Factually! with Adam Conover - Are Progressives Finally Making Progress with Osita Nwanevu

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

The DNC highlighted just how much the Democratic Party is in a state of transition. With Harris picking Walz as her running mate and their shared focus on the middle class, combined with the convention putting AOC front and center as a rising star, it seems like the party could finally be shifting further to the left. But at the same time, key progressive issues like a ceasefire in Gaza or addressing climate change were noticeably absent. This week, Adam sits down with Osita Nwanevu, columnist for The Guardian and contributing editor for The New Republic, to discuss what the left might look like as it emerges from this election cycle. SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. isn't too annoying, all that good stuff. In order to do that, we need to know a little bit more about you, our audience, what makes you tick, what you like about the show, what you don't like, stuff like that. The survey is a quick, easy, and free way to support the show. It'll take you two minutes, and you'll be helping us out so much by doing it. So if that interests you, it doesn't have to,

but if you'd like to help us out, go to gum.fm slash factually to fill out our audience survey. That's gum.fm slash factually. I don't know the truth. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. Yeah, but that's all right.

That's okay. I don't know anything. Yeah, but that's all right. That's okay. I don't know anything. Hello and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me on the show again. The Democratic National Convention happened a few weeks back. And you know what?

Incredibly, the Democrats were not in disarray. In fact, they were in array. Why? how? Well, the Democratic Party actually responded to the will of its members and swapped out a dusty old candidate for a candidate who people actually like or who at the very least can deliver a speech.

And you know, this seems pretty basic, but the results have not been just positive, but according to official Democrat branding, joyful. And for those on the left of American politics, this has turned out to be a particularly interesting moment. You know, a couple months back, we had Bhaskar Sankara on the show to talk about why the left hadn't won meaningful victories in America in decades, if not centuries. But if you look at the DNC from a certain angle, it kind of seems like the left might be on the march. I mean, you had the Midwestern populism of Tim Walz, Harris's focus on the middle class, and the acknowledgement of AOC as a major mainstream star in the party.

There is some reason to believe that maybe the party has metabolized some of the lessons of Bernie Sanders into a broader consensus. But, at the same time, there was very little mention of climate change, let alone single-payer health care. Harris also seemed to do a fair amount of military saber-rattling, and although she did mention the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and the need for the Palestinian people to have self-determination, the DNC couldn't muster the strength or the guts to let an actual Palestinian speak on stage, even though there was a Palestinian lawmaker waiting in the wings to do so.

So, how should we think about the power of the left when it comes to this election? Is that power waxing or waning, and what is the prospect for the future? Well, to talk about that on the show this week, we have an absolutely incredible guest. But before we get into it, I just wanna remind you that if you wanna support this show

and all the amazing conversations we bring you, you can do so on Patreon. Head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every one of our episodes ad free We even have an online community you can join We would love to have you there And if you like stand-up comedy or even if you don't please come see me on the road this year this year I'm headed to Baltimore, Portland, Oregon Seattle Denver Austin, Batavia, Illinois

Chicago, Illinois San Francisco, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Providence, Rhode Island. I'm headed all over the damn country. Come see me, I got a brand new hour of standup comedy I'd love to share with you. Head to adamconover.net for all those tickets and tour dates. And now let's get to this week's episode. Oceta Wanevu is one of the smartest political writers

on the left today. He's a columnist for The Guardian, a contributing editor for The New Republic, and his work has appeared in many other outlets as well. I know you're going to love this conversation. Please welcome Osita Wenevu. Osita, thank you so much for being on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. So you wrote a piece in the last month or so called

The Left Are the Adults in the Room regarding American politics in the time since we've watched the DNC occur, which had me really wondering what is the status of the, the left visa V democratic politics is, you know, are they waxing or are they waning? What is your view having watched the convention? Yeah. I mean, I think that that assessment still stands. So I wrote that piece. It's funny. I So I wrote that piece.

It's funny, I started working on that piece before Biden dropped out and sort of had to do these edits to it and then changes to it as we sort of saw the chaos of that month play out. But I think one of the really animating forces behind it with this is the idea that, look, people knew for years that Biden was this old guy, that he kind of lost the step politically. It seemed like the people who were willing to talk about the most frankly were people on the left, kind of joking about this since 2020, but it became obviously a live political

issue. And we saw over the course of that month, a month that I won't forget, all the people in the Democratic Party have this kind of grand conniption about what to do about it as a problem, a problem that they should have seen coming. It seemed like we were just unable to cope for the entire month of this basic political situation and there was a lot of denial happening and a lot of, I don't know, handwringing. It seemed to me to be indicative in a small way, small but important way of the kind of general inertia that we see in democratic politics all the time where people are very

resistant to change. People are very resistant to taking even well justified risks. And so the piece came kind of out of that feeling that Biden's situation was indicative of broader tendencies within the Democratic Party that have even policy implications, like I want to talk about a little bit. So having seen that convention and having seen the events in the last couple of weeks and the explosion of interest or explosion of enthusiasm about Kamala Harris, I still kind of feel that way. I think it's

good that Harris is doing so much better. The race is not over, but she is doing better than Biden. It seems like the Democrats are going to go into November with more energy and more confidence than confidence that they would have before. Even the kind of zig and zag from Biden to Harris and the kind of explosion with enthusiasm there is I think indicative of the fact that I think the Democratic Party takes cues from leadership. leadership, it is not really possessed of a clear ideological vision or clearly direction. And that kind of enables the swing we've seen towards Harris. It's not like replacing Biden with Harris was indicative of some kind of grand ideological shift or a grand change of program. It's while the people who were insisting for weeks and weeks and weeks that we couldn't replace Biden and the real logistical challenges to, and so on.

Once it became clear that while Biden was going, that Nancy Pelosi and people, the democratic party in the background kind of urged them off the scene. Um, everything kind of snapped into place for Harris. Okay. She's the person where all for her, she is, uh, you know, this, this, you know, she, she's, she's the standard bearer now. Um, I don't know. I feel like there's, there's something to me that's still suspect about that switch,

even though I thought it should happen the way the people who had been adamantly defending Biden's price on the ticket, uh, switched over within the space of 24 hours and to say, well, Kamala Harris was always, you know, she was always the one. You know, there's something about that I think is reflective of a kind of unseriousness. I mean, I will always remember for as long as I live, the way that people talked about the decision for Biden to go. I was very tentatively saying, over the course of that month, well, I wasn't really all that convinced over the course of Biden's term

that Biden wasn't doing so well in the polls, but if you look at the other polls, and not like Kamala Harris or Gavin News and whoever is gonna do all that better, et cetera, et cetera. The debate really was the thing that changed my mind. But even after the debate, I was kind of like, well, you know, it seems like I was going to have a harder time convincing people he's up to the challenge now, having had that debate in the public mind.

