The Opinions - How to Turn the Middle Against Trump

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

In this episode, David Leonhardt, an Opinion editorial director, asks Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan why the Democratic Party has lost so many voters without four-year college degrees, what Americans should do to stand up for democracy and what she appreciates about Senator Bernie Sanders.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail] episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. The rest of the show's production team includes Derek Arthur, Vishakha Darbha and Kristina Samulewski. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Carole Sabouraud, Sonia Herrero and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. I'm David Leonhard, the director of the New York Times editorial board. Today we're going to talk about what I think is the single most important trend in American politics, the class inversion. For a long time, the Democrats were the party of the working class, and Republicans were the party of educated professionals. But that's just not true anymore.

Last year, Kamala Harris won people with a four-year college degree easily. And Donald Trump won people without a four-year college degree. This trade-off is bad news for Democrats because of simple math. There are more Americans without a four-year college degree than with one. Our editorial board recently published a piece arguing that the Democrats were in denial about their unpopularity with large parts of the American public. But one Democrat who is not in denial, is Alyssa Slotkin, the new senator from Michigan.

She first won election to Congress in 2018 when she won a house seat in a district that had voted for Donald Trump. And then, last year, she won a hard-fought Senate race in Michigan at the same time that Trump was winning that race in the presidential election. Senator Slotkin, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. So I've heard you describe yourself as a student of history, and I want to ask you to look back over the past half century or so,

which happens to be basically your lifetime and mine as well, and describe why you think Democrats have lost so many working class voters? Well, you know, I would think it's for substance reasons and for style reasons. I think on substance, certainly in this last election, but in general, we have a problem in this country in that it's getting harder to get in and stay in the middle class. And if you're not speaking to that issue, you're just having half a conversation. You're not really addressing people's primary question, which is, what am I going to do? What are my kids going to do?

What are my grandkids going to do in this economy when the old way of life is changing? That's number one. That's the substance. And we owe that answer. And then on style, as Democrats have become more coastal, we have gotten further away from recognizing that people need a strong, leadership figure. They want that what I call alpha energy. They want that coach energy. And Democrats are really good at analyzing policies and giving you kind of the faculty lounge explanation of things to the point where we sometimes lose that just like, hey, like this is really hard. We are going to make us,

you know, get us through it. Here's what we're going to do. And I want your confidence and your belief because it's going to take all of us to get through this moment. That alpha, the energy is really missing in addition to some of our substance issues that we need to work on. You've been talking a lot about Alpha lately, and you've mentioned coach before as well. So my colleagues and I actually prepared a little clip that we want to play for you and get your reaction to it. It's Dan Campbell, the coach of your favorite football team, the Detroit Lions, and it's him talking to his team after a tough loss. One thing, man, that just irritated me about last night, and the critical moment we control that game, we had control of this game, all right, we gave it away.

Which was that dim or us? That was us, man. All the stuff that's been here that has kept us from winning. If we really want to go where we want to go, this last bit of losing's got to get out of here. The shit that crushes us. That cost you a game. Cost you a Super Bowl. So is that alpha?

Yeah, I mean, I would say. that's pretty alf. In my book, yes, I think the way I describe it, and I think Coach Campbell is literally my model for this, is gives you tough love, really takes that offensive energy to the other team. But then, you know, when your guys do something great, he'll hug them and love them up and appreciate them. So it's not just all bravado. It is really believing in your people and in being tough and strong about how you present things you believe in. And I think we've lost that, that just straight way of talking about what you believe in and just making other people believe in it in the meantime. In that clip, he's specifically saying, look, we lost and it's our fault.

Yeah. And some of what I hear you saying is that's what the Democrats need to own. So can you be a little bit more specific when, I mean, you mentioned the idea of two faculty lounge and not strong enough, but if you were going to ask Democrats to reflect on what they did wrong in 2024, what would be on your list? Well, we have to provide an economic vision for the future. You know, we kind of had this menu of things we cared about in the last election, and so no one knew what our priorities were. And a lot of Michigan voters at least said, well, I may not love Trump, but I know that he's only going to focus on the cost of living in the economy. Now, I don't think that's true. but that's what they believe.

