The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell on How Democrats Can Defeat MAGA for Good

0:00It's like we're Olivia Rodrigo or something. Oh my goodness, there hasn't been this much lesbian energy on the stage since Rachel Matau dined alone. Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Box Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. We're less than two months away from the midterm elections and Democrats are feeling a kind of optimism they haven't felt in a while for good reason. Voters have clearly soured on President Trump as evidenced by his abysmal approval ratings. Democrats have had some big wins in recent elections and the party in power historically struggles in the midterms. Still, the Democratic Party isn't exactly winning any popularity contest with voters right now either. If the party wants to build the kind of coalition that can consistently win elections and defeat mega politics for good, it will have to win back some of the voters who've abandoned

1:02Democrats over the last decade. My guest today has a blueprint to do just that. Sarah Longwell is the founder and publisher of the Bullwork and a former Republican strategist. She has a new book out called How to Eat an Elephant, One Voter at a Time. It draws on the hundreds of focus groups Sarah has done with voters since Trump first won the White House and it offers advice to Democrats on how they can permanently defeat his authoritarian style of politics. I think it's important to listen to Republican strategists. Sarah has been a real critic of President Trump so she's not exactly a Republican anymore but she's really really situated to help our country out of our slide into authoritarian politics because she listens to voters. All right, let's get to my conversation with Sarah. We recorded in front of a live audience last week at 6th and I in downtown Washington, DC. Our expert question comes from California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton. Don't go anywhere. Ripple has been powering modern finance for a decade.

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3:12Buy it today for free at od.com slash Kara. That's od. O-O dot com slash Kara. I'm Mitch Perse. And this week on Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I'm sitting down with Mr. ACL for the world's greatest athletes. Dr. Riley Williams is the medical director for the Brooklyn Nets, the New York Liberty, and a team physician for USA Basketball. He's also the surgeon who repaired my very own ACL. We talk about how he became one of the world's top surgeons. Why women's sports are seeing more ACL tears? And what knee injuries you should be most afraid of? You can hear it all here, by listening to Confessions of an Elite Athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Sarah, thank you for coming on on. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. We're going to cover a lot in the conversation, Trump's unpopularity, the divide on the left

4:13between moderates and progressives, essentially punching left, and fears of the upcoming midterms. But we're going to start with your book. So you spent a decade listening and talking to voters to better understand what's happening in American politics right now. You probably heard thousands of people at this point. That's the biggest thing in general that Washington gets wrong about the kinds of voters you're hearing from. And what is the overall message you're getting now? Because it changes, goes in and out. Yes, so one of the stories I tell in the book is, do you remember when Donald Trump stood on the stage with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, and he sided against America's intelligence community? So I was really early in my focus grouping endeavors because we were trying to primary Donald Trump, and I really wanted to know what Republican voters thought about him. And I was like, okay, this is great. All of these Republicans are going to be furious that Donald Trump is siding with Vladimir

5:15Putin against America's intelligence community. And I walked into the room ready to hear it, ready to hear how mad they were. They were going to abandon Trump. And I said, so what do you guys think about the fact that Trump did this? And everybody's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And it was a real moment for me to understand that the things that we obsess about in Washington because you got to stand back in Washington. Paul Ryan was like throwing the biggest fit you'd ever heard of. Donald Trump was getting yelled at so much by Republicans. The member he tried to lie and say he didn't say the thing that he said that everybody just misunderstood him. So he's walking out usual for him. I know, it's not like him at all. But this still happens all the time. It's like the beginning of a shutdown. And a hundred reporters will say, Sarah, what are you hearing in your focus groups about the shutdown? Nothing. They have no idea that it's happening. And so so many of the things that just consume us in Washington don't even break through to voters. Is it because of lack of information or poor information sources or what are you or they don't have time for following every single moment?

6:17Yeah, it's a bit of everything, right? But I think a lot of it, and this goes to the lesson of what I learned was how much people look. They are consumed with their own lives, right? And you ask people all the time, you know, where do you get your media? It's a standard question in a focus group. And they'll say, whenever I see the headlines, when I'm scrolling, and if you think like, okay, that's how the vast majority of Americans media diet is. It doesn't surprise you that they're not sort of breaking down everything that happens that we obsess about. And also, we talk about low information voters in political science. Aren't they just normal, right? Like I always think like these are people who are not sick like us, who are not deciding to make ourselves crazy all the time by consuming this and scrolling on Twitter, right? They've got kids to feed, they've got jobs to go to. And so a lot of people get really mad that voters aren't better informed, but I have a hard time blaming them for trying to live their lives. And also, you throw on top of that, many of them are algorithmically siloed, which is something I think we've all come to understand now.

7:18But especially in the right wing media ecosystem, it used to be that you would go and you would get your news, great local news, maybe some national news, and then you'd go to the daily wire or something else to get a conservative perspective. Now they live in that ecosystem, right? They may never hear a different perspective, and that's sorting as affecting all of us. Yeah, it's an interesting thing, because I might tell the story of my mom when the stock market was melting down, called me up and said, there's a real issue with trans-fensors. And I was like, fensors? Trans people who fence? Yeah. And she goes, yes, it's a big problem in this country. And I said, really, it isn't. There probably isn't even one. Right. I was surprised there was one. And it was because she was being fed on Fox News. Or she didn't know about certain things at all. This is an enormously common response that I get in focus groups of Trump voters, actually. They're like, they're mad about the war on Iran because they know gas prices are high. They know prices are high in general, so they're upset. Maybe about tariffs, but some of them, they'll be like, but you know what?

