gonna. I'm gonna turn it into a different, different one. This was awesome. It was great talking to you. I got a lot off my chest. I hope you did, too.

[Astead Herndon]

Yes. Yes.

[Sarah Longwell]

You're the best. Estad Herndon, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. We're gonna be back next week. In the meantime, remember to subscribe to the Bulwark on YouTube, become a Bulwark plus member over at the Bulwark.com and I will figure out whether we're going to do a whole extra episode to get in the content we didn't get here, but thanks, guys.