Resistance or Opposition: Which Route Should the Democrats Take? AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss

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Episode: Resistance or Opposition: Which Route Should the Democrats Take?

Author: The Free Press
Duration: 00:43:06

Episode Shownotes

Even your most optimistic Mar-a-Lago member didn’t see Donald Trump winning the popular vote and taking all seven swing states. He even came within five points of taking the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey! So, what on earth does the Democratic Party do next? They can stay the course and

resist. It’s what they did the last time Trump won. In the aftermath of Trump’s 2016 victory, America was stunned. Every time he opened his mouth, Trump exploded political norms, and the Democratic Party responded in kind. Being a mere opposition party—at least at that moment for the Democrats—was not strong enough for this situation they believed. Instead they needed to become a resistance. And while Democrats won in 2020, the resistance ultimately did not work. Democrats spent a decade telling Americans that Trump was an existential threat, yet Americans didn’t care. The Democrats’ goal was to scrub Trump from future history. Instead, he now controls it. Democrats need to look inward if they want to have a shot at winning in 2028. They need to act like an opposition, not a resistance. Today, Ei Lake explains why this will require a different approach, but one for which there is already a template. He tells the story of how a few centrist renegades saved the Democrats from oblivion 40 years ago. In 1984, after Ronald Reagan’s 525–13 Electoral College landslide over Walter Mondale, the Democrats were not just in disarray—they were on life support. And yet, eight years later, they found their savior: a young governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. And they remade their party. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 50% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summary

In this episode of 'Honestly with Bari Weiss,' the discussion focuses on the Democratic Party's need to reassess its strategies following Trump's electoral successes. The podcast argues for a shift from a failed 'resistance' approach to becoming a genuine opposition party. Historical precedents, particularly the Democrats' resurgence in the 1980s with the Democratic Leadership Council, emphasize the importance of appealing to working-class voters and moderate policies. The episode highlights the necessity for internal evaluation and practical policies to regain voter trust and relevance leading into the 2028 elections.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Resistance or Opposition: Which Route Should the Democrats Take?) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_04
The Fox News Decision Desk can now officially project that Donald Trump will become the 47th President of the United States.

00:00:09 Speaker_33
Many of you sitting at home right now digesting this news right now, some of them will be you. I wish I had better news for my daughter later this morning.

00:00:18 Speaker_31
It is a sweeping and stunning victory unlike any in our history. It will be studied and debated for generations, the impact broad and deep, a turning point for the country.

00:00:32 Speaker_05
Well, that was a walloping. Even your most optimistic Mar-a-Lago member didn't see Donald Trump winning the popular vote, controlling the Senate, and sweeping all seven swing states. He came within five points of taking New Jersey.

00:00:49 Speaker_05
More than half of Latino men voted for him.

00:00:53 Speaker_08
As he said, We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible, and it is now clear that we've achieved the most incredible political thing. Look what happened. Is this crazy?

00:01:06 Speaker_05
Delirium for MAGA, devastation for Harris, Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, and the rest. There's no doubt about it. They've lost the nation. So what on earth does the Democratic Party do now?

00:01:21 Speaker_05
One approach would be to keep doing what they've been doing. Resist.

00:01:26 Speaker_27
I am unafraid to be nasty because I am nasty like Susan, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Amelia, Rosa, Gloria, Condoleezza, Sonia, Malala, Michelle, Hillary.

00:01:48 Speaker_05
It's what they did the last time Trump won.

00:01:52 Speaker_28
And our pussies ain't for grabbing.

00:02:00 Speaker_05
In the aftermath of Trump's 2016 victory, America was stunned. There had never been a president so immune to normal analysis, and as such, so unpredictable.

00:02:10 Speaker_05
Every time he opened his mouth, it seemed, Donald Trump exploded political norms, and the Democratic Party responded in kind.

00:02:19 Speaker_05
Being a mere opposition party, at least at that moment for the Democrats, was not strong enough for the situation that they believed they were in. Instead, they needed to become the resistance.

00:02:33 Speaker_05
They built this idea of resistance into their DNA, and it inspired and infected every aspect of liberal and progressive society.

00:02:41 Speaker_32
From talk show hosts... You know, Ivanka, that's a beautiful photo of you and your child, but let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad's immigration practices, you feckless c**t. To dining establishments.

00:02:55 Speaker_30
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant Friday.