8:21He's got trans people out of sports. And so it's okay. Like, you know, it's like war gas prices, but as long as trans people are out of sports, we're all right. Right. So, talk what does break through? And is as it changed, are people, are they paying attention these voters? Because every, I mean, obviously Democrats pay attention to it. Independence seemed to be paying attention to the things he's doing. What is breaking through with each group? So this is true, I think, just in general about politics. The things that break through are the things that have negative personal consequences for people. Why do people know about the war on Iran? Because gas prices are high. They don't feel the bombs dropping. They don't feel the idea that we're over there. Now, they understand that Trump is going back on his word, but mostly they're experiencing it through high gas prices. And I think, you know, the tariffs, again, it's not that they understand a lot about tariff policy, but they understand that things are more expensive. And the Donald Trump's central promise was that he was going to lower prices. That hasn't happened.

9:21And he owns tariffs and he owns the war because he's done the munilaterally. And so that is the thing that has broken through that voters are. Because they're feeling it themselves, and they understand it as a direct product of Trump's actions. What else would other topics have surprised you? I think a lot of people, and I wasn't one of them were surprised by the reaction to data centers, for example. A year ago, I was telling the tech companies, you're in big trouble here. Again, it was because it was in people's lives. And this reaction has been massive, probably too much on some level. I mean, I'm not down how are the Latinac highway that moron, but there's no water used in data centers. We said such a moron. Like, anyway, sorry, that was just me. So I also, last year, we were doing focus groups and all the primaries, right? And so there were these off-year elections, Mikey Sheryl and New Jersey, Abigail Spanberger, here in Virginia. Oh yeah, Abigail Spanberger's great. She listens to the focus group podcast.

10:23But I did hear, I was hearing all through those races, voters were saying the thing that they were most frustrated about was the data centers. And I had not been tracking it until it started coming up in all the groups. I'll tell you the one that's coming up now, all the time is the flock cameras. Yes. Like, this has become a big issue. In Texas, it's a big issue, and that was... I didn't interview about it yesterday. Just yesterday. Yeah, it is. And look, the data center, one is really interesting because I think it hits across a bunch of vectors for voters. Not only does it hit them with the sort of like, these really rich tech people are going to make all of this money to, they're doing it in our neighborhood that is raising my energy prices, which is the thing that most people talk about is feeling like their energy prices are going up. And then the third thing is, do you think it's going to come take their jobs? Yeah. Right? They're like, someone's going to get rich. I'm going to lose my job, and I'm going to pay more for energy. And that is why there's this enormous backlash. And also, the tech community, this is your area, not mine, but it feels like, if they were going to go into people's communities and do this, they had to talk to them first, right? It feels like it's something being done to people.

11:25Yeah, and what is surprised to me that they didn't... They can't even talk to them. These aren't the most like, socially adept people as that. Are you saying? No, at this point, they're just assholes and they're rich. So... You know, I'm sorry. Yes. I will say, I did promise my eight-year-old James there that I would not swear tonight, but it doesn't apply to you. Sorry, James. I'm so sorry. And I'll try my best. So, okay, there's not normally eight-year-olds in your audience. I'm sure. So, what is resonating? Data sent, because Trump is very tied to the tech moguls. He's very tied to AI. Every day, he says, you're stupid. If you don't, or China's going to beat us, or there's... Every day, they have a different. Today was JD Vance, as if we don't win, China will beat us in AI. Yeah. You know, and again, another person who's moronic about these topics, but he doesn't... They seem to be doubling down on telling people they're stupid.

12:26Yeah, I don't think that works with voters, generally. Yeah. But I also don't know that voters pick it up as much. Twitter was really a better medium for him. The fact that he has Ruth Social, and he's kind of sequestered there, has done him a lot of good, because people don't always catch all of that stuff now. Like, they don't hear that he's calling them stupid. But they did hear last year when he would say things like, forget about Epstein. I love the inflation. Like, those things do. And I got to say, the thing that I hear about right now all the time is, voters genuinely can't believe we're in this war in Iran. Like, they say all the time, I think Trump thought, it would be like Venezuela, and it would be like, in and out, and it'd be done. And that's not happening. And they are furious. Like, there is a reason he is living in the low 30s right now. And it's because, and once you're down the low 30s, you are at his core base that is basically like... These are the people who... I was doing a focus group in Florida.

13:27And one of the guys was like, you know, I am frustrated with Trump, because he is not doing deportations hard enough. That's a different kind of voter. Most of them are just... Most of them are upset. And it really is, listen, it's not that the reflecting pool or the east wing, that doesn't have a personal consequences for voters, but it is a contrast for voters about what Trump is paying attention to. Voters will let him do all the weird stuff he wants as long as the economy is working, like his voters. But the second that he is focused on the east wing, instead of affordability, that contrast breaks through to voters, including his voters. And, you know, there's always a spectrum of Trump voters, right? There are the ones who just think, I love Donald Trump no matter what, no matter how poor I get, like I could like be naked in the street, have no food, no water. I just have a red magickat, you know, hat on. And I'm running around going, I still love this guy, because he is making the lives mad and he's triggering them and that's great. That is not the entire Trump coalition.

14:28There's also a bunch of people who are either just like Republicans, or like I'll never vote for Democrats, but a lot of people who are these low information voters who are like, I don't like the wars, I want to see the Epstein files, and I want my costs to go down. Those people are infuriated with Trump. To the silly things like America and everything else, breakthrough or not. They do break through, but that's the stuff that actually, I'm in the camp where that Trump does that, because he knows that it sort of just distracts people. It gets them talking about something other than the war, he does these things whenever he's losing. There's also, we just went through a massive news cycle about, you know, trans women in the WNBA. Why? They got to change the subject from the other, and Trump's good at changing the subject, and that's what Lake America's all about. So they know about it, but it doesn't, other than people will talk about it, like, oh, that's a stupid thing, but they don't really care. Right. Although you noticed the numbers of MapQuest have gone up massively. It's really kind of interesting. MapQuest? Yes. Yeah.