So it's probably worth, you know, taking the risk of replacing him on the ticket now, especially because I think there's probably some upside, even though it's not evident in the polls right now for Harris specifically. The way that people reacted to that suggestion, I will always kind of, you have people saying, oh, you know, it's actually because Ezra Klein and the pod save rows are the ones pushing this along, that the idea of replacing Biden and taking it is actually racist. It's this conspiracy fomented by rich white guys who don't know. I don't know if people are listening to this, they can't tell that I'm not a rich white

guy, actually myself. I don't think you could have dismissed that selection suggestion on the screen. But the way people were talking about this was crazy. This idea that, oh, we can't replace Biden because the ballots are going to be have to be changed. Republicans are going to, you know, institute all these lawsuits to prevent that. Well, there were no ballots because there were no official nominees in the first place. Yeah, because the nomination happens at the convention.

That's what the convention is for. Exactly. I mean, in this particular case, they did the virtual kind of nomination beforehand. But the point was like, at that point, when people were contemplating the switch, there Exactly. I mean, in this particular case, they did the virtual kind of nomination beforehand. But the point was like, at that point, when people were contemplating the switch, there was no official nominee. So to say that Republicans were going to mess up the ballots if you changed was ridiculous. People said this over and over again. As soon as Harris was the one, it kind of evaporated. Where were these challenges that we were assured were going to happen?

Yeah. So there was just a level of like, unseriousness. And I don't want to harp on this specific issue for too long because I talked about other stuff in that piece, but I've been thinking for years about the extent to which we have a kind of fandom-based politics now. This weird phenomenon where people are very, very engaged in politics. They go out and vote in every election. They can tell you who's running in the Democratic primary for the Senate in Kentucky, even though they live in New York City. There's this level of deep engagement

with politics, but it's not really rooted in, certainly not policy. It's not, it's not really rooted in the substance of what we elect people for. People are very, very committed Democrats, are very, very committed Republicans. That's one of the sources of our polarization, but that commitment to these parties and the people who lead them hasn't necessarily translated into a deep investment in the actual substance of politics.

It's politics as sports. You know, I'm rooting for the team or the person. Oh my God, this is a great new player on the scene. I like them, but it's not connected to like the material reality of that people live in that these politicians might change that, or, or let alone movement politics or anything along those lines. You know, to the point where people have phone fingers if you saw the convention. It's very creative, like Michigan shaped things.

You know, one of the things I thought was so funny about the convention too, specifically was that, you know, in that month before Biden actually dropped out, people were debating what should happen. There's this idea of doing an open convention that people are for, not just going to Harris, like I supported myself and I pushed for it, but you know, let's throw it to the convention, have it, you know, in the way that they used to do it in the olden days, where the delegates on

the floor will be the people who will have these debates and whatever. And just sort of looking at the convention itself and seeing these people dressed as like Bootsy Collins and, you know, waving the thumb fingers around, like the idea that these people would have been the people to like fight over the nominees going to be was crazy. I mean, in, you know, logistical terms, yes, they are delegates in the same way that the people who were conventions in the olden days were delegates, but clearly like these are not people who are there and would have been prepared to do the kind of wheeling and dealing that would have been necessary to achieve a different nominee on the floor. It's like a Democratic volunteer number one from Michigan, the person who knocked the most doors or runs the party, local party in Detroit or whatever it is. The biggest, you know what it was,

was it was Comic-Con for Democrats. The biggest fan of the party gets to go. The idea that these people would be engaged in some kind of deliberative process, let alone the idea that the Democratic Party as an institution could run such a thing after not having done so for 50, 60 years, that they could take a convention which for decades has been a coronation and a party and turn it into a,

some kind of like deliberative procedure is ludicrous. And I love Ezra Klein. I was shocked that he thought that that could happen. I was like, look, either we're going to Kamala or it's Biden. Like there's no, there's no open convention. It seemed like not connected to what such a thing would actually entail. Right. I mean, I think at the end of that process, even if you had it,

I think that Harris would have won, but she would have won, I think, a more battered candidate than she is now and would have, we would not have had the vibes we've had now if that had happened. So, you know, I just feel like the party's politics, and this is again, not just a democratic thing, are kind of dominated by people who are invested in the democratic party as a kind of institution abstracted from what the democratic party does, which I think is both deeply annoying as somebody on the left, but also as an opportunity. Because what that means functionally, and I think this is a source of some of the progress we did see under Biden, what that means functionally is that the party is this kind of open container for whatever ideas

happen to wield their way into elite office spaces, basically in Washington, DC. Biden, I think, comes in 2020 without a real deep set of ideological convictions, the extent that he'd had them, I think that towards the end of that primary you saw because it was him or Brenny, um, and they want to reconcile the party to accept that he had these older ideological convictions. He was actually pretty willing, uh, to move left, um, and certain policy, uh, grounds certainly further left than he was when he started the race. I think that's partially because when it comes to whether it's corporate power or climate change or all of the kind of economic policies that have been at the center of democratic thought for the

last 10, 15 years, the people who've kind of prevailed in a lot of the policy discussions in Washington, DC are people who are in the progressive camp. Frank Foer writes about this pretty well in his book, The Last Politician. There was this period after the 2016 election where Democrats were sort of asking themselves what happened politically, but also how could they speak to what they saw as the populist fervor in the electorate? The first inklings of it we saw with Occupy Wall Street, Donald Trump reflects a different kind of flavor. But the people were very newly attuned to inequality as an issue, newly attuned to corporate power as an issue.

And so there was this real soul-searching moment in democratic policy circles where they sort of thought to themselves, well, maybe progressives are right about this or that. And they started searching around, grasping around for ideas. Jake Sullivan was one of the people who was deeply involved in those conversations. He's now one of the central figures behind the scenes of the Biden administration. But people who I think were very influenced by Elizabeth Warren in particular start finding their way into institutions

that end up shaping the Biden administration and shaping its thinking on a lot of different issues. And because Biden, I think, is at that point this empty vessel who just wanted to be the president, he's kind of receptive to a lot of those new ideas. And I think that's where Bidenomics as an economic program comes from. So I see all of that.

Yeah, go ahead. I was somewhat shocked when he got into office. Again, yeah, he was sort of an empty vessel. He seemed like the most moderate acceptable choice. And then he gets in there saying, I'm the second coming of FDR. I'm gonna put money in your pocket. I'm going to put money in your pocket. I'm going to break up the monopolies.

And if you look at the shift on antitrust, it was one of the biggest policy shifts in the last couple of years. I never would have expected that to come out of Biden. It was stunning how many ideas it seemed like he took from the progressive left. Exactly. And I'd remiss to leave out the other thing too,

which is COVID. So COVID comes along towards the end of the Democratic primary 2020, completely upends the economy. Democrats in policy have these memories of Obama's response to recession and the stimulus, which I think consensus had congealed at that point that it had been too small and they hadn't done enough to aggressively try to juice up demand again. So COVID comes along, that resets the economy. I think there's a determination amongst Biden's team and amongst Democrats in general that

they're going to make the same mistake again, and needed to go big with the economic response to that as well. So that and the fact that he was trying you know, trying to reconcile the two wings of the party at the end of the primary, I think Paul, him in a leftward direction, that ends up shaping the administration when he gets in there, which is why you see, you know, as you point out there, antitrust stuff is a great example. Lena Conn at the FTC, a champions by people in the war and, you know, wing of the progressive part of the

Democratic Party. So I say all of that to say, you know, the extent to which the Republican Party is glommed onto by its supporters as an institution abstracted from ideas means that if you have the, you know, avenues to get into democratic policy discourse and kind of import your ideas there. The Democrats, you know, the democratic base is going to go for whatever. They're just happy to vote for Democrats, whether it's, you know, if Kamala Harris came out tomorrow and said, well, I support Medicare for all. I don't think you'd see any kind of real movement amongst Democrats, at least, away from her

or towards Reni. I think they're just happy to have somebody on the top of the ticket who is a Democrat and seems like they're going to stick it to Donald Trump. It's both annoying and an opportunity. I think that means that if the left managed to succeed in finding ways to get its ideas onto the Democratic agenda, the rest of the party will kind of follow. And it's just exactly the same thing I think, by the way, is happening on the Republican side.