00:03:01 Speaker_30
The co-owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, Stephanie Wilkinson, told The Washington Post her decision to ask Sanders to leave was based on the concerns of several employees.

00:03:12 Speaker_05
They've pursued Donald Trump through lawfare.

00:03:14 Speaker_29
Following the historic conviction of former President Donald Trump on all 34 counts in the criminal hush money trial.

00:03:24 Speaker_04
They have likened him to history's worst monsters. Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden comes days after his own former chief of staff went on record to describe his former boss as a fascist.

00:03:38 Speaker_04
But that jamboree happening right now, you see it there on your screen, in that place is particularly chilling because in 1939, more than 20,000 supporters of a different fascist leader, Adolf Hitler, packed the garden for a so-called pro-America rally, a rally where speakers voiced anti-Semitic rhetoric from a stage draped with Nazi banners.

00:04:02 Speaker_05
And while the Democrats won in 2020, the resistance ultimately did not work. Democrats spent a decade telling Americans that Trump was an existential threat, and they just voted for him in overwhelming numbers.

00:04:17 Speaker_05
Their goal was to scrub Donald Trump from future history. Instead, he now controls it. So clearly, being a political party in perpetual outrage and high dodging was not the path to power. Let's be real. It was a total, unmitigated disaster.

00:04:38 Speaker_05
They put on a pink hat, declared a sex boycott, and hollered constantly about fascism. And then gasped with shock when the nation chose the other law. It wasn't just poor strategy.

00:04:53 Speaker_05
Resistance politics turned Trump's opponents, in many cases, into the monster they claimed to be slaying. Just listen to former Republican strategist turned anti-Trump extremist, Rick Wilson. So the party is in a pickle. Resistance has failed.

00:05:34 Speaker_34
And despite the warnings of Oprah Winfrey... If we don't show up tomorrow, it is entirely possible that we will not have the opportunity to ever cast a ballot again.

00:05:48 Speaker_05
There will be another election. And if the Dems want to have a shot at winning in 2028, then they need to look inward. The way losing parties survive is by figuring out why they lost and trying to win next time.

00:06:04 Speaker_05
In the meantime, they make the best of it and take wins when they can. They act like an opposition, not a resistance. This will require an entirely new approach. But the good news here is that the Democratic Party has been here before.

00:06:22 Speaker_05
And that brings us to the topic of today's episode. It's the story of how a few centrist renegades saved the Democrats 40 years ago from oblivion. The year was 1984.

00:06:33 Speaker_05
And if you were weeping over last week's electoral blowout, well, Trump's victory was light stuff compared to the Reagan landslide against Walter Mondale. Democrats were not just in disarray.

00:06:47 Speaker_05
They were on life support and in real danger of vanishing completely. And yet, Eight years later, they found their savior, a young governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. From the Free Press, this is Honestly. I'm Eli Lake.

00:07:04 Speaker_05
After the break, the story of how the Democrats remade their party and took back the White House after being destroyed by Ronald Reagan.

00:07:15 Speaker_23
Today's episode was made possible by Ground News. America's trust in the media has been on a long and steady decline. especially over the last few years. If you listen to this show, you know that's something that we care about and talk about a lot.

00:07:30 Speaker_23
Mainstream media often have their own agenda, which leads, and we've seen this many times, to bias coverage, public polarization, and ideological bubbles that reinforce readers' opinions rather than challenging them.

00:07:43 Speaker_23
That's why Ground News is so important. Their app and website allow us to access the world's news in one place to compare coverage with context behind each source.

00:07:54 Speaker_23
Reading the news this way helps you see discrepancies on how certain topics are covered or ignored so you can think critically about what you read and make up your own mind. Check it out at groundnews.com slash honestly

00:08:08 Speaker_23
to get 50% off the Ground News Vantage Plan for unlimited access. Ground News is subscriber funded. By subscribing, you're supporting transparency in media and our work in the meantime.

00:08:20 Speaker_11
The Credit Card Competition Act would help small business owners like Raymond. We asked Raymond why the Credit Card Competition Act matters to him.

00:08:28 Speaker_02
I'm Raymond Huff. I run Russell's Convenience in Denver, Colorado. I've ran this business for more than 30 years, but keeping it going is a challenge. One of the biggest reasons I've found is the credit card swipe fees we're forced to pay.

