Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: The Realignment
Episode: 564 | Steve Teles: What Democrats Can Learn from the GOP's Trump-Era Upheaval
Date: July 31, 2025
Host: Marshall Kosloff
Guest: Steve Teles

Overview

This episode of The Realignment explores the state of the Democratic Party as it grapples with the challenge of party reform in the midst of America's ongoing political realignment. Host Marshall Kosloff and recurring guest Steve Teles—now colleagues at the Niskanen Center—draw parallels between current Democratic introspection and the earlier period of GOP soul-searching that preceded the rise of Donald Trump. Their conversation unpacks lessons from the demise of "reform conservatism," the current debates between "abundance" and "common sense" Democrats, and the difficulties of effecting real party change in the face of entrenched interests and the power of personality-driven politics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding Political Analogy

• Analogies in Political Analysis:
  • Steve Teles emphasizes the importance of analogies, though he cautions that "in the first approximation, all analogies are wrong" (03:11). Still, they are essential for making sense of complex political phenomena.
• Reform Conservatism vs. Abundance:
  • The Reformacons sought to nudge the GOP toward policies better aligned with its increasingly working-class base, aiming to offer more than just libertarian economic policies.
  • The current Democratic “abundance” movement is broader and more ideologically diffuse, stretching across a wide spectrum from left ("Red Plenty") to right ("dark abundance") (10:36, 11:10).

2. Reformacon Legacy and Lessons for Democrats

• Origins and Limitations of Reform Conservatism:
  • Reform Conservatism was a DC-centric, somewhat insular effort that never became a mass movement. It was “really 40 to 50 people who developed ideas” (03:11).
  • Despite policy innovations, the movement couldn’t capture the GOP base’s imagination, making it vulnerable to being swept away by an outside force—eventually, Donald Trump.
• Democratic Parallel:
  • The Democratic side now faces its own moment with a growing agreement among factions that change is needed, but as Teles and Kosloff note, analogical caution is warranted.
  • Compared to reformacons, the abundance & common sense Dem efforts have broader interest among elected officials, aiming to regain the majoritarian appeal Dems lost since the Obama era (13:11).

3. Factionalism and the Realities of Party Change

• Factional Theory of Politics:
  • Teles returns to this central framework, describing politicians as “frenemies” who both compete internally and against the other party.
  • Most elected officials feel a strong stake in majority status and may “not particularly like some of the policy ideas” from other factions, but they recognize coalition is needed (15:03).
• Online Activists vs. Electeds:
  • There’s a divide between online activists (less tied to majoritarian stakes) and elected officials, who must “go both ways” to achieve and wield power (15:03).

4. Case Study: Zoron’s New York Win and the Measurement of Factional Success

• Operationalizing Factional Fights:
  • Marshall probes how we discern which faction’s model is succeeding: personality, outsider energy, or nuanced policy models?
• Shortcomings in Moderate Recruiting:
  • The failure to produce a strong “abundance” or moderate candidate in the NY mayoral race demonstrates still “underdeveloped” playbooks for party reformers. Candidates like Spanberger (VA) and Sherrill (NJ) are running on moderation vibes more than transformative policy (18:43–21:09).

5. The “Abundance” Rubric and Its Cross-Factional Appeal

• Abundance's Attraction Across the Spectrum:
  • Despite online antagonism, left-leaning figures like Zoron demonstrate the appeal of “abundance” for leaders intent on delivering real results rather than empty promises—especially in contrast with failed progressive mayors like Chicago’s Brandon Johnson (22:29–24:36).
  • The challenge: translating rhetoric into administrative capacity and ensuring the right people are willing to confront bureaucratic obstacles (24:36–27:40).

6. New Democratic Institutions and the “New Ideas” Problem

• Emergence of New Groups:
  • Kosloff identifies dozens of new organizations (States Forum, Project 2029, Searchlight, Majority Democrats) vying to set the future of the party, paralleling the swirl of “new ideas” in the GOP circa 2015.
• Are Voters Seeking New Ideas or New Faces?
  • Teles is skeptical that voters are meticulously tracking policy. Instead, real breakthroughs happen when politicians “say the thing” that shocks voters into reevaluating what a party stands for (32:31).