15:28They have 1.5 million downloads, someone's paying attention, and it's not just a lot of angry Democrats, you know. It's a really, it's an interesting thing. Please use MapQuest, everybody. Anyway, in the dedication of your book, your friend and podcast co-host, Jonathan V. Last, has a warning to readers, he writes, Yeah, JVL. Do not read this book with a mind to argue with voters that way, lies madness. We all know voters often have, sometimes in coherent, sometimes contradictory views, but what you see close up, most of us don't. So talk a little bit about the contradictions and what that reveals to you. I mean, I remember when abortion became a dominant issue, and we started talking about it all the time in focus groups, I heard this line over and over again that said, well, I'm pro-life, but I believe it in a woman's right to choose. And I get me like, what are you talking about? I was like, that's like a binary thing. You're either pro-joice or pro-life, and obviously, or you could be like, well,

16:28I think that it's at this point, but it wasn't that. It was on pro-life, but I believe in a woman's right to choose. And like, pollsters aren't going to pick that up. That that contradiction sits and people, and frankly, it was a lot of women over 50 who were saying, well, I personally, for myself and pro-life, but this right is there, and I'm glad it's there, and I wanted to be there. I hear those kinds of contradictions all the time. The other one that is my favorite is, we start every focus group the same way. How do you think things are going in the country? And everybody's like, bad. And a lot of people, right now, people are mostly talking about the economy, they're talking about the war and Iran. But oftentimes, people will lament the deep divisions in the country. They'll be like, we are a powder kid. We are too mean to each other. We hate each other too much. And that same person, I'm thinking, this is so good. They don't feel good about the fact that we're so divided. But five minutes later, that same voter is like, these lib tards are doing this or that.

17:30And people are complicated. And one of the reasons I'm optimistic, though, is I do think that people contain both multitudes and light and dark. And I do this thing in the book. It's maybe a little cheesy, but I don't care. I'm going to live and die by it. About this Native American parable where the grandfather is talking to his grandson. And he's like, grandson inside each of us, there are two wolves. And there's the good wolf, which is, you know, light and truth and everything brave and whatever. And then there's the bad wolf and it's avarice and greed and everything terrible. And they're always intention. They're always fighting. And the grandson says, well, which one wins? And he says, the one you feed. And the idea of leadership, right, is about saying, it's the same thing. It's the Federalist papers, right? If men were angels, we wouldn't need government. It's the better angels of our nature. It's the devil and the angel on your shoulder. Like, this is the human condition. And leadership is there to try and draw out

18:32the better angels of our nature. And Donald Trump's literally his political mission is to do the opposite. He has been feeding the bad wolf for a decade. And so you can feel people struggle. Right, you can feel people saying, I know that this, you know, in my life, I want this better way. I want to not hate my neighbors. I don't want to be angry all the time. But like the everything, the algorithm, Trump, you know, the outrage cycle, everything feeds that bad wolf. And the pitch in the book really is about like, how do we get our leaders and how do we build a country where we're back kind of in the, our leaders are trying to divide us for sport. Except you're going to want to eat the elephant, which means you want to kill it, correct? Presumably. No, it's eating one bite at a time. Yeah, I mean, it is a, look, the how to eat an elephant, obviously it's a great title I thought of it. But it is, it really is about how do you solve a big,

19:33intractable problem. And I think after 2024, which is when I was like, you know what, I'm going to write this book. It was because I was coming to Bullwork events and doing Bullwork things. And everybody was sure we were caught. Everybody thought it was over. We're not going to survive this. America's done people are bad. If we were a country, it was one thing to elect Trump the first time. But people really felt like if America could elect him a second time after the insurrection, and look, I felt this way too, they're like, then we're not a very good country. And I just can't let that sit there. I think that's not the right lesson to take. And I think that we do have agency to make things better. I think there's a lot of things that need to change. A lot of things we need to build. But I kind of wanted to do, look, we're lesbians. We're sitting here like a softball coach being like, let's get it done. Everybody pull it together. I'm a little bit like that. I'm like, get the fuck up. Yeah. I'm really depressed. I'm like, I don't care. Yeah, just move along. Let's get it done. Yeah, lesbians should run everything and have all the children, but that's another show.

20:33There's not enough tiny lesbians to save democracy, though. Yes. Like, I don't know if there's enough of us. It's going to take everybody else. No, true. You know my joke. The militia etharich. We're going to form one. militia. French. That's for the older people in the audience. How is she? Right there. We'll be back in a minute. Hey, what's up guys? It's Babish. And on this week's episode of In the Booth, I'm joined by chef cookbook author and food network legend, Alex Goura Shelley. We're talking about shops, the handthons, and what it takes to make a cry worthy pasta. You can listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. Stalkers, scammers, and hackers are doing whatever it takes to get their hands on valuable data. Luckily, there's Delete Me.

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22:34Frontier AI didn't just accelerate cyber attacks. It multiplied them. Before an attack shows up, it's already moved through the network. And while seeing these attacks early matters, stopping them takes fusing security into the infrastructure itself. That's why the network that connects everything is also your best defense. Because you don't win by outrunning the attack. You win by leaving it nowhere to go. Cisco, the critical infrastructure for the AI era. So as I know, nearly every election is one along the margins of something you talk about in the book. And you identify a handful of distinct groups whom you call the persuadable electorate. But I want to talk about the double haters. These are people who just trust both parties but say they're also, you said they're the most gettable. Why was Trump the lesser of two evils during the 2024 election? And cynicism is always part of politics.

23:36It always is. And you hear a lot of people talk that way. Or I'm zoning out. I'm not listening to news and things like that. So talk about this dissatisfaction and how you turn it into turn that frown upside down kind of thing. You know, I always say that if we had a drinking game and the focus groups, and we took a shot every time somebody said lesser of two evils, we'd be dead every time. Because the vast majority of American voters are not that psyched about either political party. And they are deeply cynical. And that cynicism really plays to Trump. He wins that jump ball oftentimes. Because if you think both political parties are corrupt, the scale of his corruption doesn't land. Because you're like, wow, they're all corrupt. So they're all bad people. They're all sex pests. If you think they're all like that and you're a double-hater, then you're like, the only thing I care about is like, is this person going to make the economy better?