00:08:40 Speaker_02
That's because the credit card companies fix prices. It goes against the free market that made our economy great. The Credit Card Competition Act would ensure we have basic competition. It's one of the few things in Washington that both sides agree on.

00:08:56 Speaker_02
Please ask your member of Congress to pass the Credit Card Competition Act. Small businesses and my customers need it now.

00:09:03 Speaker_11
For more information on how the Credit Card Competition Act will help American consumers save money, visit MerchantsPaymentsCoalition.com and contact your member of Congress today. Paid for by the Merchants Payments Coalition.

00:09:15 Speaker_11
Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. MerchantsPaymentsCoalition.com.

00:09:22 Speaker_13
The day after one of the most impressive presidential victories in American history, President Reagan and George Bush won 59% of the vote, beating the Mondale-Ferraro ticket.

00:09:31 Speaker_05
It's hard to overstate just how massive a defeat Ronald Reagan's win in 1984 over Democrat Walter Mondale really was.

00:09:41 Speaker_05
Mondale, who was vice president during Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency, lost everywhere except his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. Reagan swept up everything else. Thank you.

00:09:55 Speaker_05
A conservative Republican won Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, for God's sake. Thank you. I think that's just been arranged. Mondale's loyalty to interest groups inside the Democratic Party left him open to attack.

00:10:13 Speaker_05
Gary Hart, a senator from Colorado and his chief rival in the primary that year, summed up the problem as follows. You have to reach those voters who don't feel represented by the AFL, the NAACP, NOW, or the Sierra Club.

00:10:29 Speaker_05
But Mondale could not see beyond the demands of the noisiest factions of his coalition. For example, his deference to the nuclear freeze movement was a terrible vote loser.

00:10:39 Speaker_05
His campaign actually attacked one of Ronald Reagan's coolest initiatives, research into space-based missile defense, Star Wars, space lasers.

00:10:49 Speaker_26
Ronald Reagan is determined to put killer weapons in space. The Soviets will have to match us and the arms race will rage out of control, orbiting, aiming. There's a bear in the woods.

00:11:01 Speaker_05
And Reagan countered with one of the most effective ads in American political history.

00:11:06 Speaker_25
Others don't see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it's vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear?

00:11:24 Speaker_22
Mondale's appeal was to get the support of every interest group in the party.

00:11:30 Speaker_05
This is Al Fromm, the man who would eventually remake the Democratic Party after Mondale's defeat.

00:11:36 Speaker_22
You know, I think it was in October of 1983, he basically got every group. And so from that sense, you could say, mind I have the most unified Democratic Party ever. The only people who didn't support him were the voters. To me, that was a big problem.

00:11:53 Speaker_06
And you can see an echo of this problem today. And my basic diagnosis is that we have allowed the far left to have outsized power over the messaging and policymaking of the Democratic Party, which is causing us

00:12:08 Speaker_06
to fall out of touch with the working class.

00:12:11 Speaker_05
This is Richie Torres, a Democratic House representative from New York, on the lesson of the 2024 election.

00:12:17 Speaker_06
Particularly working class voters of color who have been the heart and soul. of the Democratic Party.

00:12:23 Speaker_05
In early 1985, the Democrats were a big government, soft-on-crime party, animated by nostalgia for FDR's New Deal and LBJ's War on Poverty.

00:12:33 Speaker_05
The party functioned as a coalition of unions, environmentalists, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, the National Organization for Women, peace activists, and dozens of other progressive tribes that believed that rallying under a common banner every four years was the way to win and hold power.

00:12:52 Speaker_05
But when, they did not. Between 1968 and 1992, the Democrats won only a single presidential election, 1976, the one that followed the Watergate scandal and the fall of Richard Nixon. The Reagan landslide of 1984 was the final straw for Al Frum.

00:13:13 Speaker_05
He got to work in 1985 with another Democratic staffer, Will Marshall, forming a new group that would bring moderate governors, senators, and congressmen together to steer the donkey to middle ground.

00:13:25 Speaker_05
This was an insurgency led by people terrified that the Democratic Party would never again win the White House, that it would vanish into history like the Whigs. They knew the stakes were high, and they were unafraid of playing hardball.

00:13:39 Speaker_05
And one of their first tricks was the name itself. They called themselves the Democratic Leadership Council, even though the leadership of the Democratic Party didn't like them one bit.

