The midterm elections have left both parties in a moment of reflection. For Republicans, it’s time to make a choice about Trumpism, but one that may no longer be theirs to make. For Democrats, it’s about how much of their future is inherently tied to the G.O.P.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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The run up our show about the midterm elections and how we got to this fraught moment in american politics today, in the final episode of the season, we look at the results and what they tell us about where we might be headed next, take a listen or drink. The state of democracy right now is very jerky from the beginning. These mid terms were about democracy. I'm worried that democracy is being eroded
Our democratic system is under direct threat by big democracy. I think much more fragile than I realise. As I stand here tonight. Equality and democracy are,
when president Biden made, that is central message to voters. I'm asking our nations are coming together, united behind the single purpose of defending our democracies. Regardless of your ideology,
The question was not whether americans believe democracy
He was on the ballot was house.
Their commitment to democracy. Really was
I want to address something: that's bugging me for a long time. What voters care? We are a constitutional democracy, nowhere in the constitution does it use the word democracy? Would they reject a growing anti democratic sentiment taking hold at the state level,
as our president says, we worship, god that government
god bless you a hardened strain
christianity gaining ground across the republican base. We do not consent to knee capping our governor before he even takes office. We do not do you, silencing our phones and we all of it, enabled by elected officials, weapon working to seize control of the structures of power, and when I asked I asked democratic lawmakers,
how they plan to combat all this everybody who's. Listening to this podcast, who cares about these issues, needs to fight harder. I mean make phone calls go door to door said they said,
people would have to vote harder
The fate of the lively does not work because it is more likely than any other nation. We're out of a job is always meant to retain its faults, but it wasn't clear from polling whether that message was really gaining any tracks, and so, as members of his own party brace, were defeat
in our bones
democracy at risk is at risk.
We also know this.
Our power each and every one of us to preserve our democracies,
Abide in may one final point:
you have the power. It's your choice. It's your decision, the fate of the nation, the fate of the soul of america, wiser. It always does with the people. It turns out in your hands, and your heart when you're about
the kind of work,
from the new york times
instead turned
the runner
they have you recover from last week,
it's like a one week ago for these formal end of the twenty twenty two campaign. We haven't even called the house at this exact moment and yet were about to have a twenty twenty four
campaign, so I would say now. I have not heard you recover. You know. I remember earlier this week mid term as the results from the mid terms were still being processed thickly, like I call my colleague chain golden
it's saying I'm really excited to have you on and to be able to do this for maybe
other, where you're a national political correspondence, which means that pretty much your job is to understand the parties and where there at what they're up to what their message is critically at a high level. In that context, I want to think about the mid terms that we are just experience. How was the democratic party thinking about Joe Biden message heading into the mid terms and have as a party specifically thinking about his ask of voters to protect democracy over everything else? I may I would say that we begin before the mid terms. The party was largely freaking out their freaking out about what they expected to be significant losses in the house of representatives, Sarah freaking out about the possibility of also losing the senate, and when it can
into the president. They were worried that he wasn't talking about the issue that import after Paul was shown to be the top issue for voters and twenty twenty two, which was the economy and inflation.
And there is actually a moment just before the mid terms. I think really capture this, which was
hilary rose, and who is this long time? Democratic strategy been around forever and she did the sunday shows and she was on cnn and she sort of ripped into the democrats and said we have missed the message.
on this election, the voters cute hung over and over. We care most about the economy and
all we are doing is time out how democracy is at stake and worst sort of this is the catchphrase in politics. Is meat? People were thereat right, so
we're not meeting people where we're at. That was the concern that Democrats had over and over and over again heading into the election.
I mean one of the knights that I was working, one of the many nights that I was working late
We do not have any. I stayed. I stayed to cover Joe Biden speech about democracy and I was any obsolete after sir amd can I'm taking a taxi?
and I remember calling I talked to several democrats on my taxi ride home.
