How the Democrats Could Divide and Conquer

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: How the Democrats Could Divide and Conquer

Release Date: May 4, 2017
Host: Dorothy Wickenden
Guests: John Cassidy, Ben Wallace-Wells

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dorothy Wickenden is joined by New Yorker staff writers John Cassidy and Ben Wallace-Wells to discuss the prospects and evolving strategy of the Democratic Party in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. The conversation focuses on how Democrats might craft a coherent agenda that both resists Trump and unites a fractious party, the challenge of appealing to the white working class, generational divides in Democratic leadership, and the ongoing influence of figures like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Barack Obama.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Democratic Strategy and the White Working Class

[02:22] John Cassidy:

• Democrats have long operated under the notion of an “emerging Democratic majority” based on turning out minorities, urban professionals, young voters, and single women.
• It wasn’t an explicit decision to ignore the white working class, but they ended up feeling alienated.

  “They were given the impression the Democratic Party had given up on them, didn’t care about them.” (John Cassidy, 03:20)

• Joe Biden argues the party can and should appeal broadly, not just to progressives and urban elites.

2. Bernie Sanders’ Red State Appeal

[04:02] Ben Wallace-Wells:

• Trump uniquely captured the white working-class vote by promising not to cut entitlements and railing against Wall Street and elites.
• Early actions by the Trump administration, notably support for the GOP health care bill, could erode this appeal:

  "The Trump who appealed so strongly to white working class voters may not be the Trump that they see in 2018 or 2020." (Ben Wallace-Wells, 05:01)

[05:24] Ben Wallace-Wells:

• Having visited Louisiana, Ben notes ongoing real-life economic and social struggles persist post-election. Trump will be judged by voters on whether he alleviates these.

3. Democratic Leadership: Generational Divide

[06:22] John Cassidy:

• Describes a “great generational divide,” with Warren and Sanders as established leaders, yet a perceived “weak bench” among younger Democrats.
• Potential moderate contenders mentioned include Kirsten Gillibrand and Andrew Cuomo, the latter shifting from conservative to liberal credentials.

4. The Power of Opposition to Trump

[07:24] John Cassidy:

• Reflexive opposition to Trump is powerful, given his low approval and broad unpopularity, and serves as a unifying force for the party:

  “All progressive parties disagree on lots of things...But everybody agrees in the Democratic Party that they dislike Trump. So that brings the party together.” (John Cassidy, 07:45)

• Energy and mobilization driven by opposition have been visible, especially in special elections.

5. Can Democrats Win Back Trump Voters?

[08:51] John Cassidy:

• Trump is a deeply polarizing figure with stable approval among core supporters, but unpopular policies like the GOP health care bill could soften support.
• Cites specific races (e.g., John Faso in NY) as opportunities for Democrats, with Nate Silver’s analysis showing GOP policy risks even in Republican districts.

6. Lessons from Recent History

[10:17] Dorothy Wickenden:

• Compares current Democratic Party predicament to Bill Clinton’s era of “triangulation,” where he assimilated some GOP policy positions for electoral gain.

[10:53] John Cassidy:

• Argues the party doesn’t need to return to 90s-style centrism, as that would alienate progressives:

  “The Democratic Party is a progressive party now. That’s just a fact.” (John Cassidy, 11:09)

• Suggests a focus on opposing abuses of power (financial, political) both resonates with traditional Democratic values and bridges divides.

7. Special Elections and Grassroots Energy

[12:22] Ben Wallace-Wells:

• Discusses Jon Ossoff’s candidacy in Georgia, nearly winning a Republican seat through grassroots fundraising and a campaign rooted in opposition to Trump.
• Ossoff succeeded in mobilizing both progressives and some Republicans:

  "He ran basically as an opponent of Trump...able to funnel the Democratic oppositional energy...without really radicalizing." (Ben Wallace-Wells, 13:15)

8. The Role of Barack Obama

[13:41] Dorothy Wickenden, John Cassidy, Ben Wallace-Wells:

• Obama’s upcoming $400,000 Wall Street speech sparks controversy, echoing Clinton’s criticisms for being too close to big finance.
• John Cassidy on the risk:

  “If [Obama] wants to still be a big figure in the Democratic Party...then I think it was terrible to agree to do this speech on Wall Street...the Democratic Party has to distance itself from Wall Street.” (John Cassidy, 13:54)

• Ben Wallace-Wells notes Obama’s unifying effect over factions, and that his gradual exit and choices risk undermining his authority or bridge-building role.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• John Cassidy on Democratic Party unity:
  "Everybody agrees in the Democratic Party that they dislike Trump. So that brings the party together. It brings in money, it brings in activists." (07:45)