00:13:51 Speaker_05
It was an audacious gambit that catapulted their group into the center of the political conversation.

00:13:57 Speaker_10
Creating an illusion is the right way to think about it. Al and I joked a lot about smoke and mirrors.

00:14:03 Speaker_22
We were an entrepreneurial insurgent operation.

00:14:06 Speaker_10
The Democratic establishment was not happy about the formation of the Democratic Leadership Council. And the premise on which it was based was that in some way the party establishment was failing.

00:14:18 Speaker_05
The first job of the Democratic Leadership Council, or DLC as it was known, was to focus on the Republican-controlled Senate for the 1986 midterms. And here they really did have success.

00:14:30 Speaker_05
This is former Senator and Governor Chuck Robb explaining how the DLC worked.

00:14:35 Speaker_21
We couldn't endorse candidates, we couldn't give money to candidates, but we could provide issues forums that were directed towards specific things that we wanted to have discussed publicly and invite them to participate.

00:14:51 Speaker_05
The DLC in these early years operated like a political policy shop. It published papers and articles that became talking points for new Democrats who weren't beholden to their party's orthodoxies.

00:15:03 Speaker_05
The DLC critiqued Reagan on his strongest issue, national defense.

00:15:08 Speaker_05
Instead of slamming the hawkish president for bringing us to the brink of nuclear war, as Walter Mondale had, the DLC published a policy book on national defense that chastised wasteful Pentagon spending. They weren't saying, stop building bombs.

00:15:24 Speaker_05
They were saying, you're building bombs badly. The DLC began to germinate deeply undemocrat-sounding ideas at this time. They wanted national service for young people who received scholarships.

00:15:36 Speaker_05
They became deficit hawks, which was threatening to their parties' big spenders. And on crime, the DLC, unlike the mainstream of the Democratic Party in the 1980s, supported the death penalty and more police on the streets.

00:15:50 Speaker_05
In 1986, the DLC had momentum. The Democrats gained eight seats that year, wresting back control of the Senate for their party. Eight of the 11 new Democratic senators had run as DLC Democrats. Al Fromm and Will Marshall were ecstatic.

00:16:07 Speaker_05
After a strong showing in the midterms, the Democrats thought they were in great shape to end the Reagan era with a victory in 1988. Just a few minutes ago... It didn't work out that way.

00:16:17 Speaker_22
I called Vice President Bush and congratulated him on his victory.

00:16:22 Speaker_05
In fairness, the Democratic candidate that year, Michael Dukakis, made a point to say that he was not ideological. Nonetheless, his party was still vulnerable to the taint of excessive liberalism.

00:16:36 Speaker_24
Bush and Dukakis on crime. Bush supports the death penalty for first-degree murderers. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in Iraq.

00:16:50 Speaker_05
And again, we see an echo in 2024.

00:16:52 Speaker_03
Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners.

00:16:57 Speaker_01
Surgery. For prisoners. For prisoners. Every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access.

00:17:06 Speaker_05
It's hard to believe, but it's true. Now, we should say Kamala Harris did not campaign on gender reassignment surgery for illegal immigrants in prison. She ran on keeping abortion legal in all 50 states and Trump's unfitness for office.

00:17:21 Speaker_05
But her past positioning as a senator from 2017 and her ill-fated primary run in 2019 was enough for the Trump campaign to paint her as an out-of-touch elite who didn't care about common sense. I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message.

00:17:40 Speaker_05
Well, the same thing happened in 1988 to Mike Dukakis. And when he finally realized that the Bush campaign defined him for the voters, it was too late.

00:17:50 Speaker_00
Ronald Reagan is probably one American who will have a good night's sleep tonight. He's won two presidential elections in his own right and in effect helped George Bush win this one.

00:18:00 Speaker_05
another Republican landslide. The DLC decided their party needed what Al Frum would call reality therapy.

00:18:10 Speaker_22
We put together a four-part strategy, and the first part was what we called reality therapy. If you don't understand why you're losing, you're probably not going to make the strategic changes you need to win.

00:18:23 Speaker_22
Over the 1980s, the Democrats lost the three elections in landslides that were greater than any party has ever lost in history in terms of the electoral college. You know, if you continue doing that, I mean, that's the definition of insanity.

00:18:42 Speaker_05
How the Democrats got their mojo back with the help of a Southern governor with a silver tongue, after the break.

