
Good policy is good politics, or so the saying goes. So, uh, how do we agree on what that is? Jane Coaston talks with three of the left’s most prominent policy thinkers: Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress, and writer Matthew Yglesias of Slow Boring.
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A
Hey, Wad Squad Crooked hosted our first ever Crooked Con last week in Washington, D.C. if you were there, thank you. If you couldn't make it, here's something special just for you. A bonus episode of my panel, Make America what policy priorities for a progressive future. I spoke with Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid Neer Tanden of the center for American Progress and writer Matthew Iglesias of Slow Boring. Here it is, raw, uncut, and in its entirety. Enjoy. Hello, everyone. I'm Jane Coston. We are live from CrookedCon. As you know, because you've signed things and came here, you know where you are, you know what we're doing. So a lot of policy conversations, like this one, except not like this one, can devolve into really smart people arguing back and forth about what they think will fix all of our problems. I know what will fix all of our problems, and that's if Michigan wins another national title in football. See? See, I get it. Yeah. But in this conversation, I'm actually way less interested in, like, progressive versus centrist policy arguments and more interested in what wins elections, because what do we like winning? Yay. Like, wasn't Tuesday fun? Because we won? Yay. So I gathered some of the best minds in liberal progressive circles to talk about it. So joining me today, Matthew Iglesias of the Slow Boring newsletter, Neera Tanden of the center for American Progress and Democrats, Democratic strategist and person you know from everywhere online, Waleed Shahid. Okay, so table setting, question setting aside, what you want or think is best? Waleed, what are some policies you think are going to matter to the coalition that Democrats need to build? Young people, working class voters, everybody. How do we separate what pundits want from what actually works in elections?
B
Well, thanks for having me. I thought about this question and, you know, the first thing I did when I looked at the prompt was think about how, like, when you're campaigning in elections, policy is part of a broader recipe of success based on who your candidate is and what their larger narrative is. Policy can't be divorced from those other integral pieces of the recipe. And I think there's many examples of candidates who had great policy and did poorly electorally and other candidates who, you know, maybe had a stronger narrative or brand and maybe weaker on policy and couldn't fill in the dots when they were pushed on it. So that's one thing. And I've been thinking a lot about what is the story, larger story that our policy needs to fit into heading into 2026. And for me, a big Thing is about the corruption and rigging of the system by this administration and how to tell a story about that. And these are two policies that I don't actually think are going to fix large things in our political economy, but I think they help tell a greater story, which is one, banning congressional stock trading. I think that will not fix the economy, but it is a good story to tell given the graft of this administration, of the family, of the Trump family in office, with their cryptocurrency exchanges that they're having for, you know, releasing friends and donors out of legal trouble. And I think it helps, you know, people feel authentically that Democrats are cleaning up their own house and not having a double standard. And the second one I've been thinking a lot about is ticketing. Nobody likes to feel like they're getting scammed whenever they buy a concert or sports ticket. And I think this to get for Democrats to get into more of the cultural space where a lot of ordinary Americans, when they're buying a World cup ticket or buying a Beyonce ticket and feel completely fleeced by Ticketmaster. I think there's lots we can do here. I know Zoran released a video about pricing of the World cup. And I think that this is like a populist issue that can build a larger story about corruption and rigging. Are they my favorite policy priorities to build a more social Democratic country? No, but I think they are part of a story that I think Democrats can go into, into 2026 on strong footing. That, yeah, that creates conflict and attention and relates to people where.
A
Neera, what do you think?