• Ben Wallace-Wells on Trump’s appeal waning:
  "The Trump who appealed so strongly to white working class voters may not be the Trump that they see in 2018 or 2020." (05:01)

• John Cassidy on what unites the left and working class: "The way ahead for the Democratic Party is to focus on the traditional role...as being opposed to abuses of power, financial power, political power, all sorts of power." (11:24)

• On Obama and Wall Street:
  “If [the Democratic Party] stands for anything, as Biden said the other day, it’s against abuses of power. And when people think about abuses of power in this country now because of the financial crisis, they think about Wall Street.” (John Cassidy, 13:54)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Electoral Strategy & White Working Class: [02:22 - 03:51]
• Bernie Sanders’ Appeal & Trump’s Disconnect: [04:02 - 05:24]
• Generational Divide & 2020 Democratic Bench: [06:02 - 07:20]
• Opposition to Trump as a Strategy: [07:24 - 08:10]
• Can Democrats Win Trump Voters Back?: [08:40 - 10:17]
• Historical Comparison: Clinton’s Triangulation: [10:17 - 10:53]
• Role of Progressive Policy & Unity: [10:53 - 12:10]
• Georgia Special Election (Ossoff): [12:22 - 13:34]
• Barack Obama & Party Fracture: [13:41 - 15:43]

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Conclusion

This episode offers an incisive look at the crossroads facing the Democratic Party in early 2017. The hosts and guests argue that while opposition to Trump is a potent unifying force, the party must also work to reconnect with the white working class without sacrificing progressive principles. The conversation acknowledges generational leadership gaps, the impact of grassroots activism, and the delicate balance needed in post-Obama Democratic politics, especially concerning Wall Street and party unity.

Transcript

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[Dorothy Wickenden]

This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. It's Thursday, May 4th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. Democrats and other progressives have been doing everything possible to make themselves heard since the election of Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders, who has been holding town halls across the country in recent months, many of them in red states. He spoke in Cleveland on Monday about the future of the American left.

[John Cassidy]

The job of progressives is not just to oppose Trump's reactionary agenda, but in addition to that, what we need to do is bring forth a progressive agenda that addresses the needs of the working families of this country. An agenda which has a very different moral compass.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

John Cassidy and Benjamin Wallace Wells join me to discuss what a coherent agenda for the Democratic Party might look like. Hey, John and Ben, thank you both for being here.

[Ben Wallace Wells]

Hi Dorothy.

[John Cassidy]

Morning, Dorothy.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

John, let's start with you. I want to ask you about the electoral strategy the Democrats have been pursuing for years. They decided way back before the 2012 election not to try and win over white working class voters and while it obviously didn't work out very well for them in 2016, was this just a failing strategy to begin with, or were it just the peculiarities of this past election year?

[John Cassidy]

Right. Well, I don't think there was sort of an explicit decision to say, look, we're just going to ignore white working class voters. But there's been this feeling in the Democratic Party going back for a decade now, that there's a sort of emerging Democratic majority that doesn't necessarily include the white working class, that if you turn out the minorities in large numbers, affluent urban professionals, young people and single women, if you add all them together, that then there is a sort of the phrase was the emerging Democratic majority. I wrote about Joe Biden the other day who spoke at the weekend, and he says the problem here is not necessarily the Democrats adopted policies that didn't relate to these people. It was just they were given the impression the Democratic Party had given up on them, didn't care about them. And I think what Biden was saying is there's no reason you can't appeal across the board. It doesn't have to be narrowly focused on progressives and urban professionals. You can also appeal explicitly to the working classes, the white working classes.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Ben, we know that Bernie's supporters adore him uncritically. How have red state voters responded to his message? He's been going out specifically with them in mind.

[Ben Wallace Wells]

You know, there is a way in which the Trump administration has sort of sharpened Bernie's natural appeal. We often talk about the contest for the white working class as if the Democrats are the only variable. As if, you know, without extreme efforts by Democrats or specific efforts by Democrats to win over those voters, there's just going to be a natural tendency for them to vote Republican. But Trump was a very particular and idiosyncratic kind of Republican candidate. He ran saying he would, you know, never touch Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security. He ran saying he was for the working man, not for the millionaires and billionaires. He lambasted Clinton and the Democrats for their attachments to Wall Street. And what we've seen early on in the Trump administration is a pretty systematic reversal of that kind of Persona. You know, the Republican health reform bill is going to cut Medicaid by something close to a trillion dollars. The Trump who appealed so strongly to white working class voters may not be the Trump that they see in 2018 or 2020.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And is it too soon for you? Ben, you spent some time lately in Louisiana, which is a very red state, and you've spoken to a lot of Trump voters. Did you get the sense that any of them might have voted for a Democrat who didn't have Hillary Clinton's liabilities?

