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Can the Democrats Make a Comeback During Trump 2.0?

2025/3/27
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WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

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Paul Gigot
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Peter Robinson
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Ruy Teixeira
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Ruy Teixeira: 民主党目前的支持率处于历史低点,这与人口迁移、红州治理水平好于蓝州的普遍认知以及民主党仅吸引特定人群等因素有关。民主党需要改变自身形象,但目前党内缺乏改革的意愿。 民主党的问题根深蒂固,在吸引年轻人、工薪阶层和西班牙裔选民方面存在弱点。他们依赖于“特朗普太糟糕了”这一论点来争取选民,而不是真正地改变自身。 一些民主党人士已经意识到民主党治理的失败,并试图通过“丰裕议程”等方式来解决问题,但这只是民主党内一个很小的派别。强大的既得利益集团,如公共部门工会和环保组织,阻碍了改革。 民主党难以进行改革,部分原因在于其支持者群体内部存在内在矛盾,为了避免冲突,他们往往选择维持现状。他们宁愿忍受混乱和潜在的风险,也不愿进行改革,这使得他们难以应对挑战。 民主党应该利用特朗普在意识形态上的灵活性,与其在某些问题上达成共识,以取得政策上的胜利,但这很难实现,因为民主党内部普遍存在对特朗普的强烈反感。 Paul Gigot: 民主党在纽约、芝加哥、旧金山、洛杉矶等城市的治理表现不佳,财政政策不可持续,生活质量和可负担性下降,这使得人们对民主党治理能力产生质疑。舒默没有关闭政府,这在政治上对民主党有利,但民主党内部却对其进行了强烈批评。民主党可能会继续采取对抗特朗普的策略,以争取选民支持,但这种策略可能无法有效扩大其选民基础。

Deep Dive

Chapters
This chapter explores the current state of the Democratic Party, examining its historically low approval ratings and the reasons behind its decline. The discussion includes polling data, demographic shifts, and the perception of Democratic governance.
  • Historically low approval ratings for Democrats
  • Movement of people from blue states to red states
  • Perception that red states are better-run
  • Democrats' inability to form an effective national coalition

Shownotes Transcript

Enterprises have an opportunity to position cyber resiliency as a catalyst for innovation and growth. But how is it done? What type of leadership and skills are required? Learn more on the fifth episode of Tech Fluential, a podcast from Deloitte and custom content from WSJ. From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Whatever happened to the Democratic Party and how can that party make a comeback in the age of Donald Trump? That's our subject for today on Potomac Watch, the daily podcast of the Wall Street Journal opinion page. I'm Paul G. Goh. Welcome to you all. And my guest today is Roy Teixeira. He's a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a political demographer by trade and an author of a book called The American Enterprise Institute.

As well, of many books, he's also a contributor to the Liberal Patriot on Substack, which is where some of the more interesting debates, maybe even some of the most interesting debates today are being held about the future of the democratic process.

Party. Welcome back, Rory. Appreciate your being here. Hey, thanks for having me, Paul. All right. So let me ask you first, just before we get to the Democrats, what do you think about the first few months here of the Trump administration? How are they doing given their promises in the campaign? Right. Well, it's been pretty lively. You have a gift for understatement. You know, they are basically, you know, promises made, promises kept, depending on which promises from the campaign you

choose to pay attention, but it's not like a lot of this stuff wasn't signaled beforehand. It was.

And I think a lot of us, and I'd include myself, didn't really believe they'd do a lot of this stuff and do it so aggressively, you know, and push it as far as they have. So, you know, it's been a wild ride. And I think it remains to be seen how it all land in the end. You know, big wild card here is what happens with the economy and their reasons to be skeptical. This will all work out well. And there's nothing worse for an incumbent administration than an economy that

craters or half craters or just fails to perform. And let's not forget, why did Trump get elected? To a large extent, because people did not like the Biden economy, levels of inflation during the Biden economy, and just generally felt Biden administration didn't deliver what they wanted in terms of living standards and what have you. And if Trump doesn't deliver that, it doesn't matter if people love

smashing DEI or deporting immigrants, he'll be in trouble. Yeah. I am a little bit surprised though on the immigration point, given how significant immigration was as one of his campaign themes, that they've made this tremendous progress on the border. I mean, border crossings apprehensions are just way down almost to minimus now. And you never hear the president talk about that. Well, once in a while, but not much.