So when they had to cast their vote, they voted for someone who they may have disliked at some level, but who they thought would focus on their priorities. And by having so many priorities, by being the party of the big tent to the point where there's no prioritization of what we really care about, people lost the plot. The Biden administration certainly tried to focus on the economy and actually passed a lot of policies,

many of which you voted for in the House. And so was this a case of the Democrats fundamentally being unlucky because of the post-pandemic inflation surge? Or is there actually something about the party's economic policy and economic message that is just wrong and needs to change? So we did pass a bunch of things. But we also spent a good year plus after the pandemic explaining to people that the economy was not as bad as they thought. you know, with binomics or whatever, just saying like, this Harvard economist says that GDP is the highest, blah, blah, blah. I was going to punch someone if they quoted me one more Harvard economist when I could tell you with certainty that in my part of the world, people's wages

were not keeping pace with inflation, period. And so they just tried to tell everyone the economy was better than it was and it made people feel stupid. And it completely, forgot the fact that while maybe on a piece of paper and a spreadsheet in Boston, that was right in the aggregate, for people who you were trying to talk to in the middle of the country, it was not accurate. So that was annoying and was our fault. But I think people know that we're in this weird moment in our economy. They want someone to explain that, A, it's not their fault, that they can't have the same life, exact same life as their parents, that things have to change. And B, like, what does that path look like? And it is a hard question to answer,

but we have to if we're leaders and we care about bringing our states along with us. So if one of the things you're laying out is the party needs to come up with a clear economic agenda, the other thing you're saying is there are also some things the party should talk about less or talk about differently. And you just refer to it, I think, as a menu of things. You've been pretty pointed in some other settings. You've said that the party sometimes comes off as weak and woke and it should stop. I think I know what you mean by week. Can you tell me what you mean when you said the party is too woke? Yeah, just to correct the record, the weak and woke were the two words when there was focus groups

done in Michigan in February. The two most common words to describe the Democratic Party in Michigan were weak and woke. So just to be accurate, that wasn't me who said those two words. It was me repeating what the perception is of the party. And it's fascinating that the word woke is now mainstream enough that that's what voters were giving back to pollsters. Yeah. Oh, it's definitely mainstream for sure. So we talked about weak. I think woke is a term most people, I think a lot of people, I know, think of it as a very positive term, but I think what it's shorthand for for a lot of people is caring about social issues more than pocketbook issues. And what I saw happen, in this last election is that people tried to say, oh, well, you know, the American people,

especially of certain categories, care more about identity issues than they do about pocketbooks, right? And I think that that is just false. It didn't matter whether you were black, white, or Latino. Pocketbook issues were the number one issues. And it was not right to just look at a category of people and say, well, if I'm speaking to an African American audience, I'm going to speak about just social justice issues, or if I'm speaking to a Latino individual, I'm going to speak about immigration issues. And Democrats lost voters in every category of non-college educated voters. We lost white, black, Latino, we lost in all of those categories. And I think to me, there isn't a reason why we should look at one category of people and say, I'm going to talk about these

issues and not those issues. I just don't think that that works. And people voted with their feet. I think even a lot of progressive Democrats at this point would say, yeah, those issues aren't great for the party. We need to focus on them less. We need to reframe the discussion over to economics. And my reading of the evidence is that that probably isn't sufficient. And I actually think some of your campaigns point to the same lesson, which is it's not simply a matter of changing the subject or de-emphasizing things. Voters, I also want to see that the politicians they vote for actually have views that are closer to their own on these. issue. So it's policy changes too. So it's things like being hawkish on national security, which you are.

It's saying, no, we're going to have cars run by gas for a long time. It's saying we want a tough border. It's saying local communities should be able to decide who plays on what youth sports teams rather than saying that just kids and families can decide. Do you agree with me that it's not simply a matter of reframing it, but that it's also having positions that, A, are closer to public opinion. and B, seem authentic rather than something that politicians are doing to pander to voters? Yeah, I think certainly after whatever two decades of watching reality television, Americans can sniff out inauthentic statements and talking points like a bloodhound. So just when you're trying to fake it, I think people know it. But look, my theory of the case is if you want social change, real durable social change,

people need to be economically secure in order to really be allies on social issues, right? I see it in my own town. I live in a town, Holly, Michigan. I've never won my town. I've never won my precinct. I've never won my neighbors. It's a town where people are doing worse than their parents and their grandparents. Everybody's grandparents and parents used to work at the Flynn Engine Plant.

Now those jobs aren't there. And so they're doing a bunch of other things, but they're struggling. They have two jobs. They don't have good insurance. And when people feel like they're not doing as well as their parents, they feel shame and anger. They try to blame other people for their problems, people who don't look like them or sound like them. They become less generous with their fellow man. And there's a whole theory of the case around the civil rights movement that it was post-World War II America.

And we got to, you know, 51 percent of Americans who felt comfortable enough in their own economic, status, that they could say, you know, rights for everyone doesn't threaten my rights. And so I really feel like if you want to also help the issue of social change, you also have to be invested in people being economically secure because when they're insecure, they are just less generous with their fellow man. To be specific on one of these issues, you voted for the Lake and Riley Act, which is a bill that makes it easier to deport immigrants who are in this country illegally and have been accused of certain crimes. Can you talk about your thoughts on that bill?