In what way? Who's getting whose ideas onto the Republican platform? Well, I think that Donald Trump has been read as a kind of ideological wrecking ball, basically. He's this guy who came in, nobody expected in 2016, and completely shredded all these years of Republican orthodoxy. Now he's talking about he wants to do tariffs. Now he's talking about how bad NAFTA was, and he's more willing to think about government intervention and healthcare and this kind of

thing. I really kind of believe that Donald Trump's successes are not based upon that novel approach to Republican rhetoric. I think people on the Republican side like his personality. They like the way that he talks about immigration and people in the country that they dislike. And whatever agenda he and the people who are supporting him and the Republican Party put in underneath all of that, I think you'll see Republicans and the Republican base kind of willing to support it. I think immigration is the kind of one thing that you can't shift on.

Donald Trump said tomorrow, actually I've changed my mind tonight, support more expensive immigration policy, more open immigration policy. Yeah, then he would, I think, lose a lot of his luster. When it comes to things like tax policy, regulations, these kinds of things, I don't think Republicans, Republican voters are paying all that much attention to what Donald Trump says about these things.

So. It's a cultural affinity, not a policy-based one. It's a cultural affinity, and I think it's relevant to that, everybody should remember, I don't know if people do remember, should remember the Tea Party, right? In the early years of the Obama administration, 2009, 2010, the first stirrings of right-wing populism of this kind, crazy conspiracy theories,

people threatening violence, things that on. Things that feel very similar and actually as like forerunners to Trumpism as a political style. The actual substantive content of the Tea Party was very different. It was kind of like extreme laissez-faire economics. We care a lot about the deficit. We care a lot about government spending. We want to return to kind of classical liberal or libertarian politics. One of the people that a lot of these folks run onto is Ron Paul, this kind of, you know, libertarian, right? The actual substance of politics, the Tea Party,

were very different from what's been designated as Trumpism, but you saw the same kind of figure as in the same kind of political style there that we have with Donald Trump, because it's not fundamentally about policy. It's about anger. It's about it. It's about registering your disapproval of people in the country you don't like. So in the very same way, I think for the Republican party, fandom seems like too, you know, you're talking about something getting very dangerous in the right. So fandom seems a little bit weird to me, but in the same way, you do have people who are glomming onto people and institutions more so than they're glomming onto actual

policy ideas, actual policy substance in a way that, you know, I think on the democratic side presents an opportunity for the left, somebody who covers politics and somebody who cares about policy, uh, is, I was often very annoying to try to deal with. And do you think the left is starting to see that opportunity strategically? I mean, just again, to the title of your piece, the left or the adults in the room, I did notice that the first people I knew to start going, I'm coconut-pilled on X or on TikTok or whatever, we're the leftists, right?

And it was interesting because I was like, well, they don't think that Kamala Harris is particularly a leftist apart from, oh, maybe she's slightly more pro-Palestinian than Biden is to some extent. She wants to cease for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, a matter of degree. It wasn't that, it wasn't that they saw her

as like a Bernie or an AOC figure. wants to cease for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, a matter of degree. It wasn't that, it wasn't that they saw her as like a Bernie or an AOC figure. It was just the left was the group going, wait, no, we do need to win and defeat Donald Trump and the way to do it is to get coconut pilled and we're having that sort of strange energy. It was fun, it was shitposting, but it was also strategic

and it turned out to be the right strategic play. And that was really interesting because the left is often accused of being fundamentally unstrategic, of being a protest movement rather than one that actually wants to build power. And there's plenty of times I felt the left is absolutely guilty of that,

in my own interactions with the movement. So yeah, I'm curious, is this a new birth of strategic thinking on the left? I think, I think you can see evidence of that in some corners. I think that the way that people talked about Kamala Harris, like half, half ironically, half seriously, as I kind of did myself, I might be evidence of that. I think that most people who consider themselves on the left of this part are just tired of losing and sort of need a sense of direction.

I think it manifests itself in all kinds of ways. One of them is I think reconciliation to the reality that we live in a country where there are two major parties and if you want to achieve power, you can use all available levers that exist to achieve power and use all available levers that exist to achieve power. That means engaging with the one of those parties that is nearer to your ideology than the other one. That's just a practical reality. I think that more and more people on the left, I think are willing to accept that, which

is not to say that they are willing to abandon critiques of the Democratic Party or that they're going to give Kamala Harris an easy time. And I think that Gaza is, you know, one area where that's very clear. Even people who were coconut-pilled and saying, you know, we think that Biden should go and Harris would be the right choice, are still criticizing her on Gaza and are still pointing out the fact that there hasn't really been very much significant movement from Biden administration since she's joined to take it on that issue. But you know, that's a complexity of politics, right?

Understanding the political situation realistically, for me at least, means saying, look, we have a democratic party in this country that has, under Biden, I think, moved significantly left on certain issues, is not a left-wing party, but I think presents certain opportunities. It's important given that they win this next election and that Donald Trump does not win this next election and Kamala Harris seemed like she would be a better candidate for the party on those grounds and Joe Biden would have been. At the same time, we should continue to push her on Gaza and all of these other issues that we care about because absent that pressure, she's going to sort of migrate to the center. And I think that that's

all coherent and a sensible way of thinking about politics. And I think more people on the left think that than not, but just not to say that that's a universal tendency or universal way of thinking. I think that you still see people on the left who are hostile enough to the Democratic Party that they point to or insist that there are some other avenues to achieving power in this country, whether it's, you know, talking about organizing kind of amorphously and thinking that there's some kind of mass uprising is in the works if we just sort of post enough. I don't know. I don't know what the alternative, I don't know. You'll have to have one of those people on the show to ask them what they think. I don't say that to be an answer. I myself made a point where I kind of