And it hasn't visited the border at all. He's too distracted doing other things. And I think that is maybe a mistake that I'm sure they'll probably correct it over time. But it does seem like an easy win for them to point out like, hey, you wanted the immigration problem solved, the illegal immigration, but we solved it.

It's done. If I were them, I'd talk about it nonstop. But he's so busy doing other stuff. I mean, there's a million balls in the air now, a million things that are being done. And it's a fusillade of coverage about all that. Maybe it's the case that it almost throws him a little bit off their game because

Because not only are they doing lots of stuff, they're getting huge blowback and they're trying to navigate among all those things. Among all those things. Yeah, I think he also wants to do more deportations. If you talk too much about border success, then you minimize the case for doing a lot more deportations apart from criminal. That could be true. All right. You recently wrote, I think in an interesting fashion, that the Democrats ... Well, you asked the question, "How deep a hole are the Democrats in?" Your answer was, "Well, pretty deep."

and then you did an analysis of why. So kind of take us through, I mean, the data is pretty clear, right? The approval rating for Democrats is in most polls, I mean, really historically low, and certainly in modern surveys, maybe since the 1920s, I mean, pre-New Deal. And then you have the registration factors in some of the states comparing Democrats and Republicans. And those have tended to favor Republicans in Pennsylvania, for example, and some other crucial

states. Another thing you mentioned, which is interesting, is of course the demographic movement between states, which would tend to buttress the Republican position as they move to Texas or Florida or even Georgia and South Carolina. Kind of explain just this problem of why is the Democratic standing so low? Well, you know, if you're the Republicans, you know, the trend is your friend. If you're the Democrats, it isn't because a lot of the things you just mentioned, the movement of

people from blue states, mega blue states to red states, the general perception that red states are run better and it's a better place to hang out and buy a home and make your way. I mean, that's pretty toxic, I think, to the Democratic brand. And the more that happens, you know, the more the red states grow and states become redder. I mean, you basically are starting to confine the Democratic Party to a much smaller section of the country.

right? And even the smaller sections of geographic areas within states. And I think that creates huge problems for not only the future electoral map, but even currently the Democrats' ability to put together an effective coalition on a national level. I mean, look at the Senate. I mean, the way the states have evolved over time and are continuing to evolve, the Democrats really can't win

Like this vast sector of states, which makes their ability to actually control the Senate increasingly vexed. The 2026 map doesn't look good. The 2028 map doesn't look good. So Democrats, by virtue of becoming a party of deep blue states and deep blue cities, are really in bad shape. And I think that partly explains...

Why their favorability is so low, because they only appeal to certain types of people, even within some of the bluer areas of the country. The perception that democratic governance basically sucks is not a selling point. I mean, if you're the liberal party, you've got to make liberalism look good, and they haven't. So all these things kind of fit together in a way that suggests the Democrats' problems do run quite deep. And recently, there was a tranche of data released by David Shore and Blue Rose Analytics, which

about the nature of the trends in the 2024 election, it's all pretty bleak. I mean, pretty much all the weak spots the Democrats have been developing cratered on them, from young voters to working class voters to Hispanics. There are a lot of people out there for whom the Democrats once were the default party, but are no longer. And that creates a huge problem for a party that's trying

to out-compete Donald Trump. Now, I think the best thing the Democrats have come up with so far on how to deal with this is, well, Trump is so terrible. There'll be a thermostatic reaction against him. And then, you know, hey, we're back, baby. So I think the appetite for really changing the brand of the Democratic Party is pretty de minimis now in most parts of the Democratic Party. Look what happened to the DNC election and Ken Martin.

Look at AOC and Bernie Sanders out there doing their fight the oligarchy tour. Is this changing the image? I mean, I think they just think if they sprinkle some magic economic populist pixie dust on the already existing Democratic Party, everything will return to normal. But I think that's kind of kidding themselves basically, and I think that while the Trump administration and the current edition of the Republican Party has tremendous vulnerabilities,

It's not exactly clear to me that Democrats can really take advantage of that, given where they are today. All right. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, I'll talk to Roy Teixeira about how Democrats got into the hole they're in when we come back.

