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The Ezra Klein Show

The End of the Obama Coalition

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.611K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging nonwhite and working-class voters. There are a lot of theories about why that has been happening, blaming it on the party’s ideas or messaging or campaign tactics. But I think the problem might be deeper than that — rooted in the structure of the Democratic Party itself. Michael Lind is a columnist at Tablet magazine, a co-founder of New America and the author of “The New Class War: Saving Democracy From the Managerial Elite.” He argues that the Democratic Party in recent years has become more beholden to special-interest nonprofits, which claim to represent large constituencies but actually reflect the interests of the donor class. In this conversation, we discuss why he thinks the nonprofit complex became so powerful, how that might have led to a disconnect between the Democratic Party and its core voter base and what he thinks Democrats could do to course correct. Book Recommendations: Where Have All the Democrats Gone? by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira Tyranny, Inc. by Sohrab Ahmari Mother Jones by Elliot J. Gorn Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our supervising editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Before we begin today, I'm going to be recording an Ask Me Anything episode in a few weeks.

0:06.0

I imagine we're going to have a lot of questions about the election, but anything is fair game.

0:10.6

To submit a question, email us at Ezra Klein Show at NYTimes.com with the subject line AMA by November 17th.

0:23.6

From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. So in my post-election essay, I said that the 2020-4 election

0:50.0

marked the end of the Obama coalition.

0:53.3

But what does that mean? Well, in part, it means that some of the Obama coalition. But what does that mean?

0:55.3

Well, in part, it means that some of the political strategies

0:58.5

that Democrats thought would turn Obama's 2008 and 2012 coalitions

1:03.1

into an enduring generational majority, they've failed.

1:08.0

Democrats worked damn hard over the past few years

1:10.8

to deliver what they thought, what they

1:12.9

were told, black and Hispanic and working class and union voters wanted. And instead of solidifying

1:19.2

support from those voters, they're seeing them flee to Donald Trump. But I'm also saying

1:24.5

something about the structure of the Democratic Party itself.

1:30.4

The Obama era wasn't just built around one person.

1:35.2

It was a collection of institutions and power bases and elite networks.

1:41.2

Michael Lind, a columnist tablet, the author of the book The New Class War, and a co-founder of New America, he's argued that it was kind of a political machine,

1:45.1

one built around urban political support, foundations, nonprofits, mass media. There are parts

1:51.4

of Lin's analysis I don't agree with. In particular, I think the machine has worked very

1:55.1

differently after Obama left the White House than it did before. I think it's been a machine

2:00.1

without a boss in a way that has not

2:02.2

worked out well for the Democratic Party. But I think seeing the Democratic Party through the lens

...

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