Shane Goldmacher
Appearances
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Well, I'm just excited to talk about baseball with Reid on the podcast. I mean, I think it breaks down to the question of is less more or is more more? And that is one that is really gripping Democrats, especially having watched Trump flood the zone in 2024. Yeah. in the media, right?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
He was an omnipresence in the campaign trail in a way that a more cautious Kamala Harris picked her spots and often performed in those spots. And it wasn't quite enough. And so there are a lot of Democrats saying, get out there and respond to everything. And that is the Chris Murphy school of thought saying, it's not that all these fights are winners.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
In fact, some of them might not be winners, but the act of opposing is powerful. And Those two sides are just like pulling at each other each day. And because Trump is making so much news every day, the Democrats have a new opportunity to either respond or not.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
I'm not sure if it's going to be effective yet. But the big soul searching that the Democratic Party has been going through since the election is how did they lose ground among working class voters?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And so in Musk, they have a billionaire foil, as you heard Chris Murphy just say, and they can say, nobody voted for this guy, so we might be willing to give Trump some leeway, talking about those voters in the middle, but we're not giving this guy any leeway. And right now, the party is debating not just do you take on Elon Musk, but do you support particular programs that he's targeting?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
USAID is something he said he wants to dismantle, unravel, get rid of, right? This has not been a kind of thing with broad popular support in the United States, but it is part of the kind of agenda the Democrats have. What do you do? Well, you pick the fight with Elon Musk instead of the defense of USAID.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Let's tell you who the person they selected was to tell you why the answer is no. The person they picked is a guy named Ken Martin, who is the chair of the Minnesota State Democratic Party. And he has been in that position for years, and he won the national party chairmanship by coalition building inside the party. The party picked, in a choice of insiders, perhaps the most inside candidate.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Now, he's promising some potential changes, but that is not what he ran on.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
I think the history has told us this. The ideas and people who look like they're popping out of this moment prove to be exactly not who ends up being that person. In 2004, the last time Democrats had really lost at this same level, there was a big discussion of should the party again move to the middle and find a moderate white candidate in the era of George W. Bush.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
But by 2008, it was a totally different candidate. It was Barack Obama who came about. I think it's too early to even have a sense of the kind of Democrat who is going to help them get out of the wilderness. But the person needs to inherit a party brand that isn't so broken that you can't run ahead of it enough to win.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
No, I don't. I think it's not central to the party's conversation. She will be, if she chooses to run again, one of multiple candidates. She might start ahead in the polls, but she is one of multiple at this point.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
The Democratic Party doesn't typically go back to the well again for a person who's lost before. The Republican Party has this long history of picking somebody who was a nominee or almost was the nominee. Democrats have traditionally won, and Joe Biden is the exception by finding a fresh face.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Yeah, I mean, I think the question of how deep in the wilderness is the Democratic Party is one I asked a whole bunch of Democrats in the last couple of weeks.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Yeah, I called basically as many people as I could to say, just how deep is this hole? And actually, the answer was really surprising to me, which is that there is not at all an agreement on the size of the hole that the Democratic Party finds itself in. And the reason is that, yes, they've lost the White House and the House and the Senate, and they're watching.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
All these things erode faster than imaginable. But they also have watched wipeout elections in their lifetime. In the 1980s, when Democratic Party won a single state in a presidential election, that this doesn't look like that. This is not, in fact, a wipeout of the Democratic Party.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And so if you don't think the party is in as deep of a hole, you're not looking to make that kind of big systemic change. And I think that disagreement on just how screwed the party is is central to understand what they're going to do to get out of the hole, right? If you think that they're pretty close, then you're not going to make big changes.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
You're going to wait for Trump to overreach, and you're going to hope to pick up a few seats, and you get a foothold in the House of Representatives in 2026.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
I mean, I think Pat Ryan's putting his finger on this fundamental problem that's facing the party that's beyond Joe Biden. It's a structural problem about the Democratic brand, which is if you look at the House of Representatives, more Democrats need to win Trumpy districts to get a majority. And the same is true for the Senate.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And so you need the brand to be such that you can win the majority by not having to run against the brand. Republicans hold a majority with basically no one. There are arguably two House Republicans who run against the national Republican brand. and they still have a majority, right?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
There are a dozen Democrats who try to distance themselves from the national brand in the way that Pat Ryan is describing. The optimist case for Democrats around, okay, the hole's not that deep. The concern really is that That means the party's missing an opportunity for introspection.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Somebody else said to me, one of the only advantages of losing is getting to think about how you reset and rebuild. And if you're not going to actually do that rethinking about what the party stands for, then you're unlikely to end up succeeding over the long haul.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
I think that's a big part of the conversation inside the party. It's a question of what do you emphasize? What do you put forward? If you are letting the party be defined in the views of an average voter as focused on those issues, it makes it harder to make an economic case. to those same voters, right? So the New York Times and Ipsos just did a poll. How do people view the Democratic Party?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
How do people view the Republican Party? The top two issues that people have associated with the Democratic Party were abortion and LGBT rights. And Those are not in the top issues for what voters cared about overall. And the top issues for Republicans were around the economy and immigration, which were among the top issues for voters.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
So Democrats are going to be supportive of diversity programs in general. The question is how much you emphasize that.