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Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigot here on Potomac Watch with Roy Teixeira. Lots of strands to pull, but one of them is this issue of liberal governance. Speaking personally, I've lived for 24 years now in the center of liberal governance, Manhattan. And I first moved here in 1977, where the city was going downhill. I left for a long time. And then Rudy Giuliani came in, and Mike Bloomberg came in, and they fixed the city.

I mean, in many, many ways, made it much more livable, much more affordable, much more pleasant to be here. And then you got Bill de Blasio come in and this kind of crazy city council. And the city has deteriorated notably in many, many ways. And as you look at the examples of liberal governance in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and then the state government, you know, Springfield, Albany, Sacramento,

Trenton, and you say to yourself, "Why can't the Democrats actually do better at governing these states?" Now, not everything in these states is miserable, but if you look at their fiscal policies, right? If you look at the fact how sustainable their fiscal situations are, it's not great. It's pretty bad.

particularly with pension obligations and so on. And then when you look at the quality of living and the affordability of living, home prices, taxes, crime in the streets, for example, for the average person, the ability to get to...

the Bronx to your job in lower Manhattan without being assaulted, for example, on the subway system. It doesn't seem like much to ask. I mean, it would seem to be kind of the basic things that you want in the ability to run a city. You know, we've been talking about this for years here at the Journal. And what I don't understand, I have a hard time figuring out,

is why they can't get that better. They saw it happen before, okay? We know it's possible. Why can't a new mayor of one of these cities do that? Well, maybe in the future there will be. I mean, right now, there don't seem to be a lot of recent

examples in heavily democratic cities. Well, I think one interesting thing here, Paul, is there are people in the Democratic Party or around it who are now recognizing the depth of that problem and are trying to struggle against it. There's this whole abundance agenda kind of thing. I mean, Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein recently put out a book about it. A lot of it is exactly about talking about the ways liberal governance has failed. It's been basically pretty terrible.

in a lot of places. And it hasn't been practical in terms of getting things done. It's been more concerned with spending money than actually delivering what people really want and getting stuff done. And like, this is an actual problem. So in a way, you could say an abundance advocate around the Democratic Party is like a liberal's been mugged by Democratic governance, right? I mean, they're just mad as hell, right? I mean, they realize this is a big problem. I mean, look, Ezra Klein lives in New York, New

And he's actually talked a lot on Twitter and other places about how, man, this is just really not working. They're really bad. And Derek has said similar things. So in other words, it is not going to notice. But who are these people? I mean, I know Ezra. I know Derek. I like them.

I know the abundance people, they're good people, but this is a pretty minor faction of the Democratic Party at this point. The real dominant factions probably have almost no interest in an abundance agenda, right? I mean, the social justice and environmental NGO industrial complex, right?

How interested are they in clearing out the regulation detritus and making sure things actually get done? Getting rid of DEI requirements, getting rid of the thousands of things you have to do to get anything done with a lot of projects that are basically reflect the countries of interest groups that have walked in various requirements to actually spending money in different bills and so on. What part of the Democratic Party is really going to stand up to that at this point?

Those groups have tremendous play within the Democratic Party. They're backed by money. There's a pretty big sector of the Democrats' liberal college-educated base that basically thinks deregulation is a tool of Satan. So I sympathize with these people, but...

The reality of their coalition and who calls the shots, who's got the money, who's got the pull, you know, who is like has the biggest voice in the media. You know, he's got a voice, but it's just one guy. I question whether they're construct almost structurally where they're able to pivot toward, OK, enough of this bullshit.

We're going to have really effective, efficient government, and we're going to get all the other garbage out of the way. And if you don't like it, screw you. Well, I mean, look, reforms has to start with an idea. And if that idea can spread and find some supporters within the Democratic Party, and even some people are willing to run on it, maybe you can do something. But the big barrier in liberal governments and cities and states is...

the public sector unions. And they have such a dominant position and they seem to be immune to reform because of course their self-interest is tax more to be able to pay more benefits and higher wages. And then they elect the politicians who then give them more wages and more benefits. So it's tough. I mean, a good example is in New York City. The governor and Albany Democrats just sent a letter to Washington Republicans in the Congress and the White House saying, "Please help us bail out the transit system here."