24:36And the reason that Trump won was because, and this, I'll talk about this as something else that I knocked me off my feet very early in my focus group endeavors was, I would ask people, people started bringing up the apprentice. How many of you watched the apprentice? I watched every episode. I mean, you watched the apprentice seriously. All right, I'm embarrassed for you, but that's fine. Yeah. That's fine. I watched every single episode. I'm embarrassed for you too. Why? You watched that show when you thought, boy, this is a compelling guy. I want to sit down and hang out with him. No, no, no. But the reason now why I'm extraordinarily wise, the last season was a fucking disaster. And that's where we are. We're in the last season. What would stunt me was, in the focus groups, they'd all watched the apprentice. All these Republican focus groups. And so they had a pair of social relationship with Donald Trump that preceded his relationship with politics and,

25:36they got to see, like, this is like, when he was like firing Gilbert Godfrey on a sound stage and everybody's like, that's a good businessman right there. You know, like Andrew Dice Clay, he told him to get the hell out. That's business in America. And so he, he, people think of Trump as a good businessman and even worse because his first, and I heard this just a million times. Everybody thought his first term was a success. They forget the part where a million people died from COVID. But they remember the pre-COVID economy as really strong. And so I would just hear a person after a person say, I'm going to turn off the news. He's a buffoon. I'm not going to listen to it. I'm just going to enjoy his economy. And that's why he won that jump ball. And then there's the deficiencies of his opponents. It's such a different story. Because, you know, when you talk about the parasocial relationship, one of Kamala Harris's biggest deficiencies, and I went back and listened to all my Kamala focus groups after she lost. And I also did a bunch of ones with people who had not turned out to vote.

26:36And I just heard the same thing over and over again. I had no idea who she was. I didn't know what she stood for. I just didn't even know. She lived really, it's funny because there's this fight among elites. Did she lose because she was too moderate? And she ran as a moderate and she ran with Liz Cheney. Or did she lose because she was a California progressive? And she was too progressive. I'm like, I don't know. These voters were like, I don't even know anything about her. I don't know what she's like. And so her inability, I think, to connect with people. Yeah. And his ability to be so durable with people ultimately thinks to. I think the parasocial thing is absolutely right. When he first showed up, a lot of Washington reporters, as it did her party, and they're like, oh, he's a joke. I'm like, no, no, no, no. It's because you were watching the Apprentice. I was watching the Apprentice. Yeah. I didn't want to vote for him. I said, but I'm like, you know, I literally said, if a San Francisco lesbian finds him vaguely appealing, there's a problem. We've got, because he's a terrible horrible con man. So who are the critical groups, the double haters, the, who, who, I'm talking about the swing voters, all the different swing voters? Yeah. Well, there's a, so there's a bunch. And I do six and the chance it's a chapter called Anatomy of a swing voter.

27:36And I do my best to come up with a heuristic for who these people are. But it's Hispanic voters. If I can do all six right now, I'll be shocked. It's young voters. And young voters, it's not that they're swingy, it's that they're unformed. Right? Like, there's a lot of people right now, young voters, who thought he was a vibe, you know? Yeah. And now that there's a war in Iran, and their lives aren't getting better, and they can't afford houses or rent, these much less of a vibe to that. Yes, he is. Right? And so now Trump is underwater with young people, similarly, Hispanics, another swingy or group. They've been moving right. They are, they have now moved back. It's one of the reasons Texas isn't played right now, is because Hispanics, the bottom is dropped out for Trump with Hispanics. Then there's the double haters. Then there's the people who switch sides. Right? So there's the people like me who are, like the college educated suburban voters, but this is actually really important. For anybody who thinks that it is just easy peasy to be John Trump. Why is Donald Trump winning? Democrats now have people like me. Lucky you guys. That college educated suburban voters.

28:36And we're great in the midterm, man. We will always show up. Donald Trump and Republicans have taken over. They've built a multiracial working class coalition, but they win white working class voters. And the median voter in this country is a 55 year old white guy without a college degree. There are more of those voters than there are the college educated suburban voters. And that is one of the reasons that in the general elections, which are very different than the midterms, Republicans have had because of Trump a structural advantage. Yeah, so talk a little bit about the media space, because these voters do tend to vote on vibes, as you said. And I think that was the rise of the vibes voter. Yeah, so this gets in the ways the right dominates. A lot of this or has. It's not going as well now, because they're all fighting with each other, which is a pleasure to watch. But right wing podcasts, still, when we look at the numbers for ours, we're like a sandwich between Megan Kelly and Mark Levin. And I'm like, oh, you know, and Dan Bonsino is wandering somewhere below us.

29:37And so how do you, but they're changing. It's changing. There's you've got a son, Pike, or you've got Crooked. And I would say yours is sort of more liberal. Let's just say, then those, I'm sorry, I'm what? You're more liberal than those. So talk about that. What's the key to winning those voters? I mean, how is that going in the information space? Because you've built a thriving media business with a distinct point of view at the bull work. So to talk a little bit about reaching them that way, does that work? I think it does. I think those the podcasts and that whole new independent media space works rather well. Yeah, to say what we do is to basically ask me to explain the entire book. And I'm going to actually try and give you a short version as I can, which is this. Donald Trump is going to not be president in two years and a few months, right? Now, you might be like, well, JVL, if he was sitting right here, he would tell you that guy's not going anywhere.