I was saying, hey what did you think of the president's speech and they said look. This is a menace fine. You know they weren't against him, giving a speech about democracy the week before the auction, but it wasn't what their campaigns were about. They found that it was
him talking about an important moral cause, but not necessarily something that was helpful politically right. There was a feeling that by then and other Democrats were overly focused on trying to convince voters to reject growing extremism,
and that maybe that wasn't something that the majority of americans were all that trouble by yeah in there is.
ton of criticism for democrats for intervening a handful of these primaries to push these more extreme republican candidates who are successful in a house race in Michigan, where
gets back to more extreme republican who ousted in a primary one of the ten republicans who devoted to impeach donald trump. First pushed back to that was pushed back to democrats, pushing through candidates for
since in illinois for governor and wildlife
Well got a lot. You know I can you say, shit
Well, then, have regrets not a lot of problems for doing that? You can lose fact that they were there.
supply and demand issue here, which is the republican electorate? You know there was demand for these kinds of
It ain't so the damaged by the candidates, but the voters were looking for them, and so, when Joe Biden was talking about this, he was
but a real phenomenon that the republican party was moving in this direction, that if you took it the totality of the twenty twenty two primaries, Donald trump for the most part, one
winning in terms of getting candidates aligned with him through the republican primers, and so when you look
How the results came out. His focus on democracy was part of a broader message that he was
and it was part of a broader message the Democrats were pushing- which was this is your republican party that is so extreme
they will take away your democracy. They will take away your abortion rights they'll, take away your security they'll, take away your ex wine z and put it all together and it seems like it had some success. Two things I want to highlight what you said like. I think that is a core points. You know what we are:
and talk about is bad candidates was really a reflection of what republican voters want it. The slate that republicans had in this mid term knives we talked about on the show, was often driven by republican voters who have won it: those grievances,
selected in their candidates, but in the second being here is like I mean it wasn't fully out of left field for people to question that democracy messaging strategy, right, like to your point polling day, consistently show that americans ranked economy as the top concern concerns about inflation as a broader concern. How shall we think about that type of issue based polling that
this that consistently throughout the year and what we know to be true now. What does that? Voters were really concerned about democracy and protecting the political system.
Yeah, I mean, I think the real question is about. How do you ask people? What are the issues you care most about because in poll after poll, including the new york times poll that we did in october, overwhelmingly inflation in the economy were the top issues of forty four percent of of voters said those were the top issues for them and democracy. You know that was down at the eight per cent nine per cent range, and so, if you're going to say well, what's the most important issue, you know
I think the issue the most important issue of the twenty twenty two elections was probably the economy and inflation, but it doesn't mean that it was the decisive issue, and I think that that's that's where you got into what the democratic messaging was, which was it was trying to take this election and for voters say: look you might not like the economy, you might not like Joe Biden, but if you go to the voting booth, don't just think about the economy. Don't just think about Joe Biden,
think about the broader consequences for this country. Don't make it a referendum on Joe Biden, don't say I don't like Joe Biden so we're going to vote for the Republican say I don't like Joe Biden, but I also
really do value abortion rights, but I also-
we do value free and fair elections, but I also really devalue x, Y and Zeb.
I agree that the democratic party aligned with them on and what you can see is
in totality in many states you can get into this, but in many states the results show that, on balance, voters were choosing the sweet of issues that were not just their feelings
Joe Biden and not just their feelings, about the economy when they cast about. I know it's just a week from election results. I know
Oh there we're gonna get more and more info about the specifics of who came out on tuesday, but to the
stand that we know now who responded specifically to that message about protecting democracy. I think an inch that outcome
in a little bit differently. My not exactly a head, your question, but what I would say is that
Joe Biden one in twenty twenty, chiefly by
debating in anti trump stop tromp coalition in the same coalition was what delivered democrats, the house of representatives in two thousand and eighteen, and so for the Democrats for the white out there
It's the kind of messaging that could pull the party together and bring in progressives who might have been disaffected with some of the things that Joe Biden didn't push through. Moderates, who might have had misgivings about Joe Biden's leadership that those are both voters who who went with Joe Biden
twenty twenty and that this kind of messaging could bring them around in twenty twenty two and while the exit polls will continue to get adjusted in the in the days and
so head here, there's one really interesting finding in the exit polls that shows where this worked, which is voters rank their feelings about the president, informing
Adequate is: do you approve strongly up? Do you somewhat approve? Do somewhat disapprove, or do you strongly disapprove? What happened this election? That's really different is that voters who somewhat disapproved of Joe Biden actually voted for the Democrats, so a plurality, forty nine percent of voters who said they somewhat disapproved of Joe Biden. They none the less when and voted for a Democrat for congress and pets very different than what has happened before in the twenty ten.