I mean, for me, I'm a national security person by training. I spent my entire career trying to prevent threats to the homeland. And if you're here illegally, you shouldn't be. Now, that's very different than the conversations we're having over people who have the legal right to be here, the legal status to be here. And then, of course, American citizens. who are now being targeted, but if you're here illegally, you have committed a crime and you should go home. And I think we have to hear people that the way that the last administration was doing immigration just wasn't working for the average person. People, including large numbers of the Latino community, felt that it was unfair to let people in, you know, quote unquote, skip in the line. And so I think we have to be honest with ourselves that while our immigration system is not functioning right, and we owe an actual immigration plan for a nation of immigrants, that doesn't mean someone has the right to be here legally.

You know, it's interesting. You are, I think in many ways, it's fair to describe you as a moderate Democrat. Would you accept that label if someone put it on you? I mean, certainly a lot of my views are, quote-unquote, more moderate than others. I don't know that the split anymore, at least among Democrats, I don't think the split is progressive versus moderate anymore. I think that the division line now in the Democratic Party is do you believe Trump is an existential threat in his second term and needs to be fought in a very different way?

Or do you believe that Trump's second term, like Trump's first term, is bad but survivable if we just let things play out? and I'm in category one. And there is interesting different coalitions that have been built among elected Democrats, among people who on a lot of issues I don't agree with, but who agree that what Trump is doing particularly around democracy and our economy is existential and needs to be approached differently. So let's talk about President Trump for a minute, and I want to do so in a couple ways.

The first thing is I want to get your response to some critical. criticism that I know you've heard, partly since you quoted the weak and woke line, including from my colleague Frank Bruney, who wrote that this wasn't really the time for Democrats to be sniping with each other and trying to deal with their internal tensions. It was the time to stand up to Trump. And I think I hear you saying, no, we need to do both at the same time. We need to stand up to him and deal with some of our internal divisions. Is that right? I don't think we can stand up to Trump in a credible, thoughtful, strategic way if we don't, A, own the mistakes we made in the last election that got us here, and two, acknowledge that our unity is our power and that if we can

work together, progressives, moderates, whatever the heck you want to call people, that will be 10 times more effective in countering Trump than any kind of spotty approach that lots of groups take at the same time. So I reject Mr. Bruny's criticism. If you don't deal with the problems, then you can't mount a united offense. And if there's one thing that I have felt frustrated in my four short months in the Senate with, it's that I don't know that there's a strong feeling that the threat to democracy coming from Trump is so severe that it requires us to work in new and different and more strategic ways for us to have a plan. And so you can't get to that without dealing with some of our internal debates. I think the question that we hear from readers most

often is what can I do right now? Other people who are worried about American democracy. And I understand that question. And I really liked that you gave a direct answer to that question when you were delivering the official Democratic Party response to his joint address to Congress. And we have another clip here that I want to play. Hold your elected officials, including me, accountable. Watch how they're voting. Go to town halls and demand they take action. That's as American as apple pie. Organize. Pick just one issue you're passionate about and engage. And doom scrolling doesn't count. I love that you said doom scrolling doesn't count. We all know well-meaning Democrats who who spend hours watching MSNBC or they used to look at Twitter and now they look at blue.

sky. And I think what's interesting to me is you were saying that kind of political engagement doesn't matter at all. But then you said going to protests does matter. And I think many people who do that worry that it doesn't in fact matter. Why do you think it matters when people go out and attend even small local protests? Yeah. Well, I would say as an evolution from that speech, I would put a finer point on it. I think there's really two things. people who really want to be active can do that is meaningful. And one is make sure we bring awareness and focus to the president's threat to democracy, right? Rallies, protests, events when he tries to screw with election law or when he refuses to listen to the Supreme

Court and their court orders, like we should be putting a hot spotlight on that with protests, with education op-eds visible and vocal. And then the second place we can focus is on bringing the middle voters into the fight. So if you think about what the most effective defense we mounted in the first Trump administration was, the one thing where it was like a signature goal of President Trump and we thwarted him and he could not do it, it was his desire to repeal Obamacare or the ACA. He campaigned on it. He was obsessed with it. My first day in office, I'm going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability.

You're going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost. And it's going to be so easy. He forced the House of Representatives to vote on it early. They did repeal it. And, you know, John McCain and his very famous upside down, thumbs up, you know, why did John McCain feel confident that he could vote against his party and vote that down? Because the public and those middle uninterested voters who typically don't follow politics and policy, they turned against Trump on this issue. I am going to potentially lose my health insurance. I've had a preexisting condition.