30:38But like, let's just assume that whether for actual wearl reasons or for constitutional reasons, 2028 is the end of Trump. What is the Republican party post Trump? They have been in the same position as the president. They have been in the same position as the president. The Republican party post Trump. They have built an entire political party around one guy. The Republican party is going to be in its weakest state that it has been in a decade in 2028. As you go into those, okay, well, that's good. That's the good part. The question is, can the Democratic party, there's only two of them, guys, there's only two. Can the Democratic party build a coalition that is big enough to dominate a post Trump Republican party that is fractured between the MAGA establishment and the America first coalition? You got your Tucker, you got your Marjorie Taylor Green.

31:40On one side, you got your Marco Rubio and your, God, I don't know, Pete Hegseth. How many of them are going to run? Sean Duffy is probably going to run. Okay, man. They're going to be weak, though. Donald Trump's not going to be there to turn it out. So Democrats have this historic opportunity. I wrote the book because I don't think people realize that there is a chance to go overwhelmed what is happening right now, but it requires building a new media ecosystem. The Republican party, I was there when they did it. They said, hey, the mainstream media shuts us out. And so they wind about it a bunch, and they worked the rest. But they also built their own competing media ecosystem. The Democrats have to do the same thing, and not just the far left, because that comes with its own challenges. But like the center left, too, the entire spectrum. I'm a pro-olive. They've got, I can't just keep relying on mainstream media because the mainstream media. I push back. I think there's a lot of stuff going on. There's tons and tons of shows like this now that are starting to really gain numbers and popularity. And you may not like Hassan Piker, but my son sure does.

32:41Like, it doesn't really matter. And he's accepting the messages of Medicare for all. That's what attracts him. I mean, that would be a very interesting focus group, because the stuff they want is Medicare for all affordable housing. Those things resonate and resonate. Let me speak about that. But the point is, look, it's not even... Why do we have to do that? Every time someone says to Hassan Piker to me, I'm going to say, just talk about Epstein instead. Instead of fighting about Hassan Piker, please talk about it. Don't forget to have a Epstein. Yes. You're right. You're 100% right. We'll be back in a minute. Support for the show comes from Ripling. Imagine you just found out your sales team is at risk for missing quota. No need to panic, just ask, Ripling AI. Since it's built on your real-time people and business data, Ripling AI can pull metrics from Ripling and Salesforce into a meeting-ready dashboard showing quota. If you're interested in the show, you can find the link in the description.

33:42You can find the link in Salesforce into a meeting-ready dashboard showing quota attainment, headcount trajectory, and monthly revenue to quota by region. In seconds, you can see exactly what's behind your quota risk and fix it before it's missed. Question answered, action taken, crisis averted. So when you have critical business questions that need answers, don't just file a ticket and wait weeks for an outdated report. Describe what you need and have Ripling AI build an instantly from your live people and business data, whether it's a dashboard with detailed charts or automated workflows with the right triggers, conditions, and approvals. Ready to rule your business? Head to Ripling.ai slash Kara to get only AI built to give you full visibility and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's r-i-p-p-l-i-n-g dot ai slash Kara, K-a-r-a. Sign up for exclusive access today. Support for the show comes from HIMS. Aren't you tired of hearing about weight loss products targeted for the summer?

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35:47Visit HIMS.com. So like any good millennial, I have a love-hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you. They want something bigger themselves, lifestyle's a priority. Motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties. Many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialist. That is just not the case. They are embracing candidates who are offering new bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats. This week on America actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jemphazza joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction. It's not rocket science and this is, you know, I keep saying like, young voters aren't that complicated after all.

36:48It's pretty simple. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Every episode we get a question from an outside expert speaking of Republicans who are trying to make that shift. And there was a big story about him and the New York Times today. Let's listen. Hi Sarah, Steve Hilton here running for governor of California. Congratulations on the book. Here's what I'd love you to answer. This populism thing has been going on for at least a decade now. You saw it really arise 2015, 2016 on the right and the left with Trump and Bernie Sanders and that whole movement and of course Brexit in the UK. And it's a decade later and still the things that gave rise to the populism working class people. It's off about their opportunities in life. All those complaints that really made the populist movement take off. They're still there. Why hasn't anyone figured out whether that's a conservative government, a socialist government anywhere in the world to be honest.

37:51Why hasn't anyone figured out answers to the problems that actually promoted the rise of populism in the first place? That was actually a pretty good question. I know, he'll start. I'm sorry to tell you. How was it? I asked him a question on your show. Yeah, you did. Was his answer good? Why did you listen to the show? It was. He's right. And this is what the book is about, ultimately. Where does the populist anger come from? It comes from the fact that people have pitchforked the ready anger over the fact that they think it used to be called income inequality. But now that they think there is so much money with these tech oligarchs and with billionaires, like that's where that anger comes from. And people feel like they're not getting their share of things. They feel like working class voters are getting the raw end of the stick. Now, the Republicans are not addressing the material economic side of that. But they are addressing the social angst part of that, right? They know how to make it about immigrants and immigration. And frankly, one of the reasons that right wing parties were winning all over the globe is because of immigration.

38:57It's because mass migration rose and people started crossing borders. It doesn't matter whether we like it or not. The point is that was the backlash from a lot of those voters. And I say this to you about Trump. And I'd say it about Mamdani. Trump never built his wall. When he ran in 2016, he talked about the wall all the time. It was his main, the centerpiece of his campaign. Just a wall. It was going to build a wall. It was like, we were all like, what do you mean you're going to build a wall? Voters didn't care if he built a wall. What they wanted was somebody who said they were going to take immigration and border security seriously. That is what he did. Mamdani does this in a different way. I think Mamdani's policy is just like the wall. We're just going to lower prices by having socialist grocery stores. These are dumb ideas. These are not going to work. But he's taking affordability seriously. What voters here is you understand that my rent is too high. You understand I can't afford to live in this city and you're going to try to do something about it. And so I do think that if a party could both be normal on the social stuff,

39:58which is part of what I'm begging Democrats to do, just be a little more normal, and not even on exactly their position, although they could change a few things about their positions, but primarily about emphasis. Democrats should spend 70% of every word coming out of their mouth talking about the material well-being of voters. What voters want to know is, are you going to make my health care cheaper? Am I going to be able to afford groceries? Is my gas going to be affordable? Do I have upward mobility? Do I have a job? Am I going to get a raise at that job? That's all voters need. And will AI take my job? And will AI take my job, right? And what will you do about it? Yeah, I agree with you on that. But there is an element of what he was saying is that actual delivery of services, talking about getting people things like that. I think one of the reasons that Mamdani feels effective is he plowed the snow, fixed the basketball. He starts to look like he's... Mamdani is so funny to me because I was sort of like, you know, about Mamdani at first. And now he's like doing licensing reform.