7. The Value—and Risks—of Dramatic Party Signaling

• What Makes Change Credible:
  • Borrowing from Trump’s playbook, new positions must involve real “costly signals” that demonstrate a willingness to break with one’s own side.
  • Mere gestures (“appoint a non-college-grad to cabinet”) may resonate but don’t fundamentally change governance or send a truly credible signal—what counts is “making enemies” within your own camp and showing you’re serious (35:59–41:00).
• Reform Needs Credible Sacrifice:
  • It's not about optics alone; credible commitment to unpopular reforms within one's own coalition signals real change and builds trust among skeptical voters.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "In the first approximation, all analogies are wrong. Right? Things are in fact are not like other things. And yet we have to somehow reason about big complex systems. It forces us to make comparisons."
  — Steve Teles (03:11)

• "The Republican Party is getting full up of bad actuarial risk. It's getting full of older people, poorer people, sicker people, all those things. And yet the Republican Party is still the party of Paul Ryan, which is the party of keeping the bad actuarial risks out."
  — Steve Teles (08:16)

• "Politicians are more attuned to the fact that they have to go both ways, right. They don't particularly like some of the policy ideas of the people who are in this common sense dim space. But on the other hand, they know they can't actually be a majority without them."
  — Steve Teles (15:03)

• "Online, a lot of the breakdowns you see are because people have no stake really materially in that majority status in a way that most of your average generic dem have a very strong stake in that."
  — Steve Teles (16:45)

• "The failure of, you know, common sense, dim, moderate organization, that the pipeline had not produced a candidate like that in the way that it did in the New Jersey and Virginia governor's races."
  — Steve Teles (19:56)

• "I don't think it's at all weird that parts of the left would get attracted to abundance. ... If you want to do the kind of things [Zoron] clearly wants to do, you can't do them with the existing way that New York City government is organized now."
  — Steve Teles (24:36)

• "[What voters need is] someone to say the thing where voters have to go and say, oh, I have to completely reevaluate what I thought Democrats were. ... When you show that you're willing to do something that has a personal cost for you, that you're making enemies, that's when people think that's credible."
  — Steve Teles (32:31, 40:53)

• "People knew, whoa, like all of the business, Koch, you know, all the usual suspects are going to scream. And they did scream. And I think the point is their screams were valuable because people saw that actually he was getting in a big fight with major Republican interests."
  — Steve Teles, on why Trump’s policies were credible (40:00)

• "Public employees are the biggest constituency of the Democratic Party. ... I'm on your side, not on their side. They work for us and we're going to make them work for you. I think that kind of thing sends that credible signal."
  — Steve Teles (41:33)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Reformacon vs. Abundance Overview: 03:11–10:36
• Factional Theory and Politicians’ Incentives: 15:03–17:00
• Zoron, Factional Success & Operational Lessons: 17:00–22:29
• Abundance Outreach and Administrative Limits: 22:29–27:40
• “New Ideas” for Democrats—Substance or Shtick?: 27:40–32:31
• The Need for Costly, Credible Signals: 32:31–41:33

Memorable Moments

• The “Joe Rogan Rubric” for New Ideas:
  Marshall suggests measuring a policy's resonance by whether you could discuss it for 30 minutes on Joe Rogan: “The idea was the next Democrat should promise that they are going to appoint ... people to cabinet-level positions who did not go to college in the first place.” (34:45)

• On Token Gestures vs. Real Change:
  Steve Teles pushes back: “Honestly, I worry it's a gimmick. I actually think you need to do something more ... because that in and of itself doesn't change anything about how Democrats govern.” (35:59)

• The Need to Confront Internal Interests:
  “Public employees are the biggest constituency of the Democratic Party. ... I’m on your side, not on their side. They work for us and we're going to make them work for you.” (41:33)

Tone & Style

• The conversation is candid, wonky, and direct—Marked by mutual respect and deep familiarity with party history, intellectual factions, and “inside baseball” references.
• Marshall is probing and critical; Steve is analytical, often qualifying his takes but always bringing the conversation back to practical political realities.

Takeaways for Listeners

• The Democratic Party stands at a crossroads similar to the GOP’s pre-Trump reform years—the outcome, however, is unpredictable, and mere analogies can mislead.
• For change to be credible, reformers must signal willingness to challenge their own side’s entrenched interests, not just offer “new ideas” in the abstract.
• The work of building reform coalitions, articulating new ideas, and finding charismatic leaders who can turn policy prose into “personality and poetry” is ongoing and increasingly urgent for Democrats seeking majoritarian appeal.