C
So I think that we should recognize where we are. I agree with all of those policies and I do think political corruption is important and that Democrats have an agenda for political reform to meet it. Because we are seeing levels of political corruption. I don't think we even have a language about. But I also think we should recognize, you know, where we are. Cost of living is obviously a huge concern. How people make ends meet, how they feel stuck, economically stuck. People move less physically stuck and then married to that. I think we should all recognize in the first nine months of this administration, you know, one of the singular differences between The Trump administration, Trump 1 and Trump 2 is in Trump 1, you know, he tried to hurt working class people by repealing the aca. And actually Democrats stopped him, but because Democrats stopped him with Republicans voting against him, but because there's so much Republican fealty, he actually has had a series of policies that really hurt working class people. So, you know, the Tariffs, obbba, the Medicaid cuts that are coming, the premium tax credits, these are all ways that the administration is actually making it harder for people. So that's why I think Democrats, progressives, center left, and we did see this on Tuesday. That is an opportunity to have a critique, but also an affirmative agenda. An affirmative agenda that is highly focus on how we will deliver on lowering costs for people. Mikey Sherrill talked a lot about utility costs. You know, she grabbed that issue first. Utility costs are one of the highest raising costs in the country, 10% year over year. That is a growing issue. It is really important that we're demonstrating action immediately. And that's why I think the premium tax credit fight, the fight over the ACA Marketplace has been an actually good fight that congressional Democrats have had for the last month, two months, because that is also a way to demonstrate that you understand the pain people are going through by the fights you're picking.
A
Matt, I know that you think a lot about the difference between what pundits want and what people will vote for. How are you thinking about this question when it comes to 2026?
D
Well, you know, the good news about midterms, right, is opposition is sort of easy mode, right? You can look out there, you can see what are people upset about. They're upset about the rising cost of living. They're upset about utilities. You can grab some fun stuff like the tickets issue, you know, show that you're. You're like, real, you know, reality. What's, what's hard is governing, right? And saying, like, can we align what we said we were gonna do? Or what's the political party that we acted like we were in our ads with how it is we actually govern, right? I have never seen a Democratic candidate run an ad about how they're going to ban plastic bags and plastic straws. But if you look at blue states in America, when Democrats have political power, that's what they do, like on autopilot, right? They're taking away your plastic bags, they're taking away your plastic straws. And I think an interesting question is, like, why do we do that, right? When I talk to left wing people, they say, well, you know, what we got to do is, like, fight the oligarchy. And you talk to more moderate people and they use a different vocabulary. They say, well, you know, we've got to focus on kitchen table issues. But, like, on a high level, everyone agrees, right? The best version of the Democratic Party cares about economic fairness, cares a lot about the social safety net, cares about tax fairness. Cares about political reform. But the elite donors, the influencers, the staffers in the Democratic Party are very passionately concerned with climate change, with certain kinds of abstract cosmopolitanism, with the idea that the criminal justice system is too mean to criminals. And that kind of stuff is like, we know that's not the winning politics. That's not what Democrats, quote, unquote, run on. But people, like, draw in for, like, Trump didn't run on. I'm gonna make your health care more expensive. But he's making people's health care more expensive. Republicans are gonna be punished for that. And so you've gotta, I think, try to make a decision to, like, be the political party that we want people to think we are.
C
So can I just say one thing about. You know, I definitely. I definitely hear these points, but what.
D
Kind of straws do you like? Like, what's better? You like iced coffee with, like, weird, melty paper in your mouth?
C
Like, no.
A
Right.
C
You know, I honestly just have to say, personally, I do not get the obsession either way on the straws. Like, the paper straw is fine with me. The plastic straw's fine.
A
I was really struck how in New Jersey, this became, like, a major issue for Jack Cittarelli. I was like, all right, buddy, let's.
C
Yeah, major issue lost by 14 points. But I will say, you know, I think it is important to recognize these conversations change. Right. Right now, both Spanberger and Sheryl run. Sheryl ran Mikey. Sheryl ran on utility costs. The way they would address that is adding renewables. That is a way to deal with climate. I just think we should recognize that there are ways to talk about these issues and that they are still important.
A
So I think that that actually is a great segue to something I've been thinking a lot about. And I want to start with you, Waleed, which is that we had a lot of big Democratic victories on Tuesday, but it was kind of like a choose your own adventure of storylines coming out from them. And I think that that's something we're having with the nationalization of local politics. We're seeing people who are basically like, no, the best way to run is to be Abigail Spanberger, which I'm like, I don't think we can all be ex CIA operatives. Believe me, they are not gonna hire me.
B
That Zoron oppo hasn't dropped yet.