Okay? They got $40 billion in pandemic money. Okay? And you can make an argument you had to do that with a pandemic. Ridership was going to fall. But ridership is 1.6 million people less on average than it was pre-pandemic. And the subways are lousy.

OK, I know people who just will avoid anything getting on the subway. But yet Republicans bail us out. But did they do anything, Democrats in Albany, to say maybe we should fix the way the union contracts are structured to be able to take the money from Democrats?

that part of our budget to fixing the infrastructure, fixing the cars, fixing the station, so that when it rains here, the subways don't go down, right? When you really need them. And they just don't do any of that. Yeah, I mean, there are too many veto points, really. You know, I think it's partly what you're getting at that really prevent what seems like pretty obvious fixes from even being considered, much less done.

Right. I mean, it's sort of asking the public sector unions to be like really responsible about this. It's like asking,

You know, the environmental NGO is to be really responsible about regulation and permitting reform. It's not really in their interest, you know. They're set up to do something different. And you're asking them to, like, basically change the whole way they do things. And, you know, it's fine the way it is. People out there who are sort of consuming our services or, you know, living in the real world, they may not like it. But for us, it's pretty good.

So, why bother changing? And I think that from the Democratic Party's perspective, they really have a lot of difficulty recognizing these inherent contradictions in some of their support groups or parts of their coalition. It's sort of like a game theoretic problem. If you really wanted to maximize your chance of getting stuff done and broadening your coalition,

You'd actually have to take on group X, group Y, and if we did that, there would be blowback, so I'm not going to do it. So there's a first mover problem among democratic politicians who's going to basically have the courage to get out there and say, "Enough of this. We've got to tell the public sector unions or the environmental NGOs or whoever, we're not going to do what you want because what you want us to do is not going to work. So we're going to do something really different."

And you can either like it or you can lump it. It's a little hard to see that approach really catching on in big sectors, and particularly big democratic cities. I mean, Jesus. I mean, look at Brandon Johnson in Chicago. This is like one of the worst mayors you could possibly... If you had to draw up an imaginary amalgam of a terrible democratic mayor, he would be the guy, right? He checks every box.

He checks everybody. But he's still there. He's still there. So we'll see what happens with that. But I think it's really interesting the extent to which the Democratic Party is willing to endure dysfunction and possible pain before it actually changes. I mean, competition is good, Paul. I don't have to tell you this. I mean, you've got a one-party city. It's a lot harder.

to get that party to change than if it was actually, if there was competition. So, you know, I don't have a solution here. It's just like one has to shake one's head more in sorrow than in anger, I suppose. Well, if there's a historical analogy in recent decades, it could be the 1980s where...

Democrats fought the Reagan years and thought none of that was really real or permanent until they had a third drubbing in 1988 in the presidential race. And then, you know, Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council came along. And that might be what has to happen here.

as well. And that might be something that gives us, you know, the party some hope going forward. We're going to take another break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the Democratic revolt against Chuck Schumer with Roy Tashara. AI requires a lot of compute power and the cost for your AI workloads can spiral.

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Welcome back. I'm Paul Ejigo here on Potomac Watch with Roy Teixeira. I want to talk before we go a little bit about how the Democrats have responded to Donald Trump because they've been looking for a way to get at him, right? And when Chuck Schumer decided not to shut down the government and helped the Republicans pass the budget through the end of this fiscal year, the animosity erupting against him has been extraordinary to see. But

In my opinion, Schumer actually did the party a favor. They just would have been blamed for the shutdown, gotten nothing out of it, and might have even given Trump and Elon Musk a chance to say, see, it just goes to show you that we can do even more against this dysfunctional government. So I thought Schumer did the right thing politically. He's paying for it.

And it almost seems like, you know, you mentioned Bernie Sanders and AOC out on the road talking about the oligarchy. That seems to be what they're going to do here going up to the midterms and say Trump is a disaster. Mobilize a Democratic base. Fire him up.

and then figure they can take back at least the House and, you know, maybe make a gain or two in the Senate. Yeah, I mean, I think that is the way it looks right now. I agree with you. Schumer did the right thing in political and practical sense, but obviously he's getting tremendous blowback because of that. And if you're an ambitious Democrat, you know, what is your payoff for saying, I agree with Schumer, he did the right thing? Your payoff is if you're like, I'm outcast.