I just, I myself made a point where I kind of think that if you're realistic about politics and you care about, you know, materialism is where the people love to use all the time. You care about material conditions that shape our lives and shape our society. That means being attuned to concrete realities and not throwing yourself into utopian visions or a kind of, uh, wish casting about the way things could be, should be, um, you know, in a different, in a different reality. We, we live in a country we live in. We have the political situation we have. And I think that means, um, you know, finding the gears and levers that exist

and trying to figure out how to use them to our ends. And that means sometimes trying to assess the political strengths and weaknesses of people that we don't like objectively. And that's what I've tried to do with Kamala Harris. And seeing how you can use them to your ends, not letting the perfect be the enemy, the good. I mean, it's very, it can be very comforting sometimes to fight for a future utopia that will exist after you're dead, but it might not be affecting material reality as much as swallowing and swallowing your pride and doing some work for a candidate who's not perfect,

but you know, might affect the reality on the ground more directly. Folks, I am so excited to tell you about this week's sponsor, Delete Me. The reality on the ground or directly. There's actually a mountain of personal data being bought, sold, and traded by data brokers. Things you never meant to be public, like your home address, phone number, and even the names of your relatives. Anyone with an internet connection and some bad intent can dig up everything they need to make your life miserable. And in recent years, we've seen an uptick in online harassment, identity theft, and even real-life stalking, all because of this easily accessible information. You know, when I became a target of harassment

from people who found my details online, I signed up for Delete Me. And honestly, it is one of the best choices I've ever made. Their team of experts works tirelessly to hunt down your information, remove it, and keep it gone. You, your family, and your loved ones deserve to feel safe from this kind of invasion of privacy. So check out Delete Me, not just for your security,

but for your friends and family too. You can get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteeme.com slash Adam and use the promo code Adam at checkout. That's joindeleteeme.com slash Adam, promo code Adam. Folks, today's episode is brought to you by Alma. Finding someone who truly understands what I'm going through has been a tremendous help

during some of my toughest times. So if you're thinking about getting some licensed expert help to navigate your own challenges, I highly recommend giving Alma a try. The thing about therapy is it's really most effective when you feel genuinely heard and understood. That is why Alma doesn't just help you find a therapist, they help you find the right therapist.

You can easily browse their directory and filter based on what you want to focus on, like anxiety, relationships, or major life transitions. You can also choose based on preferences like gender, sexuality, faith, and more. And another great thing, Alma can help you find a therapist who accepts your insurance. Over 95% of therapists at Alma take insurance, including Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare, and others. People who find in-network care through Alma save an average of 77% on the cost of therapy. Getting started is effortless, you can browse the directory without needing to create an account or share any payment information, and plus you can book a free 15 minute consultation call

with any therapist you're interested in. It is a perfect way to see if they're the right fit for you. So you can find someone you really click with. So visit helloalma.com slash factually to get started and schedule a free consultation today. That's helloalma.com slash factually. I'll say that, uh, you know, one example of a means of building power that is not based on electoralism is,

uh, labor organizing. Um, that is, that is a way to build power and to change the world, uh, without relying on someone's vote. Um, and you also saw hints of that on stage. I mean, Sean Fain gave a rousing speech. There was a fellow from More Perfect Union who gave a terrific speech. I'm curious, I mean, I spent so much of the DNC

reading the tea leaves of, you know, how much is a left perspective working its way in? Talking about the selection of Governor Tim Walz as the vice presidential running mate. I mean, first of all, I thought this guy would never be selected, specifically because all the leftists I knew were pulling for him. And I was like, that means he's too much of a, you know, we can't have our cake and eat it too. So therefore we're going gonna get someone else. Instead, the Democratic Party again appears to make the right decision, picks a true political superstar,

you know, saw raw talent when they, when they, you know, recognized raw talent when they saw it. But then also when Wall spoke, I was like, wait, this is almost a certain form of like Midwest, like New Deal era sounding left populism in a way, where he's talking about the inherent dignity of every single person to live a life, and your neighbors aren't like you,

but you help them out anyway. Just this very sort of down home, we all have to help each other kind of, I don't know, way of making a, honestly, a social welfare state sound like fundamentally American in a way to me. I'm curious if you saw those same echo, none of it was policy. It was all just sort of like thematic and vibes based.

Yeah. I mean, I think they're in a place where they're trying to say a lot of different things at once, but they've recognized that one of the things that you should say, or one of the kind of rhetorical modes you should be in as a Democratic candidate is a kind of progressive populist note, whether you frame it as kind of Americana or not is a different question.

But I think that, you know, we're seeing in the walls pick, and I think some of the other language that Harris has used, a recognition that progressive politics can play that I think, I mean, the enthusiasm that people have for walls was built on successes of his administration in Minnesota. I think that people have been talking for years about how they've gone so many different progressive initiatives passed in the state. And, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't, uh, as much as people have tried to frame him as a kind of, you know, Bernie Sanders and, and disguised as the right, uh, he

was not, for the beginning of his career, a kind of reliably progressive guy. He was actually kind of down the middle, but local conditions in Minnesota prevailed for the left in the ways that allowed him to pass the agenda that he was able to. And Harris team, I think rightfully saw that as an asset. They saw him as somebody who could speak the language of progressivism in a way that seemed folksy. And that's, I think, been an asset for at the same time, you know, I think the other rhetorical mode you saw at the convention and you've seen since is, had a kind of talk to the center on certain issues with that's immigration or criminal justice policy. They're trying to do both things at once. In a way that I think is kind of similar to the way that Biden ended up trying to do both

things at once as the election drew closer, he think, retreated from some of the progressivism of his early, earlier in his term. I think that's just the reality of what you have to do in general election. But you know, I think it's important that people who are running in democratic politics now understand that there is a progressive constituency that they have to speak to number one in order to even win a primary. But number two, I think that they've, they've come to understand as Bernie Sanders has gone on and on about since he ran in 2016, a lot of these ideas are popular, the idea that people shouldn't be bankrupted because they had a medical procedure.

That's, that's a pretty good idea. The idea that the rich have been under taxed and people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are contributing enough to the general welfare. That's a good idea. These aren't radical propositions, I think, to most Americans. I think you have a Democratic party right now that acknowledges that and sees the potential and that kind of rhetoric. Because if they don't do that, I think that Donald Trump and the Republican party are

trying to make this play where they cast themselves as the real advocates for workers and working people in this country, people who didn't go to college. You saw Sean O'Brien give this speech at the RNC that was very divisive and got a lot of a pushback from the labor movement. But I think that was reflective of an effort that Republicans are trying to make to cast themselves as a new Republican party that's more attentive to the issues of ordinary working Americans. So if Democrats don't do what I think the Harris campaign

has done and try to adopt a more progressive language, more progressive flaming, I think that Republicans are going to try to take advantage of that absence. And we're already seeing. I don't think it's a huge amount, but it doesn't have to be because elections are so close. We're seeing erosion from the Democratic side to Republicans among non-college, non-white people. And that, you know, in a state like

Pennsylvania and a state like Michigan, that could decide the election. So it's of necessity for I think Democrats to think seriously about beyond this campaign, beyond this tickle election, um, thoroughly integrating, I think certain progressive, uh, rhetorical, um, certain progress, certain assholes, the press rhetoric at least. And I think, you know, I'd also hope that they adopt policies too, substantively that the flesh is out. Um, all that they're saying about working people and, and, um, yeah.

Yeah. The progressive economics or progressive economic populism was really on display talking about Sean Fain, you know, anti-monopoly stuff. Kamala Harris in her speech talking about, we're going to do a middle class tax cut. And then if you look at what she's talking about, she's talking about child tax credits and lots of good progressive policy.