A
I know, I know. Now wouldn't. Now, that would be the craziest turn in politics. I, for one, I would love to see it. But, like, you know, with Zoron, we're Hearing a host of people being like, you know, he's the blueprint for how you should win. Democrats can win nationwide. And I'm like, new York is a very specific place. However, I mean, I think that there's something to learn from all of these elections. But what do you think about how should we be thinking about local elections in a nationalized media environment? Because I think that there. I mean, one of the challenges, Matt, you think about is that Democrats don't run on the things that the media or elsewhere are going to say that you run on. Like, there are people who think that, like, you know, every Democrat running in North Carolina or Iowa is running on the same platforms as somebody running in New York or where I live in Southern California. One, I'm interested to hear, like, how do you think about competing in that nationalized media environment? And two, I mean, I would love to see a world in which there are lots of different kinds of Democrats and they can all win in lots of different areas by talking about some bigger issues, but also focused on what issues really matter in those areas. I do not need somebody, I don't need Zoron to have to answer for Abigail Spanberger, and I don't want Abigail Spanberger to need to answer for Zoram Hamdani. How do we do this? Is that even possible?
B
The dilemma of cramming 330 million people into two parties is very hard, I do think.
A
I mean, granted, all of the other. You know, it's funny, whenever people are like, oh, why don't we have all these other parties? I'm like, have you ever met the Libertarian Party? Because you don't want to meet the Libertarian Party.
B
I think that's something that's happened. You know, obviously, I'm someone who comes from the left wing of the party. I love Zoran and think he offers lessons to the party as a whole. And at the same time, what I think you're seeing the party coalesce around is a focus in many different geographies on a kind of populist affordability. And that looks different in Kansas as it might look in Maine, as it might look in New York City. But there is a kind of returning to, I think, as Matt put it, like an economic fairness argument and like a we fight for everyone kind of argument in the specter of, you know, having an administration that is corrupt and stealing healthcare from the American people. I do think that, like, there. We shouldn't. There's a kind of Kumbaya in this that is great in general elections, but There are going to be real primary fights that will, you know, this conflict will play out in obviously, like the Graham Platner, Janet Mills one in which, you know, Chuck Schumer and the DSCC has recruited a candidate against someone who's popular online. And, you know, seeing the videos in Maine, those are places where, like, there is going to have to be some openness to conflict on both sides. And so that's kind of where I'm at on this, where there is a kind of coalescing on new leadership, new generation of leadership, populist affordability, and a like, default to like, aren't we all the same? Can't we all get along? And I'm like, let the primaries happen. You know, let them duke it out.
D
Well, so what always used to frustrate me about Waleed's guys is that, you know, they would run in these kind of safe seats and they would, you know, obtain marginal amounts of political power as like backbenchers in the House. And then we would have a lot of very theoretical disagreements, right, about, like, how things should be. What's, what's good about Mamdani is that, like, everybody agrees that the electorate in New York City is more progressive than the electorate nationwide or even in New York State. So you can do things there that would not be electorally viable in other places. And that then means that I think the lessons to be learned aren't from how he ran, but it's from what will happen over the next four years if he does things. And they work out really well. I think people will take those models to Connecticut, to Oregon, right to other jurisdictions that are to the left of center. And that's like how the system is supposed to work, right? We're supposed to be entrepreneurial in our safer areas and do things. I've been really influenced over the years by my wife's parents. They live in rural Texas. They were George W. Bush Republicans. They hate Donald Trump, but they have profound doubts about the quality of governance in New York and California that they hear about. Their thinking is that, you know, California has great weather, New York has great cultural amenities that some people like, and that those are good places to live if you're like a rich snob. But that, like, basic quality of life for middle class, working class people, in their view is higher. In Texas, the taxes are lower. The public university system is just as good. The public schools are fine, the streets are safe. And they're like, not that interested in the subway and other kinds of stuff like that. And so the challenge for Democrats isn't like, how do we win an election in New York? It's how do we govern New York so that it's a growing, thriving place where you're not constantly hearing about, like, oh, I'd like, live in a studio with seven roommates and, you know, rats devoured all my groceries. Stuff like that. Right. Because, like, people, I mean, I don't want to talk down urban America. Like, I love living in Washington, D.C. but that's like an aesthetic preference. Right? I'm not telling you. What I love about Washington D.C. is the balance between my taxes and the quality of the public services. And like, most Americans don't share my personal taste or Jane's personal taste for, like, what kinds of neighborhoods.