41:00And I'm like, I'm listening, Mamdani, are we doing licensing reform? Hell yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's doing things for people. I think people feel like... Do you know what? So, I'm sorry to get all the good stuff. So we can see that. Yeah, I know. I'm like, very excitable. Yeah, we come back in. I'm doing a bunch of focus groups on Assof and I'm thinking they're going to love his soaring rhetoric and how handsome he is. A romantic thing. And they're all like constituent services. You can always get somebody on the phone at his office. And I'm like, what was the last time you heard people really talking about constituent services? It matters to people, right? Do they feel like you are responsive to them? It's actually not rocket science. So much of what we talk about is so stupid and not relevant to people's lives. What they really want is like, do someone going to pick up the phone and say like, yeah, I'm going to help you out with that? Yeah, right. Or talk about things that matter to voters. So that gets us the pro-democracy movement needs to do to win elections and defeat Mug of permanently. I think you're right. The lineup behind Trump is pretty weak sauce. You know, they're all sort of suck ups and sick of fans and charmless or one of the other.

42:04And then there's Ted Cruz. You know what I think about? Oh my god. Did you see that Ted Cruz is right now number one on the New York Times bestseller list? Not that I'm looking for any reason, but it is Ted Cruz is the number one book. And it's about clearance Thomas. Go by 10 of my books so I can knock him off. That's it. Just kidding. I'm just kidding. Yeah. Everyone's going to love four years of Ted Cruz. I don't think so. So your first step is to make Trump the most unpopular president in US history, your goal is to drive down his favorability numbers into the 20s. Democrats are currently getting a lot of help from Trump on that front. Why is that important? And would the Democrats need to do they aren't doing to make that happen? Obviously, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. All right. Let's get this one. This is when we talk about the course of the bill to a shelf. That's very important. I'm like, Drill, I've got it.

43:04Yeah. This is what we do. We get Trump below the bush line. All right. Bush left office. You guys all know. You listen to me. Right. What'd you say? Yeah, that's right. That's a deep cut right there. Yeah, I listen to Tim. Richard Nixon, the dick line, as Tim calls it, that's not a swear. It's a person. You get Trump in the 20s. Here's what it does. Number one, if the lower Trump is right now going into the 2026 midterms, the better Democrats will do. Number one, because there's going to be a big enthusiasm gap going into 2026. But next, I want Trump to be an albatross around the next of everybody who runs in his wake. They're going to be Trump administration types. You want all of them to have to wear like a boulder around their ankles. This idea that they're dragging the Trump administration record with them. And also, you never want another Trump coming near this, you know, they're going to talk about Donald Trump Jr. and everybody else.

44:04But you want people to look back and say, oh yeah, I didn't vote for that guy. I had nothing to do with Trump. Those were bad times. I wasn't part of it. And for everybody to think it was a mistake, that's the bush line. And then what was the next part of the question? What are the things you do? You know, you want to make them deeply unpop there. How do you, he's already unpopular. Yeah, he's doing a lot of it himself. But here's something I do. Okay, so I don't know if you saw Speaker Jeffries the other day was doing a call with Jared Kushner. So, you know, you can do that. Yeah, I think that's probably doable. What I would like is for Democrats to you listen to John Ossoff right now. I am a little obsessed with John Ossoff's messaging. And his tight shirts. Wow. He looks okay. Even for me. He's got me. You talk about. Yeah. He's wearing those pants, man. Okay. He looks like a pre-brainmer. Okay. Can it move it on? Yeah. But his communication.

45:04So, what is he out there doing? He's out there talking about Trump's corruption. Why is it, why is it, Kim Jeffries, not talking every day about the level of corruption we're seeing? Why is, like, you really do. I have been an operative on both the Republican side and on the Democrat side. There's not that many people. And when I got to the Democrats, I went, oh, no. This is what you guys do. It's all conference calls and icebreakers. And sometimes people learn knitting. And people don't want to go into the office ever or put on pants. And they want a four-day work week. And I'm like, you won't get to defeat authoritarianists. These guys are over here being straight up mercenaries. And you want Fridays off. That is not, if democracy is at stake, this is my big thing for Democrats. Do you know why they're so unpopular right now? Because they've spent the last 10 years telling us democracy is at stake. Donald Trump's going to end democracy. I believe that Donald Trump's an existential threat to democracy. So it would be nice if the other political party would act like it. Like it's a threat to democracy.

46:06In that vein, there's a lot of energy on the left. There is. They feel more muscular. There is, of course, this moderate versus progressive frame. And you're right. Everyone should just say Epstein all the time, instead of not as unpegur. But talk a little bit about this. If that's where the energy is, how do you bottle it for the rest of the party? Yeah, I'm not sure. Look, I actually, I don't believe that, and I reject in the whole book, I pre-butt right up front, that this is a book about whether the Democratic party needs to be more moderate or more progressive. This is not a book about Sarah Longwell's personal politics. If you left it up to me, we'd all just be like libertarians, and you'd get all your drugs, and all your gay marriages. But also, we'd be fiscally responsible in paying down the debt. And yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yeah, sexy. Go ahead. Yeah. But I'm not, you know, we're probably can try to sell people on this, some version of this, and this, you know, I don't, I don't, it's enough for a dinner party.