All that stuff sounds good. At the same time, you saw a hard turn over the past couple of years towards not just the center, but the right. Let's talk about criminal justice reform and the fact that not only is, you know, the party on the center, it's like anathema to talk about criminal justice reform. We're sitting here four years after the George Floyd moment. After, you know, the election of progressive prosecutors, etc., etc., to the point where, you know, you've got,

I remember I was listening to Ezra Klein's podcast. He's talking to Jamel Bowie and they're talking about, oh, it's so great that Kamala Harris can run as a prosecutor because that meets the moment. I'm like, both these guys know about the immense national sin of mass incarceration, right? And the crime that we're committing against our own citizens through over-policing and jailing people, et cetera.

None of that has changed since 2020. And yet the entire political conversation has left, you know, that issue in the dust. You can't even talk about it on stage anymore. And that's, you know, to me deeply sad because that's an issue I've done, covered huge amount of my work and really care about. Yeah.

And so it gives you whiplash to watch, right? To say, okay, we've got progressive populism here on economic issues, on criminal justice, we are on the right. Climate change, barely mentioned. And then when it comes to Gaza, Kamala says, the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination, your ears perk up.

Oh, okay, hold on a second, all right, except that then, of course, they don't allow a Palestinian lawmaker to speak, Palestinian American lawmaker to speak, instead they only speak to the hostages and have the parents of the hostages speak on stage, et cetera. It's very hard to sort of get your bearings. Is there any pattern you think to which issues

from the progressive left, the Democratic party has been picking up versus which it has been rejecting? I think the pattern is definitely that they're picking up on kind of core economic issues and trying to reject or leave behind parts of the progressive agenda that seem sociocultulturally frayed.

So that's immigration, that's criminal justice reform, policies that are about minorities, to just put it bluntly. I think that there's been this read centers the way that he used cultural antagonism or cultural anxieties, people say euphemistically to activate this white working class constituency that turned the rest of the world over to him in 2016. So, you know, ever since then there's been that kind of apprehension about this policy. I think that the actual political picture is more complicated than that. And I think that one of the tragedies of this, the latter half of the Biden administration,

to me is the way that they've surrendered on immigration in particular. I've been saying for years and years and years, if you actually look at polling on immigration collected by Gallup specifically, the fastest rising constituency in American politics up until I guess maybe a year or so ago on the issue of immigration was people who thought immigration should be increased. Donald Trump basically craters the number of people who thought immigration should be increased. Donald Trump basically craters the number of people who think immigration should be decreased because his immigration policies are so, we're seeing viscerally, you know, the child separations and the economy right around the border.

That turns people off in a way that actually for a time increases the number of Americans who are willing to support expanding immigration policy. And you saw actually, you know, the Biden administration willingness to, um, to speak to an act on that. But I think that they, as the election junior, um, and given on Biden's own, all the real releases, a candidate, there was a real apprehension about what Trump was going to say on immigration.

This stunt of sending migrants to New York City or Chicago and all these major liberal cities from the border had Democratic mayors say the immigration situation got out of control. So there was a turn that I think, you know, there was a turn where you didn't see Democrats willing to stick up for immigration policy in general. You didn't really see a countervailing message that was actually immigration is good for the economy, it's good for American society, these people commit fewer crimes, these people contribute. You didn't really hear any of that for about like two years. And you see in the polls now that the number of Americans who think immigration should

be decreased has now shot out to majority in Gallup. This huge spike. I think because the Democrats kind of left that ground uncontested and weren't willing to sort of countervail the message of border crisis and dysfunction. So I think that's the wider story as well. I think that you see Democrats now coming to this idea that the Republicans have won the rhetorical battle on crime and immigration to the point where it's not even worth fighting back. They just tap to the riot, keep things simple and try to ride things out until through the

election. I don't know, but I think that the public is more, I don't know, I wouldn't say liberal, but I think that there are ways that you can message around crime and immigration that don't leave Republicans feeling like they've succeeded here. But I think that in 2020, you saw this huge spike in people who were willing to say that racism was a problem, that the criminal justice system was unjust towards African Americans, the police shootings were a problem. All the polls showed this huge wave and there was a bit of a recession backwards and there

was a bit of apprehension about Black Lives Matterism movement after that. But I don't think that you saw a real deep retreat to where things were, you know, like pre-Ferguson or pre-2014, 1560. I think that the American public is a lot more receptive to these issues than they used to be. And the Democrats don't have to be as cautious as they used to be in talking about justice reform. And yet they are. And yet they are. I think that there's just been a, I don't know, a kind of, I think the Democrats aren't willing to believe

the public has changed as much as it has on certain issues. I think that's the key. And in the absence of speaking to the way the public has changed, the public has had for the last few years, the only messages that they're hearing about crime and immigration be right wing Republican messages. And so that missed opportunity to speak to the public in a different way, I think is created this vacuum where there isn't any countervailing messaging. And so people think, oh, you know, maybe Republicans are worried about how out of court control crime is, which as you know, Adam is not really true. We're not seeing a year explosion of crime in this country. Um, but you don't hear Democrats trying to make, trying to make that case.

You see them instead basically conceding on that issue and other issues. And I think it's hard. I think it's because they know that it's hard to argue with people's feelings. I literally watched a news report on one of my local news stations, and this is not one of the sort of really alarmist ones. This is a pretty even handed news station generally, but it was, residents of this neighborhood are fearful of crime. The LAPD says that crime is down,

but they're not buying it. They feel afraid. And like the whole piece was them talking to people saying, yes, people are afraid to leave their houses. Then they show that the stats are down in the area. People are still afraid. And that's stats are down in the area. No, people are still afraid. And that's the overall tone of the piece is people are afraid and that's a problem. And so I understand if you're an elected politician and someone says, hey, I'm afraid of crime,

you can't say, well, actually, on a historical basis, crime is at an all time low. That's not going to stop the person for being afraid. The person's feeling is a material issue you have to deal with. You need some other answer to it. So what is the answer to someone who has a feeling that is a real feeling and yet it is wrong? It's an incorrect feeling. Yeah, I mean, that's the challenge of politics. I wouldn't say that I have the answer

to how Democrats should run on crime, but I do think that sort of abandoning wholesale the rhetoric of criminal justice reform as policy is kind of a mistake. I mean, I think that some of the strongest arguments that people made while this was at the center of policy discourse was, look, we have a criminal justice system that punishes people for very petty offenses in ways that actually contributes to social dysfunction, in ways that takes people out of communities, black men specifically, and that actually creates more crime in the long run because you've sort of dislocated or

disrupted the community in ways that you've left families without breadwinners. You've taken people out of the job market and make it difficult for them to come back onto the job market and so on. And so I think there are ways that you can talk about the dysfunction and the injustice or criminal justice system.