You know, this is the worst thing imaginable. He blew it. It's awful. We've got to fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. You know, we've got to fight the oligarchy. You know, it's really putting wind in the sails of AOC, Bernie, Warren, you know, and even Chris Murphy, who used to be sort of a more moderate guy, is basically out there saying, you know, we really have to oppose root and branch everything Trump is doing or saying. And that in and of itself is sort of solidifying

the conventional picture in a Democrat's mind of the Trump administration, which is a combination of Snidely Whiplash and Adolf Hitler, right? He just wants to pick on poor people and immigrants. Plus, he's basically planning to take over the government and institute fascism. So if you believe all that, I mean, I don't think that lends itself to rational

calculation about political costs and benefits of doing X. It really does lead into fight, fight, fight. And, you know, Trump is the apotheosis of evil. And it certainly would lead you against compromising

or recognizing some of the things that the Trump administration has done that actually are popular, like the immigration stuff, like the DEI stuff to some extent, like basically cutting government. It's a popular idea. You know, people think there's a lot of waste in government. So obviously, in my opinion, they've overdone it. And it's like kind of using the old, you know, the old chainsaw metaphor. So it's all been chaotic. And I think that really scares people in a lot of ways. And to the extent it results in bad outcomes for people.

people out there in the real world, they don't get their social security checks. So I think that's exaggerated at this point. Basically, it's harder to get someone in the Social Security Administration on the phone, which has been blown up into this idea they're destroying social security, which is kind of ridiculous. Yeah, the checks are still going to come out. The checks are still going to come, and that's what's important. If they stop sending the checks,

You know, it's Katie Barr the door. I mean, they're in real trouble. But that's not what's happening. But to a Democrat who is consuming information about the Trump administration and talking to their friends, I mean, they do almost get themselves into this frenzy.

about how unbelievably historically awful this is. And again, this does not lead you into a smart approach to the Trump administration, its strengths and its weaknesses. How do we really take advantage of the openings we have? How are we going to broaden our coalition into the people who basically blew us off in the 2024 election? It doesn't. And which means, as you're saying, Paul, they're really going to rely more on

mobilizing their base and not worrying about, you know, the people who really don't like them very much. And I think that's where we're going to be. And it might work. It might work at least to take back the House, right? There was a Pennsylvania special that just happened where they, in a Trump plus 15 district, they won a state Senate seat in Pennsylvania. So, I mean, who voted?

in that election, I can guarantee you. They were there. They were there. Peter Robinson: Yeah. Well, at the national level, speaking as a free market conservative, when I look at Donald Trump, I've always thought he's so ideologically flexible. He'll do all sorts of things that I think are bad policy and that many traditional Republicans would think are bad policy. One of the concerns that I had had in this first term and still do to some extent here in the second is

If Democrats were smart, they would take advantage of that ideological flexibility and try to put together some kind of agreement with Trump on some issues where they could actually get some policy victories that they want. Maybe it's on immigration and some kind of compromise that gets the dreamers approved here. Maybe it's some kind of pro-union legislation that I wouldn't like.

But Democrats would. And Trump would probably have no problem with. So why not try to work those kinds of things? And then you get, as the party, you get joint credit. You can say, "See, we helped get this done for you folks." And then you still have ample opportunity to oppose Trump on any number of other things, rather than just the resist, resist, resist. Which if Trump succeeds,

will lead the Democrats in even a bigger mess. Yeah, Paul, that's exactly right. I mean, I've been singing that song for a while. I've written about it.

It doesn't seem to be getting too many takers. But I think that, yeah, I mean, he is intellectually flexible. He's not like a libertarian. He's not a conventional conservative. He's certainly not a liberal. He's like, he's Trump. I mean, all you have to do is observe his political career to see the many different ways in which he's willing to approach policy issues. And if you don't like what he's doing today, why don't you try to change what he does tomorrow by taking advantage of that flexibility? So to me, it seems like a no-brainer, but

I just think it's hard given the frenzy of, you know, the regular two-minute hate against Donald Trump. It's sort of hard to get people to think in that way. All right. Thank you, Roy T. Scherer, for joining us today. We sure appreciate it. Again, and thanks to everybody for listening here on our daily podcast at The Wall Street Journal Opinion Pages, Potomac Watch.

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