A
Yes, they do.
D
Right? They're all moving to Logan Circle, West Hollywood. It's gonna be great. And so, you know, it's like, we need to show that we can deliver and that's what will allow for the complementarities. Right. Cause then it's easy to say, look, not everything that works in New York applies to Virginia, but, like, they're doing great in New York and they haven't been doing, I think, that great in the big coastal city.
C
I mean, I guess I would say to this, what I push back on is, you know, I definitely think the right has a narrative about cities and we should recogn. And I don't know that that narrative changed dramatically when Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York, that everybody loved New York City.
A
That's one of my favorite things about this is, like, I remember when Bloomberg was mayor and people still decided that it was like a hell mouth. And then people were like, we miss Michael Bloomberg.
C
I guess I'd say I totally, 100% believe that Democrats have to govern well, people will judge people on results. And that is, that is super important. I guess to get back to the question, I would say, you know, I think it's really vital that we have a gigantic tent. I mean, my view of the world we're in is that if you actually believe democracy is at stake and that Trump is a authoritarian monster, then it is actually vital that we build gigantic tents. Not big tents, but gigantic. Tense. And I do think it's important to note that Mikey Jarrell and Abigail Spanberger did. The margin of their victory was because they persuaded some Trump voters last year to vote for them. And that was the difference between a four point race and a 14 point race. And that is hugely. I mean, that it is doable. And in this moment where elections can mean the difference between people's like basic dignity rights. We have to think about that in big ways. And I'd say the Democratic Party has to be big enough to understand and like welcome the ideas of Zorn Mamdani and the fact that he's connecting with voters and learn from that. And also we have to recognize that we have to run candidates like if we actually want to have a Democratic Senate is important for 2028 but but going forward we have to be able to compete in states that Democrats used to compete in like Iowa and Ohio. And that's going to be a different formula. The beautiful through line of Tuesday was everyone was really focused on costs and talked about it in a different way for a different place, but focused in on costs in a way that did cleavage some of the Trump's working class base. If we really want to build a broad coalition for the future, we as Democrats have to figure out how we speak to not just college educated folks but non college educated folks of all colors and try to get to a place where we're at like 50, you know, 40, 60, not 30, 70 with working class people.
A
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I kind of hate the, oh, we got to be on the right side of 8020 issues or 7030 issues, because on occasion the 30 or the 20 are just correct. And I think that that's something that I think that as Democrats, as progressives, as people who care about a lot of these issues, it's really difficult to decide how to talk about these issues. It's really difficult to decide, like, which issues you're going to emphasize because I think that, for example, I think when we talk about kitchen table issues occasionally I feel as if, like we're talking as if there's a certain amount of money you have to have and then you're allowed to be trans like that working class people aren't trans or working class people are only white or working class people only have these experiences or those experiences. However, earlier this year, the Nation, the magazine, released polling showing that contrary to what I think a lot of people might think, the Democrats who stayed home in 2024, and we now know that those who stayed home and didn't vote were mostly Democrats, were less progressive than the Democrats who voted. And so, you know, we see that pretty much across the board on cultural issues and on a host of other, you know, economic issues, for example. So, Waleed, I think you and I might be agreed in just thinking, thinking about this as being like, I don't want to give up on any part, any liberals and any Democrats in order to win over people who don't see me as being an equal member of our politic. But what policies do you think can speak to non progressive Democrats who are enraged by the status quo but may have been kind of intrigued by Trump or independent voters who may have voted for Trump or people who just didn't vote but tend to lean more conservative than the current Democratic Party?
