What Next for the Democrats?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A year on from their shock defeat in the US presidential elections, David Aaronovitch asks how the US Democratic party is responding to Donald Trump's Presidency and assesses some of the challenges which lie ahead.
What new policies is the party developing? Who are the potential presidential candidates waiting in the wings? And can the college-educated elite which dominate the party win back support from America's white working class who gravitated towards Donald Trump in such significant numbers?
CONTRIBUTORS
Jon Sopel, the BBC's North America Editor
Dr Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia
Joan C Williams, author of the White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:03.4 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Oronovich. You open the auditory door, you come in and find out what's going on in the world. |
| 0:11.3 | Do please let us know what you think by writing a review or rating us on iTunes or your podcast provider. |
| 0:17.2 | And if you'd like, please recommend us to anyone you can think of, really. |
| 0:21.3 | If you enjoy this, you might enjoy other editions of the briefing room, |
| 0:24.8 | particularly Donald Trump's end-of-year report. |
| 0:28.3 | In this edition, I'm getting briefed on the state of the Democratic Party in the United States |
| 0:32.7 | and looking ahead to the challenges which face them in 2018, a year of important elections. |
| 0:49.3 | All through 2017, almost everything we in Britain have heard about the politics of our most |
| 0:54.8 | important ally has concerned the country's oxygen-sucking president, Donald Trump. |
| 1:00.8 | No one else gets a look in. |
| 1:03.2 | Last week, we got briefed on what had changed during Donald Trump's first year in office. |
| 1:08.5 | But in this last program of 2017, we look at the opposition, the Democrats. |
| 1:13.8 | They'll be fighting vital midterm elections for the Senate and House of Representatives in 2018. |
| 1:19.9 | What shape are they in after a year of Trumpery? Step into the briefing room to find out. |
| 1:28.3 | Hillary Clinton, emerging as a leading antagonist to President Donald Trump. |
| 1:33.3 | I'm now back to being an activist citizen and part of the resistance. |
| 1:40.3 | From defeat to resistance, the year for the Democrats ended with a first Senate victory in the southern state of Alabama for 25 years when Doug Jones defeated the controversial Republican candidate Roy Moore. |
| 1:53.7 | But what was that very particular victory worth? |
| 1:57.6 | We invited Dr Larry Sabato into the briefing room. |
| 2:00.7 | He's a professor of politics at the |
| 2:02.2 | University of Virginia, and he also produces Sabato's Crystal Ball, an online site which provides |
... |
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