00:18:57 Speaker_23
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's November, the leaves are changing, fall jackets are being busted out, and my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, is around the corner. Fall is the greatest, but it can also be emotionally intense.

00:19:09 Speaker_23
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00:19:15 Speaker_23
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00:19:39 Speaker_23
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00:19:52 Speaker_23
Hey, Honestly listeners, I want to let you know about an amazing podcast called Unpacking Israeli History. If you read the headlines about what's going on in Israel, you're only getting a very tiny slice of a very long story.

00:20:05 Speaker_23
Shorn of depth and historical context, so much coverage of Israel can't even get the most basic facts straight.

00:20:11 Speaker_23
One of the things we try and do here on Honestly, and at the Free Press more generally, is to go deeper into the most important topics of the day as we try and get to the truth.

00:20:21 Speaker_23
And that's the mission of Unpacking Israeli History, hosted by Dr. Noam Weissman. It offers listeners a journey through the events in Israel's past and its present.

00:20:30 Speaker_23
In a world where history is getting rewritten, the goal of unpacking Israeli history is to provide listeners with a nuanced, fact-based understanding of the state of Israel that's both informative and entertaining.

00:20:42 Speaker_23
The show delves deeply into the nuances and complexities of Israeli history and how it relates to the present, examining tough questions like, is Zionism a colonialist project? Is Israel an apartheid state? And are the settlements an obstacle to peace?

00:20:57 Speaker_23
You won't want to miss it. Learn the history behind the headlines and find Unpacking Israeli History wherever you get your podcasts.

00:21:08 Speaker_05
In 1989, the world changed forever. That is the year the Berlin Wall came down. The days of the Soviet Union were numbered. It was a vindication of Reaganism and the Republican brand.

00:21:26 Speaker_05
After three election blowouts, the Democrats were finally ready for a change, and the DLC was there to offer exactly that. And they had a secret weapon, maybe the greatest political athlete of the last 50 years, Bill Clinton.

00:21:43 Speaker_05
Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan were outstanding orators, of course, but no one combined the ability to think like a policy wonk and then sell those policies to everyday people like Bill Clinton.

00:21:56 Speaker_05
At a time when his party was wary of the police, Clinton would just amble up to cops and ask them about their jobs like it was shooting the breeze.

00:22:04 Speaker_05
He was obsessed with making schools better, and he would talk for hours and hours about his ideas for reforms. And he had a knack for presenting center-right ideas in the language of a folksy liberalism.

00:22:18 Speaker_05
After all, it was Bill Clinton who promised and delivered the end of welfare as we know it. Here he is in 1991 at the Arkansas Governor's Mansion announcing his bid for the presidency.

00:22:32 Speaker_20
To be sure, the collapse of communism requires a new national security policy. I applaud the President's recent initiatives in reducing nuclear arms. They're an important first step. But make no mistake about it.

00:22:49 Speaker_20
The end of the Cold War is not the end of threats to America.

00:22:52 Speaker_20
The world is still a dangerous and uncertain place, and the first and most solemn obligation of the President of the United States is to keep America safe and strong from foreign dangers and to promote democracy abroad.

00:23:08 Speaker_05
Bill Clinton's ideas didn't come out of the vapor. They were honed during his time as chairman of the DLC. And in that role, Clinton in some ways began his campaign before that announcement.

00:23:19 Speaker_05
He would travel throughout the country to spread the gospel of the New Democrats. Here again is Al Fromm explaining what these new values were.

00:23:27 Speaker_22
We believe the Democratic Party's fundamental mission is to expand opportunity, not government. We believe in the politics of inclusion.

00:23:35 Speaker_22
Our party has historically been the means by which aspiring Americans from every background have achieved equal rights and full citizenship. believed in being involved in the world, believed private sector growth was the prerequisite to opportunity.

00:23:51 Speaker_22
You know, we wanted to prevent crime and punish criminals. You know, and most important, in a sense, was we believed in the ethic that John Kennedy espoused, that every American had a responsibility to give something back to the country.

00:24:07 Speaker_05
Not everyone loved it. At the top of the list of prominent liberals who hated these new Democrats at the DLC was Reverend Jesse Jackson, a formidable figure within the Democratic Party. Like Clinton, Jackson was also a great talker.

00:24:22 Speaker_16
To assume that there may be equal opportunity and great gaps in results assumes that somebody is inferior and somebody is superior. The assumption of that statement stinks.