[Ben Wallace Wells]

I think there's certainly a poignance about Hillary Clinton that she encapsulated a lot of what they resented about their position in American society. But I think that the kind of more poignant and last news that I took from that travel is just that real life is going on. And the same problems that existed before the election that animated some of the anger of the election, of inequality, of a sense of escalating social division, that those things are still real in people's lives to a very real degree. Trump is going to be judged by those voters on the degree to which he can alleviate those problems.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

John, I want you to answer some of that, too, but I specifically want to talk about Elizabeth Warren, who also has been out there the past couple of weeks promoting her book and surely testing the waters for a possible presidential bid in 2020. So you have Warren and Bernie on the left, but what about the next generation of Democrats?

[John Cassidy]

Well, there's this great generational divide, obviously in the Democratic Party. And it's widely thought, you know, there's a weak bench beneath the great war horses like Elizabeth Warren and Sanders. I mean, I think it does look like Warren is going to be the sort of liberal representative. It's hard to imagine that she's doing all this without having 2020 in the back of her mind, although it's also still a bit of a puzzle why she didn't run in 2016. So I think we'll have, I'm guessing, Elizabeth Warren as the sort of liberal war horse. And then the question is, you know, who's going to be the moderate candidate? I mean, there are two of them from New York, which is interesting. Kirsten Grillebrand and of course, our great governor Mr. Cuomo seems to be maneuvering for a run position himself as a sort of centrist. I would say he burnished his sort of conservative credentials in his first term and now he seems to be trying to burnish his liberal credentials in his second term.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And how are they framing the issues, John, beyond reflexive opposition to Trump?

[John Cassidy]

Well, I think there are two issues here. I don't understate reflexive opposition to Trump. I mean, if you have a very unpopular president, you can get a long way just by being opposed to him. I mean, I think the Democrats are actually doing the right thing here by, you know, just sort of all out resistance to Trump. Not only does it Give them a message which is popular because Trump's approval ratings are, you know, still in the low 40s. But it also mobilizes the party and brings them together. All progressive parties disagree on lots of things. That's always the problem. But everybody agrees in the Democratic Party that they dislike Trump. So that brings the party together. It brings in money, it brings in activists. You've seen that in the special elections, especially down in Georgia. And I think you'll see that in 2018 unless Trump does a complete about turn, which seems unlikely.

[David Remnick]

Right now. We are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Charlamagne Tha God, and so many more. That's all on the New Yorker Radio Hour. Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Do you think the Democratic Party can win back some of those Trump voters, or are voters as entrenched in their kind of ideological animus as the parties?

[John Cassidy]

If you look at the opinion polls, Trump's got the support of 90% of his voters. His approval ratings are remarkably static. If you go back to sort of August 2015, he's a very polarizing figure. He's always had a majority of the country against him. You know, if you just look at sort of suburban districts in New York and Pennsylvania, Jersey, I think a lot of the Republicans are going to be vulnerable there. I mean, I'll give you an example. John Faso, the Republican congressman who won upstate against Zephyr teachout just came out in favor of the Republican health care bill, which is very unpopular in New York state. He only got 53% of the vote last year. So he's going to be very vulnerable going to 2018. And there's lots of people across the country like him. Nate Silver, the electoral guru, did a good piece about unpopular the Republican healthcare bill is in Republican districts, and that's because the healthcare bill would harm a lot of Trump voters. Opposing the Trump agenda, in this case the repeal Obamacare part of the agenda, I think, you know, is a very powerful message for the Democrats. Now, the other part of your question was, what positive things have Democrats got to offer people? And I think that is always a trickier question because that's when you get this sort of Hillary versus Bernie divide. But I don't think certainly going to 2018, maybe 2020 differently, but I don't think 20. That's going to be disabling for the Democrats. I think they can win in 2018 just by being against Trump.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Well, a lot of us were talking before the election about whether the Democratic Party and the Republican Party for that matter, with all of these aging leaders, were parties that had kind of played themselves out. I've been thinking lately about Bill Clinton in the 90s, how he had to do his famous triangulation and pick up some Republican issues, you know, moving to the right on deregulation and budget balancing, to name just two, in order to win a second term. Do you think that we're at a similar moment where the left wing and the right wing of the party has to figure out where to come down?