47:07I'm not sure it's enough for a political party, but I do think that the way that you build that energy is, it doesn't, right now, who are the best communicators? It is all soft. It's Pete Buttigieg, it's AOC, it's Mom Donnie. Well, they don't all share, like, and this is what I would like to see Democrats do. I think that this idea that you have to fight each other or punch left, or that it has to be this factual fight, like, I reject that. Even if I don't like Hassan Piker, I don't think we should talk about Hassan Piker, like, right, I mean, I can't, I talked about him one time, because I was like, Tim, I think you're a assessment of Hassan is wrong. And suddenly, I don't know, I guess maybe I started it, I'm not sure, but now everybody's talking about this guy, and I'm like, hold on. He may have some, like, bad ideas, some good ideas, but also, have you looked at the president of the United States lately? Like, this is like one guy on a Twitch stream. Like, yeah, half the time talking about, I don't know, his dog and his collar or whatever, and the other, the authoritarians are inside the gate, and I would like people to be able to focus a little bit on the actual problem that we're dealing with.

48:09So one of the things you say, you say one Democrat in that vein, who's not run for president's former vice president, Kamala Harris, and she cannot speak with Clarean directness, that's what you were talking about that energy. How do you make this case to her supporters? She has a lot of them, she's pretty high up in the polls, probably named mechardish. It's named ID, I think. Well, she ran for president too. So talk about what it has to look like, and obviously you like awesome, but if you could build the perfect Democratic candidate right now, I mean, I also have not far off. Like somebody who, I know, sorry, sorry, but I love me, I love Pete, and I love all of a sudden, these are my personal things. But I also, let me tell you about AOC. So let's just talk about AOC for one second. She and I probably don't share a lot of politics, but I think that AOC is a decent human being. Like she seems like a very nice kind person whose heart is in the right place. And so do I think that she would make like the best president ever? I don't know. Do I think that she's better than JD Vance and the cynical bullshit that's being done by Republicans? I do.

49:12And I also think I've watched her grow in the office, which has been sort of nice to watch. I think she's been growing into herself as a result some people on the far left don't like her as much as they once did. But actually my favorite thing. And I talk about this later in the book, and I talk about it in terms of the bull work. A lot of you guys are bull work community. Yeah, right. One of the deepest lessons that I've taken from building the bull work and finding this community is that to build a community, you have to be a community. Right. And I think that the reason that people were attracted to the bull work is that Tim, JVL and I and some of the other people at the bull work, like we argue with each other. We don't always agree, but we have honest conversations about where we stand. And we treat each other kind and we treat each other with a lot of love. What if Democrats were campaigning together? What if they were, they were working, they were holding big events where they set. Republicans are doing this all the time at these, you know, weird America fest or whatever. They have all of the Republicans there. They've got different opinions, but they show up as one entity.

50:14Democrats don't do that. And I would like Democrats to try to show people that they can be a community and hold Democrats love the phrase, hold space. I didn't even heard this. What a holding space. How do we hold some space for like all of the Democrats to figure out how to exist together, write and to show up and say, yeah, we're all part of the same team, even though we disagree and we can have those disagreements as opposed to this need to just like punch left or punch right. As you argue in the book, a candidate that can show the case for order and compassion of getting along. Well, that's specifically around immigration. Look, I think that one of the things that Democrats are going to have, there's only a few places where I think on potluck. And this again, not exactly my preferred policies, but listening to voters. Voters cannot access compassion around things like criminal justice reform or immigration. If they feel unsafe. And what Donald Trump did, his big trick was to say, they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists and dogs.

51:19And some of them are good people, right? They're eating the cats and the dogs. That creates for people a sense that they are not safe, that they are under threat. And when people feel under threat. They can't like access that compassion. And so I do think Democrats are going to have to say to people, we are going to keep you safe. We are going to make sure that the border is not just open and anybody can come across because voters. Actually, I don't hear most voters, lots of Trump voters, they're like, I'm glad that immigrants are coming. And they're like, my grandparents were immigrants, I'm married to an immigrant, whatever. And what they say is, I want people to come the right way. Now, to be fair, just about every American has no idea what that means, because they never had to come into this country. They got golden ticket, they were born here. But their sense of fairness is, well, there's a line somewhere. And I think people should wait in it. Not this way. I've been around with my people I know that are Trump voters. I don't like this way. This way is not the right way. There is a real, I often go crazy when people say, centrist, I don't even know what that means.

52:21It's like a mushy word that doesn't mean what is it saying. And nobody else, it's a cheme Jeffries actually or Chuck Tumor. You just end up with blah. Yeah, exactly. It's certain. But okay, Democrats have momentum going into the midterms. It's pretty clear. So far, but there's some scary headwinds. There's Jerry mandering, which will help, it's going to help Republicans. More concerns with Trump's threats to mail-in voting. He's trying to bring it to the Supreme Court. What should the Democrats be doing right now? They've been very aggressive in courts. They have been very aggressive pushing back on the postal stuff. And the Kennedy Center, everything he does, they push back, but it's a defense. It's a defense kind of thing and the Republicans are endlessly aggressive. What are you most worried about going into the midterms? Especially with this mail-in voting. I just think that Trump isn't trying to do apps, he's not trying to do anything to help Republicans actually politically. He's basically sending them in in the worst possible environment. He's on popular, his agenda's on popular. So what is he have left to figure out how to keep Democrats from practicing any oversight over him, which he obviously doesn't want?