00:24:37 Speaker_05
Now, a lesser politician would have continued to take pot shots at the DLC in the media. But Jesse Jackson was a cunning strategist. He sought to kill the DLC with kindness.

00:24:49 Speaker_05
He asked to speak at the group's 1990 convention in New Orleans, where he delivered a speech in which he claimed at least that the DLC moderates were on the same page as his rainbow coalition. We are delighted to be united, Jackson said.

00:25:03 Speaker_05
And the Reverend knew what he was doing. He knew that the entire mission at this point of the DLC was to distinguish itself from the kind of identity politics that the Rainbow Coalition was championing.

00:25:17 Speaker_05
Here's Jesse Jackson in 2016 in an interview for the documentary Crashing the Party.

00:25:23 Speaker_17
I gave a speech, which was insulting to them, called Delighted to be United. They reacted to that. That was Delighted to be United. I laid out the things we had in common. But they wanted to draw a distinction between the rainbow and the DLC.

00:25:37 Speaker_17
So Delighted to be United did not exactly fit their stereotype.

00:25:42 Speaker_05
Going into the 1992 election year, the relationship between the new Democrats and Jesse Jackson was frayed. It was about to get worse. After Clinton survived the first of many sex scandals in his political career, he came in second in New Hampshire.

00:25:57 Speaker_18
While the evening is young, and we don't know yet what the final tally will be, I think we know enough to say with some certainty that New Hampshire tonight has made Bill Clinton the comeback kid.

00:26:16 Speaker_05
He would go on to vanquish his primary opponents, and just as he was preparing for the general election, Bill Clinton decided to deliver a little payback to Reverend Jackson. He decided to address the Rainbow Coalition.

00:26:30 Speaker_05
This is five weeks after the L.A. riots of 1992. Racial tensions in America were at a boil.

00:26:37 Speaker_19
You had a rap singer here last night named Sister Soulja. I defend her right to express herself through music. But her comments before and after Los Angeles were filled with a kind of hatred that you do not honor today and tonight.

00:26:54 Speaker_19
Just listen to this, what she said. She told the Washington Post about a month ago, and I quote, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?

00:27:09 Speaker_19
So you're a gang member and you'd normally kill somebody, why not kill a white person? Last year, she said, you can't call me or any black person anywhere in the world a racist.

00:27:19 Speaker_19
We don't have the power to do to white people what white people have done to us. And even if we did, we don't have that low down dirty nature. If there are any good white people, I haven't met them. Where are they? Right here in this room.

00:27:32 Speaker_19
That's where they are.

00:27:33 Speaker_05
And that was what became known in American history as a sister soldier moment. Today it is shorthand for when a politician rebukes someone on their own side to appeal to a broader constituency. Clinton invented the tactic.

00:27:51 Speaker_05
In some ways, it was a cheap shot. Sista Soldier was a mediocre rapper, and she was invited to the Rainbow Coalition as one of several young Black leaders. But it wasn't like Jesse Jackson was advocating armed struggle.

00:28:04 Speaker_05
He was a disciple of Martin Luther King. As a matter of politics, though, this was a masterstroke. George H.W. Bush was trying his best to turn Clinton into Mike Dukakis in 1992, And Clinton actually gave him quite a bit of material.

00:28:20 Speaker_05
He wrote a letter, for example, in 1969, when he was a Rhodes Scholar, to the colonel in charge of the ROTC training program that he was obligated to attend. He reneged on his earlier commitment because of his opposition to the war in Vietnam.

00:28:36 Speaker_05
Bill Clinton was a draft dodger. He also smoked marijuana, although he incredulously claimed he had not inhaled. So when Bill Clinton took a shot at the Rainbow Coalition at their own event, it served as an inoculation.

00:28:51 Speaker_05
He wasn't an out-of-touch liberal. He was a new Democrat, fighting for hardworking Americans that played by the rules. Now, this tactic had a dark side as well. Bill Clinton presided over the execution of a lobotomized cop killer named Ricky Ray Rector.

00:29:08 Speaker_05
And here, I want to quote from the late Christopher Hitchens. he no longer knew his own name, and met most of the standard conditions for clemency. But Clinton left New Hampshire specifically to return to Arkansas and have him put to death.