[John Cassidy]

I think it does have to come down, but I don't think it's back to the early 90s when it has to go to a sort of DLC, neoliberal approach. I think that would be actually disastrous because you'd lose half the party, at least. But the Democratic Party is a progressive party now. That's just a fact. If you just look at the polling numbers, you go to the rallies, even look at Hillary Clinton's positions, even though she herself is you, her actual economic positions were, by the time the election came around, pretty progressive. The question is, how do you combine that set of policies with appealing to the white working classes? And I don't think there's necessarily a contradiction there. I mean, I go back to something Biden said the other day. He said the way ahead for the Democratic Party is to focus on the traditional role of the Democrats as being opposed to abuses of power, financial power, political power, all sorts of power. That sort of frame is actually very helpful. The people out who voted for Trump, they feel powerless. They feel like the Democratic Party was sort of on the side of the power structure. And you're also going to have the Trump regime there, which is what is the Trump regime if it is an abuse of power? You know, it seems to me that, you know, things are looking good for the Democrats. They're not looking bad. I think Trump gives a way to unite the party.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

This is the most optimistic series of statements we've heard on this podcast since the election. But, Ben, I want to echo back to a piece that you wrote, the Georgia Special Election. Tell us a little bit about that.

[Ben Wallace Wells]

It was a special election in sort of far suburban Atlanta, Newt Gingrich's old district, to elect a replacement for Tom Price, who had been a congressman from there who was picked by Trump to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. And Jon Ossoff is a very young former Democratic congressional staffer who ran a kind of insurgent campaign, largely funded by contributions from, you know, grassroots progressives around the country, and raised a tremendous amount of money and almost won the district outright in the first round of the election. He came up just short of winning 50% and will now proceed to a runoff. In the analyses conducted after the election, Republican polling firms found that Ossoff had not just mobilized progressives, but had won about 10% of Republicans in the district.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And how did he do that?

[Ben Wallace Wells]

Well, he ran basically as an opponent of Trump, as a figure of opposition. I mean, he's optimistic. He was able to funnel the Democratic oppositional energy in a way that Schumer and others in Congress have been able to do, also the kind of grassroots energy against Trump without really radicalizing.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Does he have a chance in the runoff next month?

[Ben Wallace Wells]

Yeah, I think, you know, most of the prognostications put it at about 50, 50.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

I want to end with one of the big unanswered questions so far, which is the role of Barack Obama. What we saw this week with him taking the flack for this speech he's going to give at Cantor Fitzgerald for what, $400,000?

[John Cassidy]

Yeah, I mean, I think we just don't really know enough about what Obama's intentions are yet. If he wants to still be a big figure in the Democratic Party and help shape the sort of overall philosophy of the party, then I think it was a terrible to agree to do this speech on Wall Street. The Democratic Party, if it stands for anything, as Biden said the other day, it's against abuses of power. And when people think about abuses of power in this country now because of the financial crisis, they think about Wall Street. So I think the Democratic Party has to distance itself from Wall Street.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

It's also incomprehensible just given the criticism that Hillary Clinton took from Trump throughout the campaign for her own highly paid speeches from Goldman Spencer.

[John Cassidy]

And, you know, not only that, you know, from people within the Obama administration. And, you know, if you spoke to Obama's political loyalists, you know, they were very critical of Clinton. They said, what the hell was she doing out raising money when she was running for office again? I mean, I guess their defense would be, well, Obama's not running for office again, but, you know, he's such a central, pivotal figure in the Democratic Party, even if he doesn't care about his own reputation. I think he owes it to the party to be more careful.

[Ben Wallace Wells]

I think that's absolutely right. I think, you know, one way to think about the 2016 election is that it revealed a kind of fundamental fracture within the party that Obama, by dint of his personality and sort of moral power and ability to negotiate between competing points of view, was able to pull together for eight years or so. That, you know, and that once he began to exit the stage, some of those rifts reappeared. In a party which, as John said, you know, very correctly, is committed to its progressive wing, it just seems sort of an unnecessary way for him to discredit his own self as an interlocutor with the Bernie wing, with the more activist part of the party.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Thanks to both of you.

[John Cassidy]

Thank you, Dorothy.

[Ben Wallace Wells]

Thank you.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

John Cassidy and Ben Wallace Wells are staff writers. This has been the political scene from the New Yorker. You can see subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast app and find more political analysis and commentary on new yorker.com feel free to rate and review the political scene on itunes. This podcast is produced by Alex barron for new yorker.com with help from Daniel Wenger. I'm Dorothy Wickenden.

[Katie Drummond]

What the hell is going on right now and why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting to the bottom those questions on a daily basis. And maybe you are too. I'm Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of Wired, and I'm hosting our new podcast series, the Big Interview. Each week I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big Interview conversations are fun. I want a shark that that eats the Internet, that turns it all off, unfiltered and unafraid.

[Ben Wallace Wells]

So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online.

[John Cassidy]

To the best of my ability, every.

[Katie Drummond]

Week, we're going to offer you the ultimate luxury of our times. Meaning and context. True or false? You, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me. One day, at some point, as of yet undefined in the future, you will die. False. Tell me more. Listen to the Big Interview right now in the same place you find WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Cassidy]

From.

[Ben Wallace Wells]

PRX.