I've had breast cancer. What's going to happen to me? I have to have coverage. or to make sure that I don't die. And you want to take away this coverage and have nothing to replace it with. How did that happen? Well, the base of the Democratic Party

used full throttle, all of the vehicles they had open to them, to educate the public that this man was trying to take away your health care, your right to being covered even if you have a pre-existing condition, your kid on your health care until 26. I can tell you three members of my family, including me,

that would be dead, dead and homeless if it was not for ACA. Vituent. And suddenly, people who had never been political before, they were saying, wait a minute, you know, I don't really like politics, but someone's going to take away my health care? What are you talking about? That is what we need to do on the core things that Trump is now doing in his second term. We need the base to focus on educating people. people around what he's doing to this economy, to their social security, to their health care,

and their VA benefits. And that is just as important as any rally to protect democracy. Both are important. But if you want to talk about following a model of change, turning the middle against Trump is where it's at. I think the Obamacare story, the saving Obamacare story, is so important and should give people some confidence that it matters in exactly the way you just said, and I can imagine that working again on Medicaid cuts. It's less clear to me how it works on a movement to protect democracy. And I say that with regret, but Americans are so angry about the direction of the country. They're so anti-establishment. Do you think that protest can also work for the slightly more theoretical, but so important, vital notion of protecting democracy as opposed to

protecting health care? I do. I mean, I'm watching it happen even with ardent Trump supporters on, for instance, the issue of immigration and, you know, grabbing people off the street who have legal status to be here. You could have looked at that and said, based on their decision to vote for Trump, I bet that they're fine with any kind of treatment of any immigration. who is here on American soil. And I don't think that's true. I think that when people see those things, it sends a shiver down their spine

and it does not comport with their perception of America and who we are. I don't think we can take our put-off the gas in highlighting those things. And by the way, like sometimes we just need to talk about these things in ways that are more relatable. For instance, in Michigan,

people are not interested in our economy going haywire, right? where everyone's watching these tariffs, everyone's very concerned what's going to happen to our economy in Michigan. Our economy works because there are rules. And you don't have democracy,

you're not going to have an economy. And sometimes talking about democracy in different ways brings more people into the conversation than kind of just talking about it in a very important but kind of highfalutin way that we sometimes do.

Yep. Well, I want to finish by asking you a couple questions about the future and specifically the future of the Democratic Party. And this may be a funny way to ask about the future, but I want to talk for a minute about Bernie Sanders, because I think for a long time Bernie Sanders has been trying to fashion a politics that is more based on class and more based on the American dream and less based on some of the identity issues that the faculty lounge progressives, as you say, have been pushing. And yet I also know you don't agree with Bernie Sanders about everything. And he seems, to be in the later stages of this political career. And I'm interested in your thoughts about what parts of Bernie and Bernieism the Democratic Party should retain and what parts it should look to reinvent. I have no problem with, I think, his central tenant that wealth has been

absolutely concentrated and moved from the middle class of, let's say, the previous generation, to the upper classes of American society. That's not an opinion. That's a factual statement, that the middle class was much more powerful 30 years ago than it is today. And that's a problem. I see that, frankly, as a national security issue. I just, I don't think that the answer is socialism. And I think that even using those terms, confuses people. I think most people really believe that the system of capitalism is a positive one. It just often is abused by some of the most wealthy and most powerful. But not to scrap the whole system. And I say this as someone who comes from a family business. We were in the hot dog business, right? Like my great-grandfather comes here at 13, doesn't speak the language and is able to start his own business that he gives to his kids and his his grandkids. So I don't think that the average American is looking for a fundamentally different system. They just want our system to work. So I don't quibble with his sort of central analysis,

but I don't think the cure is socialism. I agree with you that most Americans don't want socialism and they want to believe in the country that we have. I also can't help but notice that when you think about the most successful politicians of our modern era, they've basically all run as change agents. It's true of Bill Clinton. It's true of Barack Obama. It's obviously true of Donald Trump. And it seems to me that one of the things that the Democratic Party is sort of groping for is some way to develop a message that is authentic and anti-establishment and also gives people some hope that the future can be better than the present. And I'm interested if you see any ways to sort of tie an anti-establishment message to the hunger that Americans want for fixing these pretty

deep problems that we have. Well, I definitely think if anyone missed it in the last election, it's not just Trump voters that are looking for something different from their government. Do you know anyone who thinks that the education system is hitting it out of the park or that our health care system is really awesome, you know, or that they're getting enough out of their government, that their government is something that's positive as opposed to a negative force in many people's lives? Like, I think the overall message of the last election is people are dissatisfied with what they have. And I think you add technology to that. And it's like, holy moly, we've got to become something. else. And the question is, do we want something that's like haphazard the way Trump is now just like chainsawing things, or do we want something smart? And I think it is absolutely both daunting and

exciting to think that whoever's going to lead, they have to answer that fundamental question of how do we change. What does change look like and how do we make our way through it? And how do we do it in a way so that everyone gets a shot. That to me is the fundamental question that Democrats have to answer. And if not, people are just not going to be buying what we're selling. No way. Senator Alyssa Slotkin, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Veshaka, Christina, Samuelski and Jillian Weinberger.

It's edited by Kari Pitkin and Alison Bruzick. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabro, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amon Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samuelski. The director of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.