00:29:23 Speaker_05
He did so in order to demonstrate, or signal, that he was not soft on crime. Rector's condition was such that, as he left his cell for the last time, he saved the dessert from his last meal for later.

00:29:37 Speaker_05
Strapped to a trolley for a lethal injection, he actually assisted the executioners in their hour-long search for a viable vein in which to place the lethal catheter. He thought they were doctors trying to cure him." End quote.

00:29:52 Speaker_05
Rector had the mind of a child. It's cruel to execute such a person, even if the messaging was brilliant. In 1992, Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in a three-way race with billionaire H. Ross Perot. The drought ended.

00:30:10 Speaker_05
The Democrats were finally back. The DLC had accomplished its mission. So what can the Democrats learn from the DLC's journey out of the wilderness? Well, to start, it should stop caving to the loudest pressure groups.

00:30:39 Speaker_06
The far left is pressuring the party to take positions that are deeply unpopular with the American people.

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This is Richie Torres again, speaking about that killer ad that Trump campaign ran in the closing weeks on transgender health care for illegal immigrants. So I saw the ad.

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It was effective because it weaponized the vice president's words against her. And the question is, why did she feel the need to ever say that in the first place? Because the pressure from the far left on center left Democrats is overwhelming.

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Ignoring special interest groups was the first lesson the DLC ever taught the Democratic Party. It's worth listening to Congressman Torres and relearning that lesson today. But there are other lessons as well.

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To start, it's important to understand that resistance politics has taken over progressive discourse in recent years. Whether it's climate change.

00:31:34 Speaker_12
How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones.

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Black Lives Matter.

00:31:55 Speaker_14
Unspell racist!

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We're trying to block the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. This is a tragedy of justice. The causes are different, but the style of discourse is the same. It's the shout downs, the screaming, the loaded rhetoric.

00:32:28 Speaker_05
And all of it makes the give and take of normal democratic politics impossible. On rare occasions, resistance really is required. But most, nearly all political disputes do not revolve around existential threats. Most rely on compromise.

00:32:45 Speaker_05
And that means acting like a political opposition.

00:32:48 Speaker_07
Donald Trump signed five of my bills the last time I was in Congress. This is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna. to represent them in what is good for this country.

00:33:12 Speaker_07
And if there is someone who is president, and I think he's proposing something that is good for America, even if it's not perfect, and I can be part of the solution, that's my responsibility.

00:33:23 Speaker_07
That doesn't mean that when he proposes things that are bad for America, that I won't speak out. The American people want that and they are desperate in this country for some kind of healing, some kind of moving forward. I hope the president does it.

00:33:37 Speaker_07
I'm dubious of it.

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But here's what I do know, that there's going to be the opportunity for the next generation in both parties to work towards finding more of that common ground and lifting up our politics so you don't have the ugliness of what we've had the past decade.

00:33:57 Speaker_05
Pretending that Trump will end our democracy is to deride the choice of the blue-collar Americans who Clinton brought back into the party.

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It could also be a self-fulfilling prophecy if Democrats return to lawfare, shunning their opponents, and encouraging disruptive protest and street anger. Not only will this give Trump and the Republicans an excuse to use the same tactics themselves,

00:34:20 Speaker_05
It also turns off the very voters a healthy political opposition should be trying to persuade. Right now, the Democrats have been too beholden to the well-organized fringes of their party who seek to lecture the people globalism has left behind.

00:34:34 Speaker_06
You know, I remember seeing a former colleague of mine come out in favor of defunding the police in the New York Times. This is Richie Torres again. And so I called him and I said, let me get this straight. You want to conduct a social experiment

00:34:49 Speaker_06
known as Defund the Police on my constituents of color in the South Bronx. And my question to you is, what happens if that social experiment goes badly? What happens if it leads to an outbreak of youth violence and gang violence and gun violence?

00:35:02 Speaker_06
You live in Brownstone, Brooklyn. You have the luxury of advocating for defunding the police. But for my constituents, defunding the police is not a utopian ideal, it's a dystopian reality. it will lead to more violence, not less.

00:35:17 Speaker_06
And so for me, the lesson here is that working class voters of color have no interest in becoming guinea pigs for the utopian social experiments of the far left.

00:35:27 Speaker_05
Utopian social experiments of the far left is the stuff of resistance, not opposition. And opposition operates in political reality. And so the Democrats should criticize Donald Trump when he deserves it.