B
Well, the obvious one is stop sending billions of dollars to Benjamin Netanyahu. I think that like there are many people who especially in like the kind of podcast, YouTube, TikTok sphere, like if you talk to any cab driver throughout the country who's like an immigrant and a citizen, like that's something that they are thinking about a lot is and connected to affordability, something that those are the Trump voters or non voters at least in New York City where I'm from are the people who connected cost of living to where the Democratic Party's priorities that how is there billions of dollars to spend overseas and not enough for.
A
It's a little ironic that they voted for Trump then. Like a little bit ironic.
B
Well those are people in my family and like we don't think about them who as people who stayed home, who, you know, people who should be persuaded just like any other, any other electorate, whether it's a suburban upper middle class Romney voter in Michigan or a Latino voter on the border. Like these are voters that matter too. And yeah, I think that that's one thing on your larger point that you're making just really quick the mood of the country changes. And so, you know, right now we're witnessing an enormous backlash to Donald Trump's immigration policy amongst Latino and Asian voters who might have voted for Trump. And that's out beared out in the exit polls, borne out in interviews I've seen. And you know that it's hard to come up with the strategy that so many people were Talking about in December 2024 may not be exactly the same kind of strategy we're talking about today when there's an uprising around racial justice in 2020. Like these are social things happening and then you have to relate to it. But I do think that the country as a whole is going through major change on how we talk about some of the ways in which gender, family, race, the fact that we have the world's largest prison population, what we do about these things, we are recalibrating on how to communicate as a party and as a coalition to people in a way that doesn't sound like checking your language all the time.
D
I want to disagree with Jane though about the 7030 issues. The 80, 20 issues.
A
Oh man, it's like a Weeds episode all over again.
D
You know, I saw Barack Obama was present at an event here earlier and you know, look back in 2008 when the question was put on the table, what do you think about marriage equality? He didn't come up with a clever way to talk about that. He said that he believed as a profound matter of religious conviction that marriage is between a man and a woman. And like it's something that I think, you know, some of his former staffers and teams who, who may run popular podcasts and stuff don't talk about a lot. Right. But like these were the. Now I think in retrospect everybody's story is none of them ever believed that they were just lying. Maybe that's true. But like part of democracy is that sometimes you agree with the voters about things and it is somebody else's job to change the voters minds. And that's an ecosystem wide thing.
B
But you hate the somebody else's who are trying to change people's minds.
D
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, no. But like, listen, like, you know, I know that people at the Human Rights campaign, they didn't love that that was Obama's position, but they supported him because they knew that he was better on their issues. You go back to like Martin Luther King endorsing JFK in 1960. That's not because JFK was where Martin Luther King wanted him to be on racial justice. It's not because JFK was where I would say he should have been, you know, in the cosmic good sense. But he was the better candidate, you know, Dr. King felt. And that's the way politics works. And there is a role for the kind of primaries that will lead us behind. There's a role for, you know, trying to take the reins of executive office. There's a role for think tanks to try to put stuff out that'll change people's minds. There's a role for hot takes. On the Israel issue, for example, you've done the persuasion, right? And so I think like now you're trying to bully elected officials to agree with you, but you got the voters first, right? Like that's the correct order of operations actually. And the question on a lot of these other issues is like, can progressives undertake the public opinion change that would make it possible to have the political change that they want? And when we put the cart before the horse, we ultimately don't serve the interests of the communities that we're supposed to be helping with these kinds of things, like what happened under Biden with immigration ultimately was, like, a disservice to immigrant communities. It brought Trump to power. Things are much worse than they would have been if, you know, I mean, you were there and I wasn't. It's easy for me to say, like, maybe you should have handled the border better. But, like, obviously it's hard. Right?
C
Yeah. But, I mean, I think this is an important. I think immigration is an important issue. So in the sense that I think it's really important when you're governing to try to make as much progress as you can without also recognizing that backlashes really do hurt people. You know, we are living in a time of backlash. People are being victimized. So it is like, you know, it's not that you are immobilized by the possibility of backlash. Obviously, a lot of politicians tell themselves, can't do this because I'll face a backlash. So, I mean, this is like, the essentials of leadership. Is this how you.
D
How do you.