53:30The mail-in ballots isn't really about ending mail-in ballots. It's too late. I can't go through the entire case and why it's relevant, but go listen to my episode of The Illegal News. Either with George Conway or Andrew Weisman. We all talked about this on both the pods. They're trying to create chaos. They're trying to create a postal system chaos so that he can cast doubt on the election results once they happen. We've seen this playbook. We all know what's happening. The thing that I worry about the most, honestly, is that they get sort of desperate. They get desperate people back to the corner and do weird things. It's like, you guys live here. You see the National Guard everywhere. If they send ICE to places, they send the National Guard. Now the National Guard look like they're all very nice teenagers that just stand in groups and eat ice cream. They're not trying to mess with anybody. They're trying to make sure that ICE is sending ICE into people's... They'll say it's about making sure that the legals aren't voting. It's just an intimidation tactic. Although, again, I think that, ask yourself, would you crawl over Broken Glass to vote in this midterm election? I do think that that is how.

54:39I also think I've been doing a lot of mayors and governors and they're all going to have their own police force. They seem very intent on, even in Wyoming, they weren't happy about it. They aren't happy about disenfranchising their vote. They're not a lot of friends who work in voting some of them are here tonight. They're on top of this. They all know what Trump is going to try and do. The last question for a decade now voters have been told that Trump's hold on American politics is slipping only to have him come back. For Democrats, that's been very psychologically demoralizing. You think this moment is different. I do too. Having watched all the apprentices on like you, because you're obsessed with John Assof. Why do you think this moment is different? Again, going back to the actuarial realities as well as the constitutional ones. That's the cancels theory. I just mean Trump, if I would feel differently if Trump was 55, if Trump was 55, I would think I would be much more worried than him.

55:41He's always been weird, but he's not super well. Not just the hard thing is totally normal. That not only hard thing is bananas. I think he's psyched that anyone thinks they're sleeping together. I do think this moment is different. I think that part of why I really think it's different is that I believe that because I watched it happen to Republicans, they don't know what to do without Trump. They can't go back to the Paul Ryan limited government free markets, American leadership in the world, because they feel like voters rejected them on that. But they can't be Trump. They're looking around for a leader of what comes next, which is why you're getting a bunch of sort of two bit players like Tucker Carlson and then JD Vance, Marco Rubio.

56:41The party already said what it thought about Marco Rubio. I also think there is an exhaustion finally. But I do think, look, I think that here's I'll say this though, and this is why I do think Democrats still need to. I talked to disaffected Trump voters all the time. They are still very leery of Democrats. Democrats are still having trouble convincing the majority of Americans that they are going to be better stewards than this absolute clown show. And I think that it requires some introspection on Democrats part on why that is. Maybe even changing a thing or two. When you think about the election coming up, it going into 2028, if you had to pick right now based on the focus groups and what you've written, the two ideal candidates for the Republicans and Democrats, the presidential candidates, who would you like? Obviously, also creepy. Look, I think an all-soft peat ticket would crush. But we'll see, it's very, very early from what you're hearing from voters right now.

57:46You know what's interesting about Democratic voters? I know that people don't want like a super long answer, but I will say Democrats are so, this goes back to Kamala. I told them so, is that the reason that Kamala was because of racism and sexism. And the inverse of that is that I'll do focus groups of black women. And they will be like, I want you to find me the straightest, whitest man right now to run on the Democratic ticket. And I do think that there's something, there's an appetite for that in the Democratic party. They're like, we can't take any more risks with any... I've heard it from some women candidates. Yeah, the women candidates are feeling this. And so I do think, and I think people are really hesitant about a gay president, with peat teats going to have to get people over this idea that America might wouldn't elect a gay president. And I think a lot of Democrats are going to be worried about that. And they're also going to be worried about him with black voters. I think he's working on that. But I think as a ticket or a team, they could go really far. Give me the ticket that you would pick right now.

58:46Osof Peat. Osof Peat. Osof Peat. That would be my ticket. All right, in Republicans. Don't make a face. But their best chance is probably Rubio. Who would they put, I mean, maybe Rubio runs with Vance, although people don't like Vance. No. People don't like Vance. But you know my group family does. You heard my famous joke. He's the cyber truck of politicians because... That's a... keep it. Spread it far in mind. It's amazing how Trump could be like grabber by the whatever and everybody is like, yeah, that's whatever. That's just Trump being Trump. JD Vance said childless cat ladies and Republican women in these poker scripts are like, screw that guy. And they also did just say things like, I don't like his face. You know, like they don't... All right, Rubio and... Okay, who would be like good that they would actually... It's probably...

59:46No, no. Mickey Haley is done. Here's the only reason Marco Rubio is... The only reason Marco Rubio even has a chance is because now he's been meamed into a position. Everybody's like, Marco Rubio is the only competent person in this administration. You have to give him every job. I think that it would probably be like him and a woman. Who's a popular... Yeah, it's like an America firster. I don't know if it's MTG, but it is an America first-wing person. Megan Kelly, that's a great one. I think that's real. I think Megan Kelly is a real one for... I do. She has no F's to give. I'm trying hard here. And she's just like a full-on lunatic now. She will eat your face. She tries... She often attacks me and I finally shut her down by saying, it's never gonna happen. Oh...

1:00:50Why would I have the confidence of Kara Swisher? I don't know, but... I mean, definitely not gonna happen. Anyway, I really appreciate this book is great. Everybody should buy how to eat an elephant. They're delicious. Sarah, thank you so much for your time and let's be Ted Cruz. Let's be Ted Cruz. Thank you. Thank you. Today's show was produced by Nishat Korwa, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Milsob, Madeline LaPlanet, Dubie, Megan Bernie and Kaelin Lynch. Special thanks to Aiman Welland, Lissa Soap, Jim McEl, and Manola Moreno. And thanks again to Six and I for hosting our conversation. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rekwan and our theme music is by Tracodemics. If you're already following this show, you are not, I repeat, not arguing with the voters. If not, you're trapped in a Republican triangle of doom. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow.

1:01:52Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.