the terms during trump's first term, during the twenty ten midterms during Barack obama's first term. Those voters went overwhelmingly for the opposition party so for months,
into the electoral politics. It all look at Joe binds approval rating we're gonna win. Those environment is so bad
He's at forty one percent he's at forty percent. This is toxic. You can't run that far out of Joe Biden, political gravity,
at the end of the day, that for democratic, did because a chunk of voters who didn't like it,
Nonetheless, when and voted for a Democrat, it somewhat feels like twenty twenty, where you have this unlikely and frankly, relatively dissatisfied coalition turn up
for the democratic anyway, even though it wasn't always clear that they would. I mean this is the dynamic, typically in mid term right, the party out of power, and at this point the republicans were out.
the house they were out of the Senate and they're out of the white house they're. Usually the party that is most pissed off they're the party that is aggrieved they, the party that is getting policy, stuffed down their throat that they hate. And if you look back at twenty eighteen and you think about how democrats were feeling during those mid terms, they were the ones having everything ripped away from them by donald trump, and you go back to twenty. Ten
think about those midterms. It was the republicans who were exclusively having everything ripped away from them by democrats. You know they were
angry about the spending. They were angry about the health care bill, but this year it was different. The single most impact for change that happened. It was being stuff down the throats of Democrats right, the dobbs decision by the supreme court. It's just hard to overlook this took away,
half century of federal abortion rights, and so what you had as a democratic base, not just republican base, but our democratic base that was having their policy priorities ripped away from them.
the dynamics of different, and I think that the messaging around the republican party sort of tried to tie all those things,
there and I do eat a. I think it surprised most people surprised and even Democrats. The degree to which it was successful. The republicans are still taking control of the house and
in the house two hundred and eighteen votes is the only thing that matters will have subpoena power, though I've power to initiate investigations, but it would comes to setting the stakes of of how the election unfolded. I do think it's hard to overlook
that bad inversion, that the party out of power is usually the ones that are good
We'Re- and in this case the people who were
in power in washington, their voters, the ones doing most aggrieved we'll be right back indigenous peoples must be in this patience for all the work. We are only five percent of the world's population, but we are protecting eighty percent of the world this by a day. Vessel
so we are not only a victim. We are also a solution that was hindu, merou Ibrahim, a rolex awards, laureate and environmental advocate. Who works to raise the voice of indigenous people to help tackle climate change, to discuss,
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You can listen to modern love wherever you get your pad casts. So shame Democrats were able to successfully make the case for democracy protection, especially in important, battleground races, but let square that
with results. We saw and other parts of the country and think of new york or florida, but there was a significant shift in the republican direction.
Something our colleague, nay. Comb has been reporting on the twentieth,
to two terms unfolded awaited. Recent midterms and recent elections haven't frankly, which is to say they didn't unfold unit.
formally the same way all across the country. There wasn't so much a national trend at the house of representatives, there was a series of state,
Friends in new york, the republicans are going to pick up several seats,
even though this is one of the most democratic states in the country, but in many other,
otto grounds, the places where trump align candidates were talking about not certifying the last election states like
michigan and pennsylvania, there wasn't a red wave. There was a blue wave that voters came out because
They were motivated by the swedish issues. We talked about already. They were motivated to protect tomorrow.