A
Especially with a voting public that seems to be like, we want this, but not like that.
C
Yeah.
A
And it just. You never get.
D
Now we're in the backlash to the backlash, to the original backlash to Trump.
A
Right.
C
But, like, marriage equality, I think, is a tough thing. Right. Because actually, the politicians were wrong. And, you know, I mean, CAP was one of the first groups to push for marriage equality. We got yelled at by the White House for, like, what were we doing, you know, and how are we creating this pressure on him? But it turned out to be the right thing. And all these people. In 2012, when Joe Biden came up for marriage quality, we were like, oh, my God, we're not going to win Ohio. But we did win Ohio. Right. So I do think, like, these are easy. These are not easy issues to navigate. But I also do recognize we made mistakes on immigration. Our coalition really didn't want us to do things on immigration. I think we did it way too late, and we did it after Trump was the nominee. So we saw it in focus groups. People were like, well, they only did after Trump. So I really care about immigration. Just gonna vote for that guy. And the people are suffering are immigrants. It's like, that is the problem. I mean, people are being terrorized today. So, you know, like, I don't think. I guess my broad take here is that we have to. You know, you can't get too. It's like, there's always a thing with leadership. You're leading, but you're also following. You know, that is what you're doing at all. Times no one is a leader in America. If no one is following you, then you're just like me. You know, there's like an average person out there. So, you know, that is the dance of leadership.
A
So we don't have very much time, and we could absolutely have this conversation for another three hours, maybe on a podcast. But I want to ask, starting with Waleed, and we can all answer, what's one policy that you haven't discussed yet that you would like to see Democrats embrace that would convince voters that the party is capable of adapting to this Absolutely. Bachelor moment? We're in the midst of.
B
Massively expand. Like the massively expand our care infrastructure to lower costs, like the fact that healthcare continues to be a top three issue consistently. And obviously, Neera has worked on this her whole life and knows more about it than I do. But when it comes to elderly care, childcare, the fact that in New York City you're gonna spend 25 to $30,000 out of pocket for taking care of your children is horrific. And so I think any sort of way that Democrats can, you know, say out loud that they're going to lower the cost of care, whether it's any of those things, and also do it, do the things that you say you're going to do, and we'll see what happens in New York. New Mexico is having a universal childcare plan. And so I think this can go.
C
Across the country as a big backer of the New Mexico universal childcare plan. I'm super down with that, but. And totally agree with everything you just said. I think an area that we're trying to think about at cap is I don't think we have a language for the level of political corruption we're seeing. And so I'm definitely for stock buybacks, but we are trying to think through a bolder set of ideas of ensuring that that just because you are a gazillionaire does not mean you have the power a gazillion times more power. Everyone else does. I mean, I do think we can debate whether people know what oligarchy is or not, but they definitely know that our democracy is corrupted by a system in which the Trump administration's biggest donors can determine who gets fired in the federal government and who is regulating them. And that is a, I think, a big avenue for needed reform and provides a real opportunity for contrast.
D
I think this is not necessarily what people want to hear, but the Democrats need to really re. Embrace what they used to call an all of the above energy strategy to talk about the way Trump is crippling renewables and all the good that low cost solar and wind and battery can do, but also to acknowledge the incredibly real benefits that fossil fuel production has had in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Alaska. These are the states where Democrats want to win. Whether you're talking about populism or kitchen table issues or whatever it is, you have to be that political party that acknowledges the reality of America's natural resource economies.
A
Waleed, Neera, Matt, thank you so much for joining me. And thank you all for joining us. That was my panel discussion from CrookedCon, Make America what Again? Policy Priorities for a Progressive Future, featuring Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, Nira Tanden of the center for American Progress, and writer Matthew Iglesias of Slow Boring. And if you want to join us next year, sign up@crookedcon.com for all the details on our next CrookedCon coming to you in 2026, just in time for midterm. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Foer and Chris Allport. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Kaitlin Plummer, Tyler Hill and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erika Morrison. And our senior vice president of news and politics is Adrienne Hill. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Podcast: What A Day – Crooked Media
Host: Jane Coaston
Guests: Waleed Shahid (Democratic strategist), Neera Tanden (Center for American Progress), Matthew Yglesias (Slow Boring newsletter)
Date: November 15, 2025
Episode Context: Recorded live at Crooked Con in Washington, D.C.