They're actually deeply practical and could be presented as answers to in ways that we can reduce and solve crime. People talking about alternatives to policing. I mean, defunding police is not something you can say anymore, but people were, I think, saying, look, there are all kinds of resources that we can give to communities with mental health resources, opportunities for children after school, and so on, that build the social cohesion of neighborhoods that are struggling and that could reduce

crime in the long run. More so in the kind of whack-a-mole approach of, you know, we're going to punish this and that and invest all of our resources in policing alone without structurally changing the conditions that are contributing to crime. I don't think any of that is crazy. I don't think that any of that is especially radical. I think people started talking about these kinds of ideas in ways that made it seem like, you know, I don't know, speaking to, you know, you made this point earlier about the way the left kind of presents its ideas and when people think strategically or not. I think that there are ways that you could have talked about those ideas that made them seem common sensical to people, because I think they are common sensical in many respects. But the point is like, we're not doing any of that anymore,

because I think there's been this fear and apprehension. And we'll see if it lasts, or whether there'll be more willingness to come back to some of that stuff once the election is over and they've actually won it. But I hope so. And I think that that only comes from added pressure. I think that people on the left activists who are really focused on immigration, really focused on criminal justice policy should continue pushing Harris and the administration if they win to come back to these issues. I guess my worry is that, you know, like I've thought about homelessness and crime a lot, and especially my work in local politics here in L.A.

and my sort of amateur volunteer work. But it's something I think about. And I've had plenty of conversations with people where I tell them, hey, the solution to homelessness isn't to, you know, sweep people off of one corner onto another corner, then they're just still going to be there. You need to provide them with permanent housing. That's what I get some off the streets. Right. And what I finally realized is there is a large number of people, I don't know if

it's a majority, but it's a large number of people who actually do not care about the problem being solved. What they want is they have a lust for vengeance in the human heart. They see people who they do not like and they want to see the cops come kick their asses and move them from one corner to another. And that work actually does something functional for them. It actually makes them feel good, you know, in the same way that, you know,

giving a long sentence to lock up the crooks and throw away the key, you know, it feels good to have that kind of approach taken whether or not it works for people. Um, and so to that sort of person, I think sometimes you can't say, Hey, guess what? We, we all want to solve homelessness. Well, actually, maybe we all don't like people, humans just want punishment and vengeance to some degree. And I guess my worry is, are we, you know, on some of these issues,

are we seeing the Democrats give into that impulse? If you look at Gavin Newsom, who's a Democratic star in California, encouraging or in fact saying he's going to withhold funds from individual cities if they do not start sweeping homeless encampments, which he knows as well as anybody is not gonna get anyone off the street because he knows that there aren't even enough

temporary shelter beds for these people. That all that's gonna happen is you'll throw their tents in the trash and then tomorrow night they'll be in a different street corner. And I see that and say he's giving in to this reactionary lust for punishment and vengeance. And I don't know, it doesn't seem like a problem of messaging. It seems like a problem of who you are trying to appeal to. Yeah, I mean, I don't think the kind of vengeful, let's purge everyone with police from the streets.

I don't think that's a gettable democratic constituency. I think that there are some people kind of in the middle of the electorate who, you know, they see homeless people in communities or they're worried about crime the way that you described and they earnestly want to solve it as a problem and they want to see candidates speak to that. And, you know, I think that, you know, I think that there are ways Democrats can speak to those constituencies, you know, without giving into too much reactionary energy. But I think your overall point is correct in that I think that there are on the other

side millions of people who are only invested in homelessness as a kind of sign of like cultural rot in some way or cultural decay. Like these people are homeless because they're immoral. These people are homeless because they're lazy, they're slothful, and the right thing to do is sort of punish them for their sloth and their indolence. Same thing for people who end up behind bars for whatever reason. It's not because their neighborhoods were dysfunctional or they didn't go to school or whatever it happens to be. It's because these people are sort of fundamentally broken in a way that can't be fixed by well-meaning social reformers. The right thing to do is push.

I think that impulse is, I think, a huge part of the energy behind Donald Trump. It's always been there in public politics and conservative politics. And I don't know that it can be defeated, to be honest with you. I think that I have the same kind of fatalism about, I wouldn't say that all people are like this, but I think that there are going to be in any society, a lot of people who are like this. And I don't know that there's a way to fix them through politics. They change their minds through politics.

I mean, politics has a very limited capacity to fundamentally shift the way people think about narrow issues of policy, much less the way they think about matters of the human heart and their whole disposition to the world. I don't know, something you can surely do over the course of an election. I don't know, I don't think most voters are that way. I don't think most people are that way. I think that there is probably a majority of people in this country who think about homelessness as a practical problem to be solved.

And we should speak to them. I think the challenge here, one of the enduring challenges and the challenges that I think occupies most of my thinking now is that we unfortunately don't have a political system that is responsive to what the majority of people in this country want. We have a political system that gives a disproportionate amount of power to the most conservative people in the country. People who most likely think about homelessness as a kind of psychosocial, whatever issue. And I don't think there's an easy answer to that problem.

But I do think that for as long as we deny that that's the reality of our politics and that's what structures the way people talk about many political issues and cultural issues, we're not going to get to a point where people can talk about homelessness or immigration or crime in ways that speak to the broad majority of the country. People are always going to have this temptation to talk about them in reactionary ways. Yeah, that actually really helps me

because those people who have that, as I always called the lust for vengeance, I don't know why it's very epic sounding when I think about it. They may not be the majority, but unfortunately, they are currently privileged and prioritized by our political system to the extent that politicians

end up running to them. I mean, even if you look at, again, I think about local politics a lot, you know, the way that we run meetings tends to be that the people who are the angriest and most reactionary are the ones who monopolize the microphone, right? And politicians end up responding to them. then if you look at everything, the electoral college, the Senate, all of it prioritizes those conservative reactionary voices.

I want to return to the point that I made, that you made. I thought it was such a good one, that the issues that the Democratic Party has tacked to the center or the right on are the issues of minorities, whereas they've been to the left on economic issues. I wanna talk about that in terms of the racial politics of America, I mean, because it actually reminds me of 2008 a little bit. When we talk about, there's been a lot of talk about how Kamala Harris is not running on her identity in the way that Hillary Clinton did.

She's more like Obama in that she's not mentioning it that much. It's fine if she's historic, but that's not the thrust of it. It's about unity, it's about joy, it's about kitchen table issues. It reminds me of all those things. And I think if I look at the Obama years, I say, well, as a result, a lot of very important issues of the racial politics and policy in America were ignored as a result of that. And why do you think that that pattern is repeating? Why is it specifically that we're, you know, those are the issues that are being tacked to the right on because it sure looks like, all right, once again,

we're just ignoring the issues that affect America's racial minorities primarily in the same mistake that we've made over and over again for decades. Yeah, we're ignoring the issues. And like I said before, I think we're ignoring the way that the American public has changed. Again, like I don't think that, I don't think that most Americans are

as far left as I am on immigration or crime, whatever, but they are like to the left of where they were in 2014, 15, 16 on these issues. And I think that creates an opportunity space that Democrats should be speaking to. But I think that, you know, whether it's because you literally have some of the same people coming in to advise Harris who were there in the Obama administration, the actual composition of the Democratic political apparatus haven't really changed that much, or whether it's because there's just kind of a feeling on apprehension on Harris's part. I do think we see ourselves falling or see them falling into the same kinds of patterns. There isn't much creative thinking. There isn't much courage

when it comes to trying to find different ways to talk about these issues that speak to the way the electoral changes without this change, without, you know, veering too far to the left. There's not really a willingness to figure out how to thread that needle. Um, I think that the only thing you have to talk about too, frankly, is, is Harris's own identity. Um, maybe the case that, uh, candidates were not themselves minorities, have more of a space to speak liberally on these issues than candidates who are minorities. So we always have to, uh, be attuned to the fact that just the reality of who they are triggers a certain perception in people's minds about how liberal they are that has to be managed and dealt with.

