Bulwark Takes - The Rage Is Real. Liberal Voters Could Oust Dem Incumbent in 2026

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Sam Stein speaks with Lauren Egan about the potential for Democrats to face their own Tea Party movement that could oust their incumbents for not doing enough to stop Donald Trump. Morning Shots: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/democrats-are-about-to-eat-their

What's up guys, it's me Sam Stein, managing out at the Bulwark, joined by Lauren Egan, who has managed to make it through a full five days at the Bulwark. I haven't quit yet. How badly do you want to quit? You know, it's only what, 11am? I still got time. You got time, don't worry. For the end of the day. And Fridays are particularly rough in the Trump era, so we'll wait and see.

Lauren's here to talk about a new piece on the site and in your inboxes of Morning Shots. It's about Democrats risking a Tea Party moment. So I like the piece because it surveys a bunch of different folks, but the chief among them was Jimmy Pritzker, governor of Illinois. We'll get into it in a second. Just first, obviously, subscribe to the feed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We need the subscriptions. Do it, please. Lauren, tell us about what Pritzker said, because he's obviously at the forefront of the party. He's rumored to be a presidential candidate in 2028. He's choosing his words wisely, but also at the same time warning the party that there's there's kind of on like tenuous ground here

yeah he was careful not to like directly take a shot at uh democratic leadership but he was like look this is a red alert moment and the whole party needs to act like it including party leadership right so and he was pretty candid like he said we are at a tea party-esque type moment um in i guess we have to define i guess we have to define what a tea party-esque moment yeah so like were you around back then or now i was alive alive but were you around i was alive no i was a kid i was a kid but like i mean i think when we say it like we're not talking about it from like an ideological point of view. This isn't like, like, like there's going to be some like insurgent, you know, anti-Obamacare.

Yeah. Yeah. It's more the idea that like, like Democratic voters are pissed off. They're fed up with party leadership. And it could be at the point where we're going to see a bunch of first-time candidates, primary establishment types in the midterms. Yeah. My recollection, and I was alive and also working back then, was that 2009, 2010, basically the conservative grassroots just got fed up. And they were like, we didn't like the bailouts. They didn't like the Wall know we didn't they didn't like the bailouts

they didn't like the wall street bailout they didn't like the auto bailout they didn't like obamacare um but they mostly uh were pissed off at their own party uh for not doing more to stand up to obama and also you know the bailouts had happened and started under george w bush so they were really upset they thought um there had just not been, you know, the party that stuck to its convictions and they took it out. And a bunch of different insurgent candidates won nominations and then they won office. And of course, the big one was Eric Cantor losing his primary bid. I haven't seen that yet. I mean, it's early, right? Like we're like a month in. It's so early. It's so early. And that's what like leadership will say.

Like what? We're a month in? Not even? Is it just a month? No, we're over a month in. Just over a month. No, no. It's February 28th.

We've had a month and eight days. Okay. Okay. Okay. So like, you know. It feels like two years. It's early. It literally feels like 10 years.

So there's totally time, but yeah, we're not like there. What would it look like if it happens? Like what would it be over? I guess. Like, why would they be, how, how would they, um, how would they showcase their anger with democratic leadership and what would it be about? Well, that's the thing when I'm saying like, it's not ideological. I hate to use the word vibe because like we've really used that but it is like a vibe thing i think it's just like this sense that like

these people are just kind of weak and like they're not really they don't like have it have have it in them like they don't have a fight in them and also like age i mean yes and no because like someone like schumer but yeah like kim jeffries is not old but i think it's that's what i'm saying it's like a vibe well it has to be i gotta go ahead 54 54 okay that's not yeah so like yeah it's not but you know not young so um um i know what you're thinking i'm not 54 yeah yeah i know um what was it um yeah i don't know like it's part of the media environment too like you know they're kind of like still just going on the same like cable news shows and like they're not being creative and i don't i don't think voters feel like the democratic base doesn't feel like they like have it in them to be creative and

like do something different uh even though like we know that they've got to shake things up and change some things. Yeah, but it's so vague. It's like, oh, shake things up. Change things. Go get harder and more aggressive with Trump. What does that mean, right? Like, literally change. Yeah, I think that's the challenge.