This episode features a dynamic panel discussion on the policy directions and messaging strategies for progressives in anticipation of the 2026 elections. Rather than framing the conversation as a debate between centrist and left-wing positions, host Jane Coaston probes what actually works to build winning electoral coalitions. The guests—each influential in Democratic policy and politics—consider how Democrats can respond to voters’ immediate concerns, navigate the nationalization of local politics, and reconcile progressive ambition with electoral reality.
Waleed Shahid argues that policy should fit into a compelling narrative rather than stand alone, emphasizing storytelling about corruption and system-rigging (02:23).
Neera Tanden highlights economic anxieties—cost of living and utility costs—as areas where Democrats can both criticize Republican policies and offer a positive agenda (04:49).
Matthew Yglesias points out a disconnect between Democratic campaign messaging and what Democratic governments often prioritize (e.g., environmental regulations that aren’t campaign centerpieces) (07:08).
Jane Coaston introduces the challenge: The media and political discourse tend to flatten local distinctions, making it hard for candidates to tailor platforms to their constituencies (10:00).
Shahid supports a unifying theme—populist affordability—adapted for different geographies, while also stressing the productive conflict of primary fights.
Yglesias frames “safe” progressive districts as laboratories: success there can become a model for more moderate districts, but he insists the standard of governance, not just electioneering, matters (13:53).
Tanden emphasizes the need for a gigantic, inclusive coalition that learns from successes of both progressive and moderate Democrats (17:06).
Coaston brings up the danger of oversimplifying “kitchen table issues,” noting diversity exists even within voter blocs typically categorized as “working class” or “progressive” (21:48).
Shahid suggests policies like ending military aid to Netanyahu as resonant with disenchanted or skeptical potential Democratic voters—noting the salience of foreign policy and affordability links for some communities (23:35).
Yglesias warns about pushing too far ahead of public opinion; he references Obama’s initial stance on marriage equality as a case where political leadership was behind activists but ultimately shifted in response to changing public opinion (25:34).
Tanden reflects on leadership: The balance is to “make as much progress as you can without… recognizing that backlashes really do hurt people” (28:21).
Shahid: Calls for a massive expansion of care infrastructure (healthcare, elder care, childcare)—a concrete, near-universal need (31:04).
Tanden: Emphasizes the need for stronger anti-corruption reforms, imagining bold policies to curb outsized influence of wealth on democracy.
Yglesias: Advocates an "all of the above" energy strategy, acknowledging both renewables and the economic role of fossil fuels in key swing states.
Waleed Shahid:
“I think there’s lots we can do here… this is like a populist issue that can build a larger story about corruption and rigging.” — On ticketing reform (03:38)
Neera Tanden:
“We should recognize, you know, where we are. Cost of living is obviously a huge concern. How people make ends meet, how they feel stuck, economically stuck.” (04:49)
“If you actually believe democracy is at stake… it is actually vital that we build gigantic tents. Not big tents, but gigantic.” (17:11)
Matthew Yglesias:
“[When Democrats have power], they’re taking away your plastic bags, they’re taking away your plastic straws. And I think an interesting question is, like, why do we do that?” (07:41)
“[The electorate in] New York City is more progressive… you can do things there that would not be electorally viable in other places. That… means lessons to be learned aren’t from how [Mamdani] ran, but from what will happen over the next four years if he does things.” (13:57)
Jane Coaston:
“I do not need Zoron to have to answer for Abigail Spanberger, and I don’t want Abigail Spanberger to need to answer for Zoram Hamdani.” (10:51)
“It’s really difficult to decide how to talk about these issues. It’s really difficult to decide like which issues you’re going to emphasize…” (21:52)
For a deeper dive: Listen to the full episode, especially the exchanges between Shahid and Yglesias for a nuanced take on coalition-building and the tension between core values and coalition pragmatism.