I think that Harrison understands that and perceives that and has been, to your point, about as reluctant as Obama was to make her identity central issue of the campaign. There's a very funny moment in that interview that she just did where Dana Bash, I think, talks about this image that was taken at the DNC where there was a young woman who was watching Harris, a woman of color who was watching Harris with these two braids, the back of her head, you know, it's centered and she's looking at Harris and you can see the photographer's idea as well. This person's really inspired as a young person to be Kamala Harris from there when she grows

up, this young person of color. She's asked about this photo and Harris gives this very kind of like flat answer, like, yes, I saw that photograph. It was very affecting. I don't know, she just just wasn't willing to engage the thing that Barish Alvarez wanted to engage her on, which is, don't you feel like you are now a beacon to young women of color who want to get ahead

in American politics or American society? They just didn't want to engage that at all. Because she knows that there is unfortunately real political risk in making that too much of an issue. So it's a combination of things. I think it's a combination of the kind of policy apprehension that we've already spent so much time talking about, but also I think Harris herself as an individual candidate has to be hypersensitive to, isn't he hypersensitive to the way her identity registers to people. I think this is one of the reasons why Biden won the primary in 2020 actually.

And Harris didn't too, so well in the primary in 2020. I think that a lot of people who were writing at the time had this perception that, oh, you know, we were now in a more progressive, democratic party in certain respects. People are talking differently about race and immigration and so on. And so that means that a candidate like Kamala Harris or Cory Booker is going to speak to where Democrats are much more than Joe Biden would. I mean, Joe Biden's too old. He's handsy with women. He says all of these off-color things. He's had this terrible record on crime and these issues that people care about now. So that means he's not going to be a contender. That does not where even black voters in the Democratic Party were at the time.

I think there is a real caution that prevailed in the Democratic electorate that put him ahead of the candidates who I think spoke more directly to these changes like Harris did. So, you know, I think- Why is that? I think that people were afraid of losing again. I mean, as you said, Clinton made a real big deal

about the fact that she would have been the first female president. It was her turn and her turn meant that American women had progressed to the point of American society where they could look forward to somebody like Hillary Clinton being a president. And that really meant something to her campaign and the trauma of her losing, I think convinced

a lot of Democrats that they had to pick the safest person possible the next time around. And Joe Biden was definitely that compared to all the other people who read. And I think that feeling of caution, that sense of caution hasn't really eroded. I think it's another thing that's influencing the way that Harris is carrying herself, but I think the Democrats in general, as we were discussing before, they don't want to feel like they are overstepping on culture or on social issues. And I think that that's true of Harris as it is of anybody. Yeah, I guess I just,

I question the framing that these are exclusively cultural issues, right? Because when we talk about criminal justice reform or immigration, these are economic issues to the people who, these are material issues. Yes. Certainly I would be the first, you know, president of such and such an identity and people with my same identity would look up to me.

That is cultural. Absolutely. Yeah. And I understand it, but yeah, it's a little, it's a little quiet for that now. We don't need to do that quite as much as we used to. Sure. I understand that it's not stylistically the moment. That's one thing, but when, you to, sure, I understand that. It's not stylistically the moment.

That's one thing. But when entire issues leave the platform, it's another. And I guess, again, talking about reading the tea leaves, and I hate to bring up Ezra Klein yet again. But- What's one more time? What's one more time? Smart guy. He said in his review of Kamala's speech that she was playing for the middle and, you know,

she barely mentioned climate change, but she cares about climate change. And you know, those on the left or progressives or whoever you want to call them, people to the left of that speech, you know, were listening to that speech saying, well, that's what she has to do. Almost like she was doing a reverse dog whistle, where by not talking about the issues that they care about, she was trying to win, which is what, you know, everybody wants her to do, and she'll get in there

and she'll work on them when she's in there, right? Climate change, criminal justice reform, whatever it is. Well, how are we to assume that that's going to be the case? Right? Where what is truth and what is reality? Especially if you're someone on the left saying, well, we've moved her, there's a line that we got in. Oh, but there's all this stuff we don't like,

but ah, that's just for the voters. You know? It's a lot of faith to have, isn't it? It is. It's not something that you can just trust the voters. You know, it's a, it's a lot of faith to have, isn't it? It is. It's not something you can just trust will happen. I mean, climate changes are actually a really good example of this. Joe Biden does not enter the 20-time Democratic primary, wanting to be a climate warrior. You had this whole, you know, saga where the sunrise movement and other climate activists were really

hammering his campaign on how little it was willing to do on climate change. And then towards the end, as I was saying before, on that note, all sorts of issues, you see Biden shift, but that shift only happens because there was pressure, because there was agitation, because there was real people being very annoying about climate change for a long time and trying to push it to the center of the democratic agenda. That is the way that the IRA happened. I feel like people have been willing to or trying to write activists out of that story. No, the IRA was not the Green New Deal. It was not exactly what the SARA movement or climate progressives wanted, but

it was a major climate accomplishment that came about because there would have been all of this energy towards putting climate on the top of the democratic agenda. It could have been, Biden could have passed a big healthcare bill. He could have passed an immigration bill. He could have passed this and that, but there had been so much energy and attention on climate that it would have been impossible for him, I think, to leave this term without having done something on the issue. So progressivism there, and I think everywhere under Biden, only came about because progressives engage in activism.

They ran two presidential campaigns where they got millions of primary votes. They established themselves as a real constituency in politics, in an oppositional constituency to the Democratic Party as it had been. And all of that pressure, I think, yielded results. It was not a kind of, well, we'll just wait and see and assume Joe Biden's going to do what we want. They always, both inside the Democratic Party, as I was talking about before, people making the case in policy circles that progressives were right on inequality and all kinds of issues. And then outside you have this progressive

movement with Bernie Sanders and activism on different fronts. Those two things coalesce under Biden to produce, I think, the most progressive Democratic presidency since at least Lyndon Johnson. But it was not a kind of, we'll sit back and trust Democrats to do the right thing deal. It was Democrats or progressives rather understanding themselves as a constituency that had power and trying to figure out how to use it to pull Paul, the next Democratic president, in their direction. I think the very same thing has to happen with her. So, you know, she'll say what she needs to say to win the election.