Handcuff yourself to the Department of Education as opposed to protesting outside of it? I think Chuck Schumer should do that. I don't think he should do that. handcuff yourself to the Department of Education as opposed to protesting outside of it? What do you do? I don't think you should do that. I think that end poorly. But I think that's the bind they're in, right? They just don't have... Yeah, it's not like an easy... Obviously, if there's an obvious answer, they'd do it. But you had another piece two days ago, or I guess yesterday about one thing they could do and that's like shut down the government right um so what bring that into here

because i guess that's the biggest most uh immediate flashpoint right they could do that we don't know what they're going to do i think it's a little unclear well i guess we they don't they can't do that in theory right if republicans had all the votes they could pass their well i guess in the senate they need 60 right so they could do that okay never mind yeah but like i think that there's a there's like a sense that they're ultimately going to be like a bit squeamish on this and like fine you know they don't want to be blamed for shutting down the government fairly or unfairly um i think especially your moderate democrats are pretty sensitive to that um and so like that might not even happen but like they could um i don't know like state of the unions next week you know they're like planning to do some uh some

things around that but it's all like you know bringing people who've been affected by doge to the state of the union it's all kind of like the same playing cards nothing's like really like new or different that's just like standard practice right and i guess the other thing is like yeah that was basically just being like why the fuck aren't we doing anything different like We do this every year when we're not in power. Why are you pointing to this as a thing that we should be rallying around? There was an interesting stat in your piece about how many people have actually signed up for office. Yeah, that was really interesting.

Yeah, so Run for Something, which is the big group that kind of helps train and recruit people to run for office for the first time. They said that they've been getting about 500 people a day reaching out to them wanting to run for office, which is pretty astonishing. And Amanda, this is not, just to be clear, this is not just like congressional offices, offices across different spectrums of government.

But she said that in 27, since the november election they've seen more people reach out to sign up to run for office than they did in the entire year of 2017 so what that's only been a few months compared to all of 2017 um so yeah it's a huge difference yeah it's a lot of people so those numbers i think are pretty telling right and. And look, I mean, not everyone's going to run and everyone's going to win. But the sheer interest in office, and I think people don't really quite appreciate this. You start low, like people run locally, then move up, then move to state office. Then from state office, they could do federal office. So you build a bench and this is what happens.

And some of them will take out other Democrats, presumably in primaries. Yeah. Yeah. Are we seeing, are we seeing Democrats already being threatened with primaries? Um, well, it's so early, but yeah, I, we've, uh, there was this interesting moment from, um, I guess it was last week when Congress was on recess. Um, Congressman Lynch from the Boston area was like hosting a town hall or some kind of speech um and someone interrupted him and was basically just like giving him a hard time saying

like you got to do mortified against trump you got to do mortified against trump and he was basically just like look i'm the one that was elected like he got kind of defensive uh there's a video linked in the piece he was he got kind of defensive was basically like you run for congress then like you run um so you know that part's kind of interesting there's been some chatter that like there's people that are going to try and and primary him in that they might they might actually do it i mean yeah he did bring it upon himself quite literally but yeah yeah um that's that's ridiculous you should have done that in your Boston accent, Laura. Oh my god. I love this app. I do not have a Boston accent. Ultimately, how would you categorize... Oh, sorry. The last thing

I want to ask you about, because hovering all this is that, like Jeffries basically is the person who is supposed to be at the vanguard of what Democrats are trying to do here oppositionally, not just because he's the minority leader in the House, and they have such a small margin there compared to the Senate even, but because he's young, relatively, he's 54, and Schumer's older, and he's better known than the DNC chair who's really not done much since winning the office Ken Martin and yet Jeffries has been hounded like as he goes around the country on a on a book tour I didn't realize this until you reported that he's hawking a children's book that he yes he has authored a

children's book about see is that the problem is that? Is that the symbol of the problem here? Honestly, when he wrote the book and planned this book tour, the hope was that Paris would be president and it would hit a lot differently. But she's not. And he's still on this book tour. And it's just

weird. I think this book tour just totally totally represents like why democrats why democratic voters are pissed off and just like what the are we doing it's like you need to get off your children's book tour and probably get back to work and he's been he's been protested yeah at these uh at a few of these book tours there's been protesters that have showed up to be like uh yeah um could you go back and do your job and fight a bit harder against Trump? What does he say? I mean, I don't think he really knows how to interact with a lot of these protesters and these groups.

Like, it's a bit uncomfortable. I talked to someone who's at one of the the brooklyn events and they were just like yeah it's just like uncomfortable okay so i you know i don't know i don't think he's really like figured out gotten his sea legs with some of this quite yet right well he has big shoes to fill you know like yeah i was gonna say pelosi pelosi took comparison i was gonna say pelosi did get similar you know she did get protested by the base, but she also had earned their adoration for doing a whole bunch

of different things, including passing critical legislation and being steely in these moments. And Jeffries does not have that reservoir yet of goodwill. He might get it, but this is why we say they're in a kind of tricky situation um

okay uh this is great lauren thank you so much for this anything else you want to say about the situation are you do you think ultimately that we're going to end up with a tea party like uh movement here or now oh don't make me guess i it's so early you gotta you gotta ask me again in the summer. All right, we'll pin it. Give me a few more months. It is 28 days in. All right, we'll pin it. Lauren Egan, thanks so much. Everyone should be on the lookout for her soon-to-be-launched newsletter, The Opposition. It's coming soon. And thank you for watching on YouTube.

Obviously, subscribe, share, rate us high, whatever you have to do to improve our standing. We appreciate it. And we'll be in touch.