see their motivated because abortion was,
quite literally on the ballot in michigan this year there was an abortion measure and in Michigan the Democrats are actually taking more power taking over parts of the legislature in pennsylvania. There was a strong rejection of the republic and care
aid for governor doug, mastery rihanna by really a landslide in a state that close, annulled
well the way John fetterman won the senate race. The only senate seat to flip so far is for the Democrats and it came in a battleground state and in wisconsin, where republicans were hoping to win both the super majority in the state legislature and take over the governorship. They won neither falling short on both counts into in these states, where the issues of democracy and a bore
And were were more viscerally there, they won statewide end they won locally, and so that was a v.
Different election in the one you saw in new york. It was a very different washington, you ve seen in California, where they continue to count the votes. You know it wasn't that that there wasn't some red waves. It was that the red wave was true in new york, but it wasn't true next door and pennsylvania and again that's different. We have not seen an election like that. That was low,
the list by state in many years. I guess you're saying that, to the extent that media and the democratic party, MR story it was in seeing
Things going the way that you would expect, or even worse, in places like new york or florida and thinking. Oh, this is going to be what happens nationally, their voters,
not going to respond to that kind of democracy. On the ballot question, it won't be enough when, as it turned out, particularly in the most critical races in the biggest battle grounds and when democracy and extremism felt really tangible to voters, but it didn't feel like a really like a theory of academic concept. People did behave
very differently. I mean if you look at the wind loss record of the Republicans, that from backed who were election deniers in these key swings,
it's it's overwhelmingly a series of losses, its carry lake in arizona losing its doug mash Romano in pennsylvania, losing its tim michael's in wisconsin, losing
is tudor dixon in michigan losing the loan win is in
atta where the Republican is is winning the governorship unseating, the democratic governor, that's just the governors races and if you go into secretary states, races all of the report,
Can candidates who ran on trumps denial of the last election? They all lost, and you just don't often get the kind of uniform defeat in a mid term for the party out of power
an interesting because in the lead up to the election, abortion and democracy were sort of being talked about as two distinct and separate issues. Abortion as a tangible issue that my bow belies voters and helped him crowds turn out, specifically among the base and democracy, as this kind of excess tinto threat that it wasn't clear if americans would respond
yeah, but in the end it seems like you're describing a mid terms environment where they sort of work together as part of a larger message about unchecked extremism among Republicans and that abortion and what has happened to roe v wade was, on some level an example of how republicans have distorted democracy and that's how it resonated with swing voters to back democrats, intertwined issues rather than distinct ones. Is that fair yeah? I think you can go back to to the messaging that was coming from
the white house, some of it was marked, which is did Joe Biden early in twenty twenty two started using the word ultra manner than this was not an accidental label. This is a label that had come through months of research by groups
and with the white house, saying look we made word clouds of what democratic talkers said about the republican party and it looks like a mess. Nothing pops out busy all these different words: spineless, supremacist democracy, cowardly, petrified race, culture, wars, identity, politics, divisive, but there
round the same size. There's no singular message and what we need is a label, a label that we can put on the republican party, that voters already associate with negative things, and the research came up that Madame, which is a term that the republican party had embraced the man who was actually an effective tool.
To lump these things together in the minds of voters, because voters already were lumping them together with others. Already intuitively felt republicans were changed, they felt that they were changing and they felt that this magda labelled the trump amber.
Maggie label meant already in this research. It meant already radical and extreme and power hungry, so the dogs decision leaks and Joe Biden rules out this ultra maggie label, and it told voters that a big change was coming, that a supreme court was in the view of many demo.
radically rewriting what was the law for fifty years around abortion and so yeah it fit into that messaging frame, and I'm not saying that this was a brilliant planned at the white house had concocted to come up with this just before this happened right. Some of this has happened stance, but what is true is that Joe Biden went from that twenty twenty race, where he was talking exclusively about trump to a broader label,
And some of the reporting I've done shows that it. It wasn't easy necessarily for him to come to using a label right. He is, he is a label averse kind of a guy he's, just a senator who reached across the aisle who prizes his relationship with republicans, who is proud of.