00:35:40 Speaker_05
And believe me, there will be plenty of opportunities for that. But they shouldn't go into his presidency calling him Hitler. It will only erode their credibility for later on. After all, one doesn't negotiate with fascists.

00:35:55 Speaker_05
One bombs them to smithereens. And Trump isn't Hitler. We know this because President Biden knows this, which is why last week he said, I spoke with President-elect Trump to congratulate him on his victory.

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And I assured him that I'd direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That's what the American people deserve.

00:36:23 Speaker_05
Now, Biden deserves credit for acknowledging his party's defeat, something Donald Trump did not have the grace to do in 2020.

00:36:31 Speaker_05
Nonetheless, his concession speech last week also revealed his earlier fascism rhetoric to be a messaging strategy, not a bold plan to save half the country from the candidate they just elected.

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Because if Biden really believed that Donald Trump was a fascist and an existential threat to a democracy, why in the world would he be making his transition to power any easier? The other lesson, though, from the DLC is a little different.

00:37:01 Speaker_05
Bill Clinton's governing agenda planted the seeds of its eventual electoral rebuke. Clinton's tactics and political strategy are unimpeachable, pardon the pun. but his actual policy did not deliver.

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I refuse to be part of a generation of Americans that fails to compete in the global economy and so condemns hardworking, middle-class Americans to a lifetime of struggle without reward or security.

00:37:35 Speaker_05
That line worked really well in the 1992 election. But by 2015, as both Trump and Bernie Sanders were energizing a new wave of populism, public perception shifted. Donald Trump just won the 2024 election in part by promising tariffs.

00:37:56 Speaker_05
That's the opposite of free trade agreements. And his appeal to the forgotten man is a direct callback to those working class Clinton voters who didn't see their lives improve because of globalization.

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There are a lot of great things that came out of that era. We have more wealth as a nation than ever before. There's $12 trillion of wealth and we're the leading innovation hub of the world. We lowered the cost of things like phones and televisions.

00:38:24 Speaker_07
But in the process of doing that, both parties, and economists had a blind spot. Again, this is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna. at a blind spot to what this was doing to destroy communities.

00:38:37 Speaker_07
I mean, we shipped off our steel industry, shipped away our aluminum industry, our textile industry. Towns were being hollowed out. We were giving condescending lectures to people to either train for jobs that they never had or to move miles away.

00:38:51 Speaker_07
And that was wrong. And I think the first thing a Democratic politician needs to say is we messed up.

00:39:02 Speaker_05
Congressman Khanna is onto something. Small-D democratic politics are fluid. They are ever-changing.

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The key to success in the 1990s, selling neoliberal policies to Joe Six-Pack, led to eight years of democratic rule, eight years of peace and prosperity. But it was also a kind of time bomb.

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The populist response to Clinton's neoliberalism began in that 2016 election, but it came to fruition in 2024. And in that sense, it is the bookend to 1992. 2024 is the year when Clinton's working class coalition became Trump's.

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That's a tough pill to swallow for Democrats, particularly Democrats who were old enough to remember the glory days of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But it should also be a cause for optimism for the Democrats of this generation.

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Trump's coalition looks formidable after last week's election, but coalitions change.

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And his policies today, particularly if he pursues the tariffs he promised on the trail, are likely to exacerbate the inflation that got him elected in the first place.

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If Trump alienates America's allies, he will make the wars he wishes to end last longer. Sometimes the best an opposition can hope for is to let the party in power make their own mistakes. And that brings us back to the theme of this episode.

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The secret to Clinton and the DLC's success is that they realized the voters were not buying what the Democrats were selling. So they offered them something else. They learned how to win in opposition.

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They did not continue to signal their virtues to the progressive mandarins who refused to listen to the electorate. Power is earned through persuasion in democracy, not cosplay. So the Democrats are at a crossroads.

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One path is the make-believe of the last eight years. The other path is for the party to roll up its sleeves and offer the voters an agenda worth voting for. The midterms are less than two years away. Time to get to work. I'm Eli Lake.

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If you liked this episode, if you learned something, if you disagreed with something, or if it simply sparked a new understanding of our present moment, please share it with your friends and family and use it to have a conversation of your own.

00:42:00 Speaker_05
And if you want to support Honestly, there's only one way to do it. Go to thefp.com and become a subscriber today. See you next time.