And I think that people on the left, you know, understand that. But I don't think we should just assume that when she gets in there, absent pressure and attempt to focus her attention on issues we care about, that she's going to do you know, she's not going to be as progressive as the president as she could be. I think that she'll be porting over a lot of what Biden did alter agenda. We're seeing already, she's trying to flesh out her policy agenda, but that's, that's not, that doesn't know, but so it wasn't going to guarantee anything. I think that the left should continue to make itself heard on, on all of these issues. And, and, you know, I think that's what politics is about, not just electing somebody and going home after November.

It's an ongoing process of engagement. That actually really helps me because, you know, I've also seen, I have plenty of friends on the left to have been doing a lot of negative Kamala posts, you know, Oh, it's another warmonger. It's another, you know, uh, she's going to build the most lethal military and, uh, criminal justice and everything. And, Oh, we can't trust her. And so forget about her. And maybe it is a matter of more rather than seeing the person you elect as being a, a single person who's going to represent all of your values. Um,

and then you'll set it, set it and forget it instead. No, these people are empty vessels who you need to push no matter who the fuck they are. Yeah. That's, that's politics. I mean, that, that, that just is Paul. Like there's no, there's no, that's just how you have to push no matter who the fuck they are. Exactly. Yeah. That's politics. I mean, that just is politics. Like there's no, that's just how you have to engage. I just, you know, I think that there is space to pull these people in a slightly more leftward direction. I think that Biden's demonstrated that.

I think the American history demonstrates that. That doesn't mean that you are, you know are in love with Kamala Harris or whatever, but it just means that you understand politics as a system of gears and pulleys and levers and well-placed people that you can influence. And you can influence to your ends while you continue to build more power. And the more power you build, the more you can influence them. That's how the whole thing works. I don't see an alternative. And that's not to say that people, again, I think that the criticism is good. I think that she should

be criticized for continuing to support the genocidal war in Gaza. I think that that should be at the frontline of the way we talk about foreign policy and as the election continues, I think the uncommitted movement did exactly the right thing in Chicago. I think it was disgraceful that they didn't allow a Palestinian speaker on stage for the entirety of the convention and they were right to mount a protest about that.

I just think that, you know, politics is about trying to do things and not setting it home, you know, posting then nothing can be done. That's like, I just, I don't understand. It's, it's, you know, even if, even things, if things are, you know, ultimately futile or you want to have at least tried every way you possibly could to pull things in the right direction.

Uh, you know, we don't have the luxury of not trying, uh, and, you know, electoral politics is one lever. It's not the lever that everybody has to take to invest themselves in. Uh, you know, as you said, there are all kinds of ways to organize and build power for the left, whether that's labor organizing, tenant organizing, your community, immigrants, uh, rights, immigrants aid. Um, there are all kinds of things that can be done. If you don't want to engage in the monkey world

of democratic politics, you don't have to. There are other things you can do. But this is, for better or for worse, one of the primary ways that we can achieve material change for people in this country. And we don't do it by being buddy-buddy with them and saying that they are, you know, are... The coconut, it's important that the coconut thing was semi-ironic. Like it's important that there was a real distance there, right? There needs to be distance from these

people who are doing bad things and you know, we're not leftists. But it's distance, I think, that ought to be crafted because we want to see what they have to offer clearly, want to see who they are clearly, and seeing those things clearly allows us to strategize about the ways the way it can be used to the ends that we desire as a movement. And so, you know, I think that's how I feel about Harris, that's how I feel about the Mccry party as a whole. And I think more and more people on the left are coming to think that we'd be remiss actually

if we didn't talk a little bit about the Bernie and AOC thing. Sure. Let's talk about it. Right. You know, towards the end, in the final days of Biden's time as a candidate, both of them kind of made this calculation that, you know, he wasn't going to go. And so it was worth kind of jumping on board with him. Or if he did go, they wanted to be seen, I think, as good sports and team players and Democratic

Party that they weren't going to be seen shivering him. Now, I think that they should have, yeah, at that point, it would have been safe for them to say, yeah, no, Biden should step aside. I think that was a miscalculation. Yeah, I mean, Chuck Schumer was saying it, they could have said it too. Exactly, exactly, exactly. But I think that the fact that they made a strategic choice there,

I think it was the wrong one, but the fact that they thought to themselves, okay, we need to figure out what the best way to position ourselves within the Democratic party is right now in this moment, is indicative, I think, of a seriousness. They're asking the right questions about what they should do. They're not swearing off engagement with these politicians.

They're not swearing off presidential politics and sort of saying it's all baloney and ideally you should justs Bernie Sanders. They saw the political situation and tried to think through what would be best for the left as far as its place in democratic coalition would be. I think that they made the wrong choice, but they were asking the right question. And I think that's reflective of, I think, where most people on the left are. We have these debates about what strategically might be the best thing to do in a moment. But we're all doing so with the knowledge. I think most of us are doing so with the knowledge that this party and its coalition are kind of what we have to work with, at least as far as electoral politics is concerned, which again, you don't have to do, you don't have to

engage in. If it discusses you, it discusses, more and more. And, you know, if it's, there's not many one engage and you don't have to, but, but, you know, this is a lever. This is a way of implementing change. And if you want to utilize it, you have to think clearly about the players involved. And, you know, I think that there's, there are more people on the left who are willing to do that now than I think there were a couple of, couple of years ago.

That is an incredible place to leave it. That, uh, it's been a wonderful conversation. You've helped me see a lot of things a lot more clearly. Uh, thank you so much for being here, Oceta. Where can people find your work on the internet? You can find me at ocetawanevu.com. Uh, you can also find, I think most of my work at this point at the New Republic and the Guardian and, uh, very soon a book will be out next year

Not too soon, but it getting sooner every day on American democracy called the right of the people You look for that. I think spring or summer of next year Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. I see that's been an incredible conversation. Thank you for having me Well, I hope you loved that conversation as much as I did. If you want to support the show, head to factuallypod.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every episode ad free for 15 bucks a month. I will read your name and the credits of this podcast and put it in the credits of every single one

of my video monologues. This week I want to thank Steven Volcano, Angeline Montoya, Codename Italian, Matthew Reimer, Ethan and Barack Pellad. Head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover if you would like to join them them once again, coming up soon, I'm headed to Baltimore, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Denver, Austin, Batavia, Illinois, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Boston, and Providence, Rhode Island.

I would love to see you out there on the road. Head to adminconover.net for all my tickets and tour dates. As always, I want to thank my producers, Sam Rodman and Tony Wilson, everybody here at HeadGum for making the show possible. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time on Factually. Hi guys, I'm Ago Wodem. Check out my new show, Thanks Dad, now on HeadGum. I was raised by a single mom and I don't have a relationship with my dad and, spoiler, I don't think I'm ever going to have one with him because he's dead. But I promise you that's okay because on my new podcast I sit down with father figures like Bill Burr, Kenan Thompson, Adam Pally,

Hassan Minaj, Tim Meadows, Andy Cohen, and many, many more. I get to ask them the questions I've always wanted to ask a dad like, how do I know if the guy I'm dating is the one? Or how can I change the oil in my car? Can you even show me that? Or better yet, can you help me perfect my jump shot? I am so bad at basketball. Oh my gosh.

Maybe, maybe I'm bad at basketball because I don't have a dad. But subscribe to Thanks Dad on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.