That you got some republicans to line up with him on an infrastructure package right. He is not the first person who go use words to a liberal party writ large, but he came to this in part from some conversations he'd had with historian, so Biden meets with historians at the white house occasionally, and they told him that, according to a person who has spoken with fighting about this, that that this lit kind of labeling that its effective and it has been effective throughout history at sort of battling, far right, factions and so biden- did really come to embrace it and
Interestingly, after Biden embraced, this kind of label so did tromp right. He slapped ultra manga on a nature. He slapped on wine, glasses and pint glasses, and he
I'm your magda king, just days before the election and so you're trying to push out a message that this party is this.
in and the other party wraps themselves up in it too. It helps promote the message right and the combination was that its stock, that than I thought
the one now I'm a moment, you ve been dispensing, I'm sure in the trump republican head. They thought that this was going to be another basket of deplore.
Kabul's moment to go back to two thousand and sixteen that they could use a label that came from Democrats and actually use it as something that they can embrace branding wise to drive energy among the base. I think the key difference here is, while in two thousand and sixteen independents swing, voters did not like the democratic options and did not view the Republicans as radical
in this case mega republicans in the back, something that they ended up. Punishing republicans, for I mean I think, the biggest challenge for trump in
when twenty two and going into twenty twenty four is. The idea of donald trump was deeply appealing to the middle in twenty sixteen, the middle that was really unhappy.
If he was with where the country was and was ready to break things right. They were ready when you talked to voters and twenty. Sixteen voters were talking about up ending the system and he was the candidate who
They thought would do it. It was a risky bet, but you know what? Let's just do it it's time and they saw what that looked like they had four years of it and when it comes to denying the election, they saw a pretty ugly result at the end of those four years, and I think it's you know and that this is not shut up.
polling and in its really one of those things it's impossible task, but I am really curious about how the assault on nancy policies, husband
laid at the very end of the cycle, I am too. I really think this was a late break,
from those independent moderates and something that happened in the last couple weeks, and that was a real example of that extremism and violence yea it
not to overlook that this political cycle began with violence and ended with violence. Right Democrats took into
all of the senate on January. Fifth, two thousand twenty one
and on january sixth, the capital riot happens right. It is the first full day the Democrats are now going to be control of washington. Now they hadn't taken formal control yet, but the first
all day and at the very end of the cycle, you had another example of political violence and the breaking of nancy policies, husband, which was not met with the kind of universal condemnation by the republican party that it might have once been. It was met with some conspiracy theory spreading at the highest level
was the breaking with met with jokes by some candidates on the ballot for two's, that it was met with jokes by some. It was met with
marking by others. There were means that was pushed out by donald trump junior. The idea that the countries moving toward a place where the octogenarian husband of the house
her could be in their own home. Somebody could break in
politically motivated assailant could break in threatening to potentially kidnapped the house speaker and in blood and her husband with a hammer. You know again there there's not poland, to show the impact of this, but it's one of those moments that almost everyone in the country heard about, and it's hard not to imagine that it didn't
have some impact on the psyche. Voters as they went to the polls again, I don't have any way to show that yet there are not even here
you would, but it just feels like the kind of moment that matters and twenty sixteen people agreed with dropped, that the system was broken and that the establishment was totally out of touch, but in twenty twenty two there is not the same level of agreement, particularly when what has become of the republic and established bad now represents a openly, at least in this cycle, anti democratic wink. It seemed like a key question here, then, is to what extent are we see this as a democratic victory, verses, a republican loss that the gnp just handed them this huge advantage in the form of trump in the form of extremist positions in the form of other touch candidates?
You ask that again to what extent the Democrats win this and to what extent the republicans lose this. Yes, I mean, I don't know that there is a clear answer to that question. You know that third, there's never just one side of an election that just one side wanted one side lost. I think that what is clear is that that that embraces trump without trump on the ballot was not helpful, and I think that that something worth looking at two
which is that for all the talk of the downside of trump. This year and there's a lot of talk among republicans about the downsides a trump this year. There is an argument from trump allies there. What they really needed was from him.
health. Yet robin everyone else is doing diet trump and what we need for one is the pure, unfiltered stuff that there's no. There is no substitute for the real thing right, you know, and so, by the way, this is of a calculus that this house Democrats made at the very beginning.
cycle. They did a big study of what went wrong in twenty twenty, so house Democrats lost seats in twenty twenty. They are likely to have lost a more seats in twenty twenty
then they lost in twenty twenty two and a year where everyone is expecting them to lose a bunch of seats. So after that twenty twenty race they set off on this big internal study, they called it the deep dive and in this study, one of the findings they had was. We think that trump is a minus trump is a big political loser, because trumps based doesn't turn out and-
So in this big powerpoint presentation that they presented to their conference early in twenty twenty one, they had a few slides talking about this exact question and said: what's going to happen, if he's not there and one of the side questions they had and I'll read it to you, as will this trump toxicity work without trump turn out. These are negative things that,
is brought about for his party, but he also had an upside. He brought out people who otherwise weren't voting, and so in the post mortem those happening. I think I can get lost that there are people inside the republican party who don't see the lesson as less trump. They see the lesson as more trump and that playing our right now as house republican select throw leadership team for the coming congress. That does feel at the core question facing the republican party right now, not just what to do about donald trump as an individual, but whether the defining features of trumpets zone and how much does that have a place among the republican base, as Donald trump makes his presidential announcement. This is what the party is asking itself and it can ask itself in two key places: simultaneous
over the next two years place. One is the campaign trail, were the question will be: do people run against trump and how many of them- because he was again the twenty sixteen republican primary three fractured field right? That was not a majority of the Republicans, but he still holds on almost exclusive hold. On thirty five to forty percent of their public and party
and so when I've taught her bubble in question, is how many want to run while they're all afraid, the too many of them would run and the chance of
It's wrong one gets and then many of them will get in and then he skates through a divided field, so it'll happen. It'll happen on the campaign trail, but it's also going to be happening on capitol hill, where I don't think we should forget that, even if republicans had a deeply disappointing night, they are on track to have the house majority and once they have the house majority, they have subpoena power. They have ability to pass legislation, they have an ability to set their own agenda separate from donald trump, to the extent that Kevin Mccarthy, as potential house speaker, is able to muscle through legislation he can put out legislation that would define what a republican party could stand for separate and in addition to donald trump, he could initiate investigations into the Biden administration. That would define what the party stands for separate and, in addition to donald trump. So the question of what is the party become? It's going to happen in two places at once. It feels like to your
point about the campaign trail and about capitol hill is really a question about republican voters themselves. Donald trump from every indication I've ever had about the man is gonna, say the things that he is always said to me. What seems to be open question is whether that thirty to thirty five percent, that has been so tat
to him response to those messages in the same way and to your point about capitol hill, whether their pressuring the republican house so really play out trumps grievances, because what we could be defining as trump ism could be. Just what we're rollicking place believes in whether donald trump is leading the charge or not. Will I said, I think you know
it's better than almost any other political reporter, which is they call themselves political leaders, but in many cases politicians are political followers they're, following where the votes are their falling. Where their bases they're following the first election they face in every election, got which is the primary. Their chief concern politically is their own base and so, where the base of the democratic party, those and where the base of the republican party goes so goes the party itself in general. As we said, there's that open question about that republican base. But
your point about the democratic base. What should they take from the results on this tuesday? I mean on one hand, there is a universal understanding of democrats, beating expectations of over performing of
really succeeding, using as we talked about that language, a republican extremism and protecting democracy and abortion rights. But at the same time,
with all of those things kind of breaking the Democrats way over the last couple weeks, they still will face a republican house and they still face a democratic base.
that has shown real signs of erosion and continue to sell some of them in these matters.
If you are the democratic party after the glow of this may terms, what fades off? How should you view the state of war democrats, our anger? Well, I think that the best thing to do sometimes is actually to listen to them
politicians and Joe Biden had a press conference right after the election. He was asked, given the results given some of the unhappiness in the country. What would you do differently and one of the very first words he said was nothing
He said he didn't want to do anything differently than we talk to people around the white house. They say the republicans were an action
running against our agenda. They didn't run against the specific policies that we pursued. Mr the white house doesn't
like their agenda, was rejected. But when we ve talked about what did Democrats run on, we ve talked about it almost as if they were the opposition party, they were running to stop a set of republican priorities, and so I think it's a real open question. What the agenda is for the sick,
half of of Joe Biden first term and beyond that. There are already questions about who the party standard bearer should be in the future
as much as there are nagging concerns about Joe Biden's age. There are deeper concerns among democrats about the idea of running against donald trump
and, in the same reason, the Democrats came to Joe Biden in the first place,
it'd, be the reason they rally round him again, which is, he is still the only democrat to have beaten, Donald trump and his candidacy is very much pitched on that he's the candidate. Who can do it again right right on one hand, you have an electorate who, even while backing democrats in this mid terms in historic fashion, did so while reporting that they weren't that satisfied with the president and the party in power that they were doing so in spite of president Biden not because of her I've talked to so many democratic voters who tell me they're sick of their party, offering themselves as just not republicans, but at the same time, though, strongest bond between democratic voters, the biggest motivator for democratic vote,
the biggest money driver for the voters. Democrats me seems to be pitching themselves. Ass, not doubt, will drop them about it. If you think about what are the two successful political coalition sit Democrats have mobilized in the last fifteen years, the first was brok obama's political coalition of hope and change. The second is a stop trump coercion and that came together first
twenty eighteen midterms. It came together again in twenty twenty with the election of Joe Biden, and it showed its strength in
unlikely and unexpected way in these midterms were democrats are still expected to lose the house, but by such a small margin,
that it wasn't really repudiation entered to hold or even gain seats in the senate.
and so there is tension among democrats for what the party should stand for, but there is broad agreement that stopping trump is the recipe to unite the party. Just days before Joe Biden secured the democratic nomination he described him,
I think, for the first time as a transition or figure he was running to transition. The democrats to a new future
and right now we know what the present is in the present is that he can lead a stop trump coalition, but what we don't know is what that future looks like and whose leading it. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate I thank you
so the midterms have left both parties in a moment of reflection for democrats,
it's about how much of their future is in heaven
Lee tied to republicans
and therefore republicans, if a level of introspection
miller to what they face after their loss in twenty twelve.
Concluded that the country was changing in the party, wasn't changing with it down
Tromp provided an unexpected solution to that problem.
in doing so, he transform the party into a reflection of its grassroots base, a base that grown
increasingly extreme and anti democratic
and so these midterms are forcing the party to make a choice
within the EU. We have of millennium myself in our entire family, a water
Thank you all for being here tonight very special occasion. The choice may not be theirs to me,
in order to make america great glorious. Again. I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president.
so while we started by asking how strong americans commitment to democracy really is
mits arms have only begun to offer an answer
They ve opened up a whole new set of questions.
See you next year,
on the run
the
the.
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the run up, is reported by me. Instead heard it and produced by a lisa Gutierrez, caitlin, o keefe,
its edited by franny kharkoff, Marisa Anderson and least it's open, but the original music by dan pow marian Lozano annalisa. He too,
It was mixed by pouring trembled in fact, checked by caitlin love, special thanks to polish human sam, don't david, how finger Julia, Simon, murphy, much obliged shannon foster now the locally Jeffrey miranda and Madame S, yellow and one last thanks to you the listener. We are deeply appreciate it.
That you ve chosen to go on this journey with us and we'll see you back here in a few months, thanks again ya, to hear more episodes other one up, search for it were ever you get your pockets and thanks.
Transcript